fuch lax performances have been tranfmitted to us, the meaning of that expreffion cannot be fixed; and perhaps the like return might properly be made to a modern Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from Bentley, who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greek Exercife, which Cobb had prefented, refuted one after another by Pindar's authority, cried out at last, Pindar was a bold fellow, but thou art an impudent one.

If Pope's ode be particularly infpected, it will be found that the first stanza confifts of founds well chofen indeed, but only founds.

The second confifts of hyperbolical common-places easily to be found, and perhaps without much difficulty to be as well expreffed.

In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigour, not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this-but every part cannot be the best.

The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and difimal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor forrow, can be found: the poet however faithfully attends us; we have all that can be performed by elegance of diction, or fweetnefs of verfification; but what can form avail without better matter?

The laft ftanza recurs again to common-places. The conclufion is too evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the fame fault, the comparison of each is literal on one fide, and metaphorical on the other.

Poets do not always exprefs their own thoughts; Pope, with all this labour in the praife of Mufick, was ignorant of its principles, and infenfible of its effects.

1

One of his greatest though of his earliest works is the Efay on Criticifm, which, if he had written nothing elfe, would have placed him among the first criticks and the firft poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactick compofition, felection of matter, novelty of arrangement, juftness of precept, fplendour of illuftration, and propriety of digreffion. I know not whether it be pleafing to confider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with obferving that fuch powers may be foon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life was ever after at a stand.

To mention the particular beauties of the Effay would be unprofitably tedious: but I cannot forbear to obferve, that the comparison of a ftudent's progress in the fciences with the journey of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the beft that English poetry can fhew. A fimile, to be perfect, muft both illuftrate and ennoble the fubject; must fhew it to the understanding in a clearer view, and difplay it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of thefe qualities may be fufficient to recommend it. In didactick poetry, of which the great purpofe is inftruction, a fimile may be praised which illuftrates, though it does not ennoble; in heroicks, that may be admitted which ennobles, though it does not illuftrate. That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleating image; for a fimile is faid to be a fhort episode. To this antiquity was fo attentive, that circumstances were fometimes added, which, having no parallels, ferved only to fill the imagination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously called comparisons with a long tail.

In their fimilies the greatest writers have fometimes failed; the fhip-race, compared with the chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandifed; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo, running after Daphne, is likened to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained; the ideas of purfuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer; and a god and the daughter of a god are not reprefented much to their advantage by a hare and dog. The fimile of the Alps has no useless parts, yet affords a ftriking picture by itself; it makes the foregoing pofition better underftood, and enables it to take fafter hold on the at⚫tention; it affifts the apprehenfion, and elevates the fancy.

Let me likewife dwell a little on the celebrated paragraph, in which it is directed that the found fhould feem an echo to the fenfe; a precept which Pope is allowed to have obferved beyond any other English poet.

This notion of reprefentative metre, and the defire of discovering frequent adaptations of the found to the fenfe, have produced, in my opinion, many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All that can furnish this reprefentation are the founds of the words confidered fingly, and the time in which they are pronounced. Every language has fome words framed to exhihit the noifes which they exprefs, as thump, rattle, growl, bifs. These however are but few, and the poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any ufe but when found is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was in the dactylick measures of the learned languages capable of confiderable variety; but that variety could be accommodated only to motion or duration, and different degrees of motion were perhaps expreffed by verfes

rapid or flow, without much attention of the writer, when the image had full poffeffion of his fancy; but our language having little flexibility, our verfes can differ very little in their cadence. The fancied refemblances, I fear, arife fometimes merely from the ambiguity of words; there is fuppofed to be fome relation between a foft line and a foft couch, or between bard fyllables and hard fortune.

Motion, however, may be in fome fort exemplified; and yet it may be fufpected that even in fuch refemblances the mind often governs the ear, and the founds are estimated by their meaning. One of the moft fuccefsful attempts has been to defcribe the labour of Sifyphus:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,

Up a high hill he heaves a huge round ftone;
The huge round ftone, refulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and fmoaks along the ground.

Who does not perceive the ftone to move flowly upward, and roll violently back? But fet the fame numbers to another sense;

While many a merry tale, and many a fong,

Chear'd the rough road, we wifh'd the rough road long.

The rough road then, returning in a round,

Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground.

We have now furely loft much of the delay, and much of the rapidity.

But, to fhew how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the principles of reprefentative harmony, it will be fufficient to remark that the poet, who tells us, that

When

When Ajax ftrives-the words move flow.
Not fo when swift Camilla fcours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and fkims along the main;

when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the praise of Camilla's lightnefs of foot, tried another experiment upon found and time, and produced this memorable triplet;

Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full refounding line, The long majeftick march, and energy divine. Here are the swiftnefs of the rapid race, and the march of flow-paced majesty, exhibited by the fame poet in the fame fequence of fyllables, except that the exact profodist will find the line of Swiftnefs by one time longer than that of tardiness.

Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied; and when real are technical and nugatory, not to be rejected, and not to be folicited.

To the praises which have been accumulated on The Rape of the Lock by readers of every clafs, from the critick to the waiting-maid, it is difficult to make any addition. Of that which is univerfally allowed to be the most attractive of all ludicrous compofitions, let it rather be now enquired from what fources the power of pleasing is derived.

Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical perfpicacity, has remarked that the preternatural agents are very happily adapted to the purposes of the poem. The heathen deities can no longer gain attention; we should have turned away from a contest between Venus and Diana. The employment of allegorical perfons al

ways