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Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How finks his foul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky fpot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rifing thro' the fnow,

He meets the roughness of the middle wafte,
Far from the track, and bleft abode of man ;
While round him night refiftless closes fast,
And every tempeft, howling o'er his head,
Renders the favage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire defcent! beyond the power of froft,
Of faithlefs bogs; of precipices huge,

Smooth'd up with fnow; and, what is land, unknown,
What water, of the ftill unfrozen fpring,

In the loose marsh or folitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he finks
Beneath the shelter of the fhapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bofom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unfeen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling ftorm, demand their fire,
With tears of artlefs innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more fhall he behold,
Nor friends, nor facred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter feizes; fhuts up fenfe;
And, o'er his inmoft vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffned corfe,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.

AH little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence furround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment death
And all the fad variety of pain.

His conclufion glows with a ftrain of piety worthy of a chriftian poet and philofopher, and is too perfpicuous and forcible to require or admit of any remark.

'Tis done! dread WINTER fpreads his lateft gloom, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends

His defolate domain. Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictur'd life; pass fome few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy fummer's ardent strength,
Thy fober autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding winter comes at laft,

And fhuts the fcene. Ah! whither now are fled,
Thofe dreams of greatness? Those unfolid hopes
Of happiness? Thofe longings after fame?
Those reftless cares? Thofe bufy bustling days?
Thofe gay-fpent, feftive nights? Thofe veering thoughts
Loft between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! VIRTUE fole-furvives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high. And fee!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven, and earth! awakening nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great sternal scheme.
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the profpect wider fpreads,
To reafon's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wife! ye blind prefumptuous! now,
Confounded in the duft, adore that POWER,
And WISDOM oft arraign'd: fee now the cause,
Why unaffuming worth in fecret liv'd.

And dy'd, neglected: why the good man's fhare
In life was gall and bitterness of foul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In ftarving folitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay ftraining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of fuperftition's fcourge: why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embofom'd foe,

Imbitter'd all our blifs. Ye good distrest!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's preffure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only faw
A little part, deem'd evil is no more:

The ftorms of WINTRY TIME will quickly pals,
And one unbounded SPRING encircle all.

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THE

CHA P. XIV.

Of Didactic or Preceptive POETRY.

HE method of writing Precepts in verfe, and embellishing them with the graces of poetry, had its rife, we may suppose, from a due confideration of the frailties and perverfeness of human nature; and was intended to engage the affections, in order to improve the mind and amend the heart.

Were it poffible to infpect into the minds of men, and fee their inmoft thoughts, we fhould find, I am afraid, that most of the human race are fond of appearing wifer than they are, and though they wish for knowledge are unwilling to confefs the want of it, or to feek after science for fear of being thought ignorant. Yet there are others, efpecially amongst our youth, who are under no apprehenfion of this kind, but fly from knowledge only because the roads to it are rugged, and the approaches difficult of accefs. To footh therefore the vanity of the one, and to remove the indolence of the other, poetry was called in to the aid of science, which by its peculiar gracefulness and addrefs could foften the appearance of inftruction, and render rules that were dull and difagreeable, fprightly and entertaining. The inventor of didactic poetry knew not only the defects of mankind, but likewife the force and power of a genteel and winning addrefs: He confider'd that ignorance and inattention were not the only enemies to fcience; but that pride, impatience, and affectation, were likewise to be vanquished; and therefore adorned and enriched his precepts, that pleasure might allure the one, and keep the other in countenance.

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.

POPE.

Knowledge that is conveyed thus indirectly, and with. out the appearance of a dictator, will be learned with more cafe, fink deeper into the understanding, and fo fix itself in the mind as not to be easily obliterated. And thefe confiderations, we may fuppofe, induced the priests and bards of old to deliver their laws and religious maxims in verse.

Didactic or Preceptive Poetry, has been usually employed either to illuftrate and explain our moral duties; our philofophical enquiries; our business and pleasures; or in teaching the art of criticism or poetry itself. It may be adapted, however, to any other fubject, and may, in all cafes, where inftruction is defigned, be employed to good purpose. Some subjects, indeed, are more proper than others, as they admit of more poetical ornaments, and give a greater latitude to genius; but what ever the subject is, thofe precepts are to be laid down that are the most useful, and they should follow each other in a natural eafy method, and be delivered in the most agreeable engaging manner. What the profe writer tells you ought to be done, the poet often conveys under the form of a narration, or fhews the neceffity of in a description; and by representing the action as done, or doing, conceals the precept that should enforce it. The poet, likewife, inftead of telling the whole truth, or laying down all the rules that are requifite, felects fuch parts only as are the most pleasing, and communicates the reft indirectly, without giving us an open view of them; yet takes care that nothing fhall escape the reader's notice with which he ought to be acquainted. He difclofes juft enough to lead the imagination into the parts that are concealed, and the mind, ever gratified with its own discoveries, is complimented with exploring and finding them out; which, tho' done with ease, feems fo confiderable as not to be obtained but in confequence of its own adroitness and fagacity.

But this is not fufficient to render didactic poetry always pleafing; for where precepts are laid down one after an

other, and the poem is of confiderable length, the mind will require fome recreation and refreshment by the way; which is to be procured by feasonable moral reflections, pertinent remarks, familiar fimiles and defcriptions naturally introduced, by allufions to ancient hiftories or fables, and by fhort and pleasant digreffions and excurfions into more noble fubjects, fo aptly brought in that they may seem to have a remote relation, and be of a piece with the poem. By thus varying the form of inftruction the poet gives life to his precepts, and awakens and fecures our attention, without permitting us to fee by what means we are thus captivated and his art is the more to be admired, because it is fo concealed as to escape the reader's obfervation.

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The style too must maintain a dignity fuitable to the subject, and every part be drawn in fuch lively colours that the things defcribed may feem as if prefented to the reader's view.

But all this will appear more evident from example; and tho' entire poems of this kind are not within the compafs of our defign, we fhall endeavour to select such paffages as will be fufficient to illuftrate the rules we have here laid down.

We have already obferved, that according to the usual divifions there are four kinds of didactic poems, viz. those that refpect our moral duties; our philofophical speculations; our bufinefs and pleasures; or that give precepts poetry and criticism.

for

On the firft fubject, indeed, we have fcarce any thing that deferves the name of poetry, except Mr. Pope's Ejay on Man, and his Ethic Epiftles; from these therefore we shall extract fome paffages to fhew the method he has taken to render these dry fubjects entertaining.

The first treats of the nature and state of man with respect to the universe; confiders him in the abstract, and obferves, that we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, fince we are ignorant of the relations of other systems and things; that man is not to be deem'd imperfect; but -a being perfectly fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown; that it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in

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