of very short Continuance; It holds him but Just one Speech: In
the beginning of the next, he is as very a Rustick, as Colin
Clout, and has forgot all his Breeding.
"No Skill of Musick can I, simple Swain,
No fine Device, thine Ear to entertain;
Albeit some deal I pipe, rude though it be,
Sufficient to divert my, Sheep, and Me."
There is no Transformation In Ovid more sudden, or surprizing; He
has Reason indeed to say, that, when he "pipes some deal," his
'Sheep' are 'diverted' with him. His Readers, I am afraid too,
are as merry as his Sheep; If he was but as skilful in Change of
Time, as he is in Change of Dialect, commend me to him for a
Musician! The pied Piper, who drew all the Rats of a City out,
after his Melody, came not near him for Variety.
If the late excellent Mr. Addison, whose Verses abound in Graces,
which can never be too much admir'd, shall be, often, found
liable to an Overflow of his Meaning, by this Dropsical
Wordiness, which we so generally give into, it will serve at the
same time, as a Comfort, and a Warning; and incline us to a
severe Examination of our Writings, when we venture out upon a
World, that will, one time or other, be sure to censure us
impartially; In That Gentleman's Works, whoever looks close, will
discover Thorns on every Branch of his Roses; For Example, we all
hear, with Delight, in his celebrated Letter from Italy, that,
there,
... The Muse so oft her Harp has strung,
That not a Mountain rears its Head unsung.
But, he adds, in the very next Line, that every shady Thicket
too, grows renown'd in Verse; now one can never help remembering,
that Thickets are Births, as it were of Yesterday; the mere
Infancy of Woods! and that the oldest Woods in Italy may be
growing on Foundations of ruin'd Cities, which flourish'd in the
Times he there speaks of; whence it must naturally be inferr'd,
that to say, the Italian Thickets grow renown'd in Roman Verse,
though the Mountains really do so, is to make Use of Words,
without Regard to their Meaning; A Lapse of dangerous
Consequence, because, when the Understanding is once shock'd,
this most rapturous Elevation of the Mind (as when cold Water is
thrown suddenly upon boiling) sinks at once to chilling Flatness,
and is considered as mere Gingle and childish Amusement.
No Man, I believe, has read without Pleasure, his fine and lively
Descriptions of the Nar, Clitumnus, Mincio, and Albula, but the
worst of it is, he winds us so long, in and out, between these
Rivers, that he loses himself in their Maeanders, and brings us,
at last, to a strange Stream indeed, which is 'immortaliz'd in
Song,' and yet 'lost In Oblivion.'
"I look for Streams, immortaliz'd, in Song,
Which lost, and buried in Oblivion lie."
The Thought, in this Place, is very lively and just, but quite
obscur'd by the Redundancy and Wantonness of the Expression. Had
he only said 'lost,' and 'buried,' It might have been urg'd, that
the Rivers were dry'd up, and no longer to be found, in their old
Channels. But, let them be lost, as to Existence, as certainly as
he will, they can never be lost in 'Oblivion,' if they are
'immortaliz'd' in Poetry. 'Immortal' is a favourite Word in this
Gentleman's Writings, and leads him, as most Favourites are apt
to do, into very frequent Errors.
It is naturally unpleasant, to be detain'd too long in the
Maziness of one tedious Thought, express'd many Ways
successively. When we read that the 'Tiber is destitute of
Strength,' what else can we conclude, but that its Stream is a
weak one? But we are oblig'd to hear, also, that it 'derives its
Source from an unthrifty Urn': Well, now, may we go on? No; its
'Urn' is not only 'unthrifty,' but its 'Source' is unfruitful. By
this time, one can scarce help, enquiring, what new Meaning is
convey'd to the Apprehension, by the Multiplication of the
Phrases? And not finding any, we have no Reflection to satisfy
ourselves with, but, that the strongest Flow of Fancy, is most
subject to Whirlpools.
It is from the same unweigh'd Redundancy, and Misapplication of
Words, that we so often find this excellent Writer falling into
the Anticlimax. As where, for Example, he informs us of Liberty,
that she is a Goddess,
"Profuse of Bliss, and pregnant with Delight,
Eternal Pleasures, in her Presence reign."
After 'Profusion of Bliss,' that is to say, the heap'd Enjoyment
of all Blessings to be wish'd for; how does it cool the
Imagination, to read of being 'pregnant with Delight'? Had she
been brought to Bed of 'Delight,' it had been but a poor
Delivery: For what imports 'Delight,' in Comparison with
'Bliss'? And how much less too is pregnant with Delight,' than
'Delight' in Possession! But then again, after both these, what
cou'd the Author hope to teach us, by adding, that 'Pleasure
reigns in her Presence.' Can there be 'Bliss' without 'Delight'?
Was there ever 'Delight' without 'Pleasure'? It shou'd gradually
have ascended thus, Pleasure, Delight, Bliss; But to turn it the
direct contrary Way, Bliss, Delight, Pleasure, is setting a poor
Meaning upon its Head, and the same thing as to say, Mr. Addison
writ incomparably, finely, nay, and tolerably. A Praise, which, I
dare say, he wou'd have given no Body Thanks for. One wou'd think
there were a kind of Fatality in Liberty, since scarce any Body
can meddle either with the Word or the Thing, but they turn all
topsey turvey.
