I am sorry to find that an author', who is very justly esteemed among the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem ; I mean The Art of Criticism, which was published some months since, and is a master-piece in its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that wit and fine writing do not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for us, wha live in the latter ages of the world, to make observa→ tions in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or inore uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but very few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing and ap Pope. plying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire. For this reason I think there is nothing in the world so tiresome as the works of those critics who write in a positive dogmatic way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would see how the best of the Latin critics wrote, he may find their manner very beautifully described in the characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the essay of which I am now speaking. Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflections has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them; I cannot but take notice that our English author has after the same manner exemplified several of his precepts in the very precepts themselves. I shall produce two or three instances of this kind. Speaking of the insipid smoothness which some readers are so much in love with, he has the following verses: These equal syllables alone require, The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive do' in the third, and the ten monosyllables in the fourth, give such a beauty to this passage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet. The reader may observe the following lines in the view: 'A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.' ''Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main." The beautiful distich upon Ajax in the foregoing lines puts me in mind of a description in Homer's Odyssey, which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sisyphus is represented lifting his stone up the hill, which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at last trundles down in a continual line of dactyls : Και μην Σίσυφον εισείδον, κρατες αλγε' έχονία, * ODYSS. 11. I turi'd my eye, and as I turn'd survey'd A mournful vision! the Sisyphian shade : With many a weary step, and many a groan, Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone: The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.' · POPE. It would be endless to quote verses out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occasion in a future paper to shew several of them which have escaped the observation of others. I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the same nature, and each of them a masterpiece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse 2, the Essay on the Art of Poetry 3, and the Essay upon Criticism 4. ADDISON. C. No 254. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1711. Σεμνος έρως αρετης, ὁ δε κυπριδος ασχος οφελλει. On love of virtue reverence attends, WHEN I consider the false impressions which are received by the generality of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. The first of the following letters may best represent the faults I would now point at; and the answer to it, the temper of mind in a contrary character. By the earl of Roscommon. 3 By the duke of Normanby.!! 4 By Pope.' 'MY DEAR HARRIOT, If thou art she, but oh how fallen, how changed, what an apostate! how lost to all that is gay and agreeable! To be married I find is to be buried alive; I cannot conceive it more dismal to be shut up in a vault to converse with the shades of my ancestors, than to be carried down to an old manor-house in the country, and confined to the conversation of a sober husband, and an aukward chambermaid. For variety I suppose you may entertain yourself with madam in her grogram gown, the spouse of your parish vicar, who has by this time, I am sure, well furnished you with receipts for making salves and possets, distilling cordial waters, making syrups, and applying poultices. Blest solitude! I wish thee joy, my dear, of thy loved retirement, which indeed you would persuade me is very agreeable, and different enough from what I have here described: but, child, I am afraid thy brains are a little disordered with romances and novels. After six months marriage to hear thee talk of love, and paint the country scenes so softly, is a little extravagant; one would think you lived the lives of sylvan deities, or roved among the walks of Paradise, like the first happy pair. But pr'ythee leave these whimsies, and come to town in order to live, and talk like other mortals. However, as I am extremely in→ terested in your reputation, I would willingly give you a little good advice at your first appearance under the character of a married woman. It is a little insolent in me, perhaps, to advise a matron; but I am so afraid you will make so silly a figure as a fond wife, that I cannot help warning you not to appear in any public places with your husband, and never |