tendency, país more and more flowly through every fucceffive interval of space.

Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is leaft able to discover. We are feldom tirefome to ourselves; and the act of compofition fills and delights the mind with change of language and fucceffion of images; every couplet when produced is new, and novelty is the great fource of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line fuperfluous when he firft wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had subsided. And even if he should controul his defire of immediate renown, and keep his work nine years unpublished, he will be ftill the author, and ftill in danger of deceiving himself; and if he confults his friends, he will probably find men who have more kindness than judgement, or more fear to offend than defire to inftruct.

The tedioufnels of this poem proceeds not from the uniformity of the fubject, for it is fufficiently diverfified, but from the continued tenour of the narration; in which Solomon relates the fucceffive viciffitudes of his own mind, without the intervention of any other fpeaker, or the mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra; the reader is only to learn what he thought, and to be told that he thought wrong. The event of every experiment is foreseen, and therefore the process is not much regarded."

Yet the work is far from deferving to be neglected. He that shall perufe it will be able to mark many paffages, to which he may recur for inftruction or delight; many from which the poet may learn to write, and the philofopher to reafon.

If Prior's poetry be generally confidered, his praise will be that of correctness and industry, rather than of compass of comprehenfion, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his greater pieces are only tiffues of common thoughts; and his fmaller, which confift of light images or fingle conceits, are not always his own. I have traced him among the French Epigrammatifts, and have been informed that he poached for prey among obfcure authors.. The Thief and the Cordelier is, I fuppofe, generally confidered as an original production; with how much juftice this Epigram may tell, which was written by Georgius Sabinus, a poet now little known or read, though once the friend of Luther and Melancthon:

De Sacerdote Furem confolante.

Quidam facrificus furem comitatus euntem
Huc ubi dat fontes carnificina neci,
Ne fis mæftus, ait; fummi conviva Tonantis
Jam cum cœlitibus (fi modo credis) eris.
Ille gemens, fi vera mihi folatia præbes,
Hofpes apud fuperos fis meus oro, refert.
Sacrificus contra; mihi non convivia fas eft
Ducere, jejunans hac edo luce nihil*.

What he has valuable he owes to his diligence and his judgement. His diligence has justly placed him

* The epigram in the text is not the only one to which Prior appears to have been indebted on this occafion, for in Owen's collection of Epigrams I meet with the following, which evidently fupplied Prior with a hint, of which he has not failed to avail himself. De Bardella, latrone Mantuano.

Bardellam monachus folans in morte latronem,
Euge, tibi in Coelo cœna paratur, ait.
Refpondit Bardella; Hodie jejunia fervo;
Canabis noftro, fi lubet, ipfe loco.

amongst the most correct of the English poets; and he was one of the first that refolutely endeavoured at correctnefs. He never facrifices accuracy to hafte, nor indulges himself in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idleness; he has no careless lines, or entangled fentiments; his words are nicely felected, and his thoughts fully expanded. If this part of his character. fuffers any abatement, it must be from the difproportion of his rhymes, which have not always fufficient confonance, and from the admiffion of broken lines into his Solomon; but perhaps he thought, like Cowley, that hemiftichs ought to be admitted into heroic poetry.

He had apparently fuch rectitude of judgement aš fecured him from every thing that approached to the ridiculous or abfurd; but as laws operate in civil agency not to the excitement of virtue, but the repreffion of wickednefs, fo judgement in the operations of intellect can hinder faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is never low, nor very often fublime. It is faid by Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himfelf fometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lafhes of his own tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity feems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has many vigorous but few happy lines; he has every thing by purchase, and nothing by gift; he had no nightly vifitations of the Mufe, no infutions of fentiment or felicities of fancy.

His diction, however, is more his own than that of any among the fucceffors of Dryden; he borrows no lucky turns, or commodious modes of language, from his predeceffors. His phrafes are original, but

they are fometimes harth; as he inherited no elegances, none has he bequeathed. His expreffion has every mark of laborious ftudy; the line feldom feems to have been formed at once; the words did not come till they were called, and were then put by constraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it fullenly. In his greater compofitions there may be found more rigid stateliness than graceful dignity."

Of verfification he was not negligent: what he received from Dryden he did not lofe; neither did he increase the difficulty of writing by unneceffary severity, but ufes Triplets and Alexandrines without fcruple. In his preface to Solomon he propofes fome improvements, by extending the fenfe from one couplet to another, with variety of paufes. This he has attempted, but without fuccefs; his interrupted lines are unpleafing, and his fenfe as lefs diftinct is lefs ftriking.

He has altered the Stanza of Spenfer, as a house is altered by building another in its place of a different form. With how little refemblance he has formed his new Stanza to that of his master, thefe fpecimens will fhew.

SPENSER,

She flying faft from heaven's hated face,
And from the world that her difcover'd wide,
Fled to the wafteful wilderness apace,

From living eyes her open fhame to hide,
And lurk'd in rocks and caves long unefpy'd,
But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair,
Did in that caftle afterwards abide,

To reft themfelves, and weary powers repair,

Where ftore they found of all, that dainty was and rare.

PRIOR.

PRIOR.

To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rifing eagle cuts the air :
The fhaggy wolf unfeen and trembling lies,
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near.
Ill-ftarr'd did we our forts and lines forfake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conqueft we by ftratagem should make:
Our triumph had been founded in our flight.
'Tis ours, by craft and by surprise to gain:
'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

By this new ftructure of his lines he has avoided difficulties; nor am I fure that he has loft any of the power of pleasing; but he no longer imitates Spenfer.

Some of his poems are written without regularity of measures; for when he commenced poet, he had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation; but he probably lived to be convinced, that the effence of verfe is order and confonance.

His numbers are fuch as mere diligence may attain; they feldom offend the ear, and feldom footh it; they commonly want airiness, lightnefs, and facility; what is smooth, is not foft. His verfes always roll, but they feldom flow.

A furvey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify a fentence which he doubtlefs understood well, when he read Horace at his uncle's; the vessel long retains the fcent which it firft receives. In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occafions and nobler fubjects, when habit was overpowered by the neceffity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, nor elegance as a poet.