ページの画像
PDF
ePub

A PREFATORY ESSAY ON ELEGY. 7

that merum rus, that unpolifhed rufticity, which has given our paftoral writers their highest reputation.

Wealth and fplendor will never want their proper weight: the danger is, left they should too much preponderate. A kind of poetry therefore which throws its chief influence into the other feals, that magnifies the fweets of liberty and independence, that endears the boneft delights of love and friendship, that celebrates the glory of a good name after death, that ridicules the futile arrogance of birth, that recommends the innocent amufement of letters, and infenfibly prepares the mind for that humanity it inculcates, fuch a kind of poetry may chance to please; and if it pleafe, fhould feem to be of fervice.

As to the style of elegy, it may be well enough determined from what has gone before. It should imitate the voice and language of grief; or if a metaphor of dress be more agreeable, it should be fimple and diffufe, and flowing as a mourner's veil. A verfification therefore is defireable, which, by indulging e free and unconstrained expreffion, may admit of that fimplicity which elegy requires.

Heroic metre, with alternate rhime, feems well enough adapted to this fpecies of poetry; and, however exceptionable upon other occafions, its inconveniences appear to lose their weight in fhorter elegies;

[blocks in formation]

and its advantages feem to acquire an additional importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a collection of elegies* not long fince publifhed; the product of a gentleman of the most exact taste, and whofe untimely death merits all the tears that elegy can fhed.

It is not impoffible that fome may think this metre too lax and profaic: others, that even a more diffolute variety of numbers may have fuperior advantages. And, in favour of these last, might be produced the example of MILTON in his LYCIDAS, together with one or two recent and beautiful imitations of his verfification in that monody. But this kind of argument, I am apt to think, must prove too much; fince the writers I have in view feem capable enough of recommending any metre they shall chufe; though it must be owned alfo, that the choice they make of any, is at the fame time the strongest presumption in its favour.

Perhaps it may be no great difficulty to compromise the difpute. There is no one kind of metre that is diftinguished by rhimes, but is liable to fome objection or other. Heroic verfe, where every fecond line is terminated by a rhime, (with which the judgment requires that the fenfe fhould in fome measure also terminate) is apt to render the expreffion either fcanty or

*N. B. This preface was written near twenty years ago,

constrained.

writings of a poet lately deceased; though I believe no one ever threw so much sense together with fo' much ease into a couplet as Mr. POPE. But as an air of constraint too often accompanies this metre, it seems by no means proper for a writer of elegy.

The previous rhime in MILTON'S LYCIDAS is very frequently placed at fuch a distance from the following, that it is often dropt by the memory (much better employed in attending to the fentiment) before it be brought to join its partner: and this feems to be the greatest objection to that kind of verfification. But then the peculiar ease and variety it admits of, are no doubt fufficient to overballance the objection, and to give it the preference to any other, in an elegy of length.

The chief exception to which stanza of all kinds is liable, is, that it breaks the fenfe too regularly, when it is continued through a long poem. And this. may be perhaps the fault of Mr. WALLER's excellent panegyric. But if this fault be lefs difcernible in fmaller compofitions, as I fuppofe it is, I flatter mySelf, that the advantages I have before mentioned refulting from alternate rhime (with which stanza is, I think, connected) may, at least in fhorter elegies, be allowed to out-weigh its imperfections.

I shall

I fhall fay but little of the different kinds of elegy. The melancholy of a lover is different, no doubt, from what we feel on other mixed occafions. The mind in which love and grief at once predominate, is foftened to an excefs. Love-elegy therefore is more negligent of order and defign, and, being addressed chiefly to the ladies, requires little more than tenderness and perfpicuity. Elegies, that are formed upon promiscuous incidents, and addreffed to the world in general, inculcate fome fort of moral, and admit a different degree of reafoning, thought, and order.

The author of the following elegies entered on his fubjects occafionally, as particular incidents in life fuggefted, or difpofitions of mind recommended them to his choice. If he defcribes a rural landfkip, or unfolds the train of sentiments it infpired, be fairly drew his picture from the Spot; and felt very fenfibly the affection be communicates. If he speaks of his humble bed, his flocks and his fleeces, he does not counterfeit the scene; who having (whether through choice or neceffity, is not material) retired betimes to countryfolitudes, and fought his happiness in rural employments, has a right to confider himself as a real shepherd. The flocks, the meadows, and the grottos, are his own, and the embellishment of his farm his fole amusement. As the fentiments therefore were infpired by nature, and that in the earlier part of his life, he hopes they will retain a natural appearance; diffufing at least Some

A PREFATORY ESSAY ON ELEGY.

fome part of that amusement, which be freely acknowledges be received from the composition of them.

There will appear perhaps a real inconfiftency in the moral tenour of the feveral elegies; and the fubJequent ones may fometimes feem a recantation of the preceding. The reader will fcarcely impute this to overfight; but will allow, that men's opinions as well as tempers vary; that neither public nor private, active nor fpeculative life, are unexceptionably happy, and confequently that any change of opinion concerning them may afford an additional beauty to poetry, as it gives us a more ftriking reprefentation of life.

If the author has hazarded, throughout, the use of English or modern allufions, he hopes it will not be imputed to an entire ignorance, or to the leaft difefteem of the ancient learning. He has kept the ancient plan and method in his eye, though he builds his edifice with the materials of his own nation. In other words, through a fondness for his native country, he has made ufe of the flowers it produced, though, in order to exhibit them to the greater advantage, he has endeavoured to weave his garland by the best model he could find: with what fuccefs, beyond his own amusement, must be left to judges lefs partial to him than either his acquaintance or his friends.-If any of thofe fhould be fo candid, as to approve the variety of fubjects he has chofen, and the

[blocks in formation]
« 前へ次へ »