The following essay consists of prose and verse intermixed, a practice not very common at present, which may therefore require some explanation. Among the French writers, this mode has been much used in many celebrated productions; in this country, the excellence of Cowley's mixed pieces has served rather to deter, than to invite imitation. I recollect only two essays written on this plan, the Polite Philosopher, and the Essay on Delicacy, the first by Mr. Forrest, and the latter by Dr. Lancaster; but the poetry of those gentlemen differed so little from their prose, that the transition produced no remarkable effect. It seems favourable to an author's exertions, that he should be obliged to proceed no farther in verse, than his poetical impulse determines him; and that upon a change of subject, or a total deficiency of poetical ideas, he should be permitted to betake himself to prose. The best poets are unequal, and are obliged to admit occasionally weak or insipid verses, for the purpose of connecting the better parts of their work. But it must be allowed, that many laborious productions would have been much improved, if only the happier passages had appeared in the poetical form, and the remainder had been printed as plain prose. Much fatigue would thus have been spared to the author, and much disgust to the reader. It must be owned that there is something imposing in the appearance of verse; as a noted critic lately mistook the nonsense-verses in Pope's Miscellanies for a serious love poem; but my proposal is intended for the relief of a class of writers very different from Pope. MENIPPEAN ESSAY ON ENGLISH HISTORIANS. SINCE English writers have discovered the secret of uniting elegance and interest with the narration of facts, historical compositions have multiplied greatly in the language. The avidity with which they are perused was indeed to be expected, at a time when the love of reading proceeds to a degree of dissipation. In these productions, the reader feels his understanding improved, and his taste gratified at the same time; and for the sake of those who can only be allured by the dainties of knowledge, some historians have condescended to adopt the style of novellists, and to relieve the asperities of negociation and war, by tender dialogue and luscious description. If some writers, envious of the treasures they mean to impart, have sullenly involved themselves in Latin, they are however not more difficult than those who present us with ænigmatical English. It was very late, before the class of historians became a respectable department of our literature. The natural reserve and coldness of our countrymen seems even to have influenced their publications, and to have made them sensible of the difficulty of telling the gravest story to the world. Meanwhile, tradition, corrupted by poetry, and other seductive causes, offered our own history to the reader, in a state more proper to exercise his critical powers, than to furnish him with either agreeable or useful information. From bards, inspir'd by mead, or Celtic beer, * At thy well-sharpen'd thumb, from shore to shore The trebles squeak for fear, the bases roar. Mac Fleckno. They sung how Fin Mac Coul* controll❜d the fight, Next doleful ballads troll'd th' immortal theme, Thyme's tarnish'd flowers, blunt points, and rusty saws, Till our bright shelves, in gilded pride, display Our early hist❜ry shuns the judging eye. * Fingal. + Glass-castle.] Vitrified forts in Scotland; and the celebrated ship-temples in Ireland. Sung to the wheel, and sung unto the paile. -rapidis ludibria ventis. Hall's Virgidem. VIRG. |