*

which are little more in number than a fingle Iliad, or the longest of the Æneids. For this reafon (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too feverely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with thofe, who rank Lucan, rather among hiftorians in verfe, than Epic poets: in whofe room, if I am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more juftly be admitted. I have chofen to write my poem in quatrains, or ftanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the found and number, than any other verfe in ufe amongst us; in which I am fure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the flavery of any rhyme; and were lefs conftrained in the quantity of every fyllable, which they might vary with fpondees or dactyls, befides fo many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one fyllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the fenfe of all the reft. But in this neceffity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verfe most easy, though not fo proper for this occasion: for there

Dryden certainly foon changed his opinion, fince he never after practifed the manner of verfification he has here praised; but we fhall find it always his way to affure us, that his prefent mode of writing is beft. Confcious of his own importance, he foared above controul; and when he compofed a poem, he fet it up as a standard of imitation, deducing from it rules of criticifm, the practice of which he endeavoured to inforce, till either through intereft or fancy he was induced to change his opinion. DERRICK,

the work is fooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only fo, but to bear along in his head the troublesome fenfe of four lines together. For those who write correctly in this kind, must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is to be confidered in the compofition of the firft. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the fake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practifed: and for the female rhymes, they are still in ufe amongst other nations ; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And befides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verses of fix feet; fuch as amongst us is the old tranflation of Homer by Chapman: all which, by lengthening of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will haften to acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are used at fea; and if there be any fuch, in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharfalia, yet I could not avail myself of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing G

VOL. I.

more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the diforder, and the flaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly, as those who, in a logical difpute, keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy, fo thofe, who do it in any poetical defcription, would veil their ignorance.

Defcriptas fervare vices operumque colores,
Cur ego, fi nequeo ignoroque, Poeta falutor?

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea,
yet I have thought it no fhame to learn; and if I have
made fome few mistakes, 'tis only, as you can bear
me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to
correct them; the whole poem being first written,
and now fent you from a place, where I have not fo
much as the converfe of any feaman. Yet though
the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was
more than recompenfed by the pleasure. I found
myself fo warm in celebrating the praises of military
men, two fuch especially as the Prince and General,
that it is no wonder if they infpired me with thoughts
above my ordinary level. And
And I am well fatisfied,
that, as they are incomparably the best subject I ever
had, excepting only the Royal Family, fo alfo, that
this I have written of them is much better than what
I have performed on any other. I have been forced
to help out other arguments; but this has been boun-
tiful to me: they have been low and barren of praise,
and I have exalted them, and made them fruitful;
but here--Omnia fponte fuá reddit juftiffima tellus.

I have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field; fo fertile, that without my cultivating, it has given me two harvests in a fummer, and in both oppreffed the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counterfeit; it will not endure the teft of danger; the greatness of arms is only real; other greatnefs burdens a nation with its weight, this fupports it with its ftrength. And as it is the happiness of the age, so it is the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise his fubjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a juft confidence of his own virtue, which the luftre of no other can be fo great as to darken in him; for the good or the valiant are never fafely praised under a bad or a degenerate prince. But to return from this digreffion to a farther account of my poem; I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, fo much more to exprefs those thoughts with elocution. The compofition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or wit-writing (if you will give me leave to ufe a school-diftinction) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, 'till it fprings the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which fearches over all the memory for the species or ideas of thofe things which it defigns to reprefent. Wit written is that which is well defined, the happy refult of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an heroic or

historical poem, I judge it chiefly to confift in the delightful imaging of perfons, actions, paffions, or things. "Tis not the jerk or fting of an epigram, nor the feeming contradiction of a poor antithefis, (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme) nor the gingle of a more poor Paranomafia; neither is it fo much the morality of a grave fentence, affected by Lucan, but more fparingly used by Virgil; but it is fome lively and apt description, dreffed in fuch colours of fpeech, that it fets before your eyes the abfent object, as perfectly and more delightfully than nature. So then the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention or finding of the thought; the fecond is fancy, or the variation, deriving or moulding of that thought as the judgment reprefents it proper to the fubject; the third is elocution, or the art of cloathing and adorning that thought, fo found and varied, in apt, fignificant, and founding words: the quickness of the imagination is feen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expreffion. For the two first of thefe, Ovid is famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary paffions, or extremely dif compofed by one. His words therefore are the leaft part of his care; for he pictures nature in diforder, with which the study and choice of words is inconfiftent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or difcourfe, and confequently of the drama, where all that is faid is to be fuppofed the effect of fudden