But I am sliding insensibly into a Theme, that requires rather a
Volume, than a Page or two; I hasten therefore to present you a
Paraphrase on the Six Days Work of the Creator, as described to
us by Moses, in the First Chapter of Genesis, which, you know,
was written, originally, in Verse. It wou'd be difficult, I am
sure, to match the Greatness of that inspired Author's Images,
out of all the noble Writings, which have honour'd Antiquity; and
whose most remarkable Excellencies have been found, in those
Parts of their Works, which they elevated, and made more solemn,
by a Mixture of their Religion. Our Poetry, in so able a Hand as
Yours, might receive heavenly Advantages, from a Practice of like
Nature. But I am of Opinion, that no English Verse, except that,
which we, I think a little improperly, call Pindaric, can allow
the necessary Scope, to so masterless a Subject, as the Creation,
of all others the most copious, and illustrious; and which ought
to be touch'd with most Discretion, and Choice of Circumstances.
Mr. Milton, Mr. Cowley, Sir Richard Blackmore, and now, lately,
a young Gentleman, of a very lively Genius, have severally tried
their Strength in this celestial Bow; Sir Richard may be said
indeed to have shot farthest, but too often beside the Mark; He
will permit me the Liberty of owning my Opinion, that he is too
minute, and particular, and rather labours to oppress us with
every Image he cou'd raise, than to refresh and enliven us, with
the noblest, and most differing. He is also too unmindful of the
Dignity of his Subject, and diminishes it by mean, and
contemptible Metaphors. Speaking of the Skies, he says they were
Spun thin, and wove, on Nature's finest Loom.
Longinus is very angry with Timaeus for saying of Alexander, that
he conquer'd all Asia, in less Time than Isocrates took to write
his Panegyric, "Because, says the Critick, it is a pitiful
Comparison of Alexander the Great with a Schoolmaster." What then
wou'd he have said of Sir Richard's Metaphorical Comparison of
the CREATOR Himself, to a Spinster, and a Weaver? The very Beasts
of Mr. Milton, who kept Moses in his Eye, carry Infinitely more
Majesty, than the Skies of Sir Richard.
The Grassy Clods now calv'd; and half appear'd
The tawny Lyon, pawing to get free
His hinder Parts; then springs, as broke from Bonds,
And, rampant, shakes aloft, his brinded Main!
The heaving Leopard, rising, like the Mole,
In Heaps the crumbling Earth about him threw!
These animated Images, or pictured Meanings of Poetry, are the
forcible Inspirers, which enflame a Reader's Will, and bind down
his Attention. They arise from living Words, as Aristotle calls
them; that is, from Words so finely chosen, and so Justly ranged,
that they call up before a Reader the Spirit of their Sense, in
that very Form, and Action, it impressed upon the Writer. But
when the Idea, which a Poet strives to raise, is in itself
magnificent and striking, the Dawb of Metaphor, or any spumy
Colourings of Rhetoric can but deaden, and efface it.
If Sir Richard had said, concerning the Skies, on any other
Subject but This, of the Creation, that they were 'spun thin, and
wove, on Nature's finest Loom,' the Thought had been so far from
Impropriety, as to have been pleasing, and praise-worthy; But
when the Image he wou'd set before us, is the Maker of Heaven and
Earth, in all the dreadful Majesty of his Omnipotence, producing
at a Word, the noblest Part of the Creation, and 'spreading out
the Heavens as a Curtain'; In this tremendous Exercise of his
Divinity, to compare him to a Weaver, and his Expansion of the
Skies, to the low Mechanism of a 'Loom,' is injudiciously to
diminish an Idea, he pretends to heighten and illustrate.
I will end with a Word or two concerning the different Measure of
the Verse, in which the following Poem is written; and which is
apt to disgust Readers, not well grounded in Poetry, because it
requires a fuller Degree of Attention than the Couplet, and, as
Mr. Cowley has said of it,
... Will no unskilful Touch endure,
But flings Writer and Reader too, that sits not sure.
I have, in another Place, endeavoured by Arguments to demonstrate
the Preference of this Kind of Verse to any other; I will here
observe only, from my Experience of other Writers, that it wins,
insinuates, and grows insensibly upon the Relish of a Reader,
till the little seeming Harshness, which is supposed to be in it,
softens gradually away, and leaves a vigorous Impression behind
it, of mixed Majesty and Sweetness.
A Man, who is just beginning to try his Ear in Pindaric, may be
compared to a new Scater; He totters strangely at first, and
staggers backward and forward; Every Stick, or frozen Stone in
his Way, is a Rub that he falls at. But when many repeated Trials
have embolden'd him to strike out, and taught the true Poize of
Motion, he throws forward his Body with a dextrous Velocity, and
becoming ravish'd with the masterly Sweep of his Windings, knows
no Pleasure greater, than to feel himself fly through that
well-measured Maziness, which he first attempted with Perplexity.
But I will detain you no longer, and hasten now to the Poem,
which has given me this pleasing Opportunity of telling you how
much I am,
Sir,
Your Most Humble
and Obedient Servant,
A. HILL
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