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MASON.

Quite Grecian.

GRAY

Waller and Denham did not give us better couplets than Cartwright,―rarely so good; their parts were not so striking; their wholes more harmonious. Pope erred in naming Carew the model of Waller, who had wooed the Muse before the appearance of any composition by his supposed original. From Sandys, whose merits were very great, he borrowed something *.

*

And tho' they cannot number many years
In their account, yet with their parents' tears
This comfort mingles: tho' their days were few,
They scarcely sin, but never sorrow knew.
So that they well might boast they carried hence
What riper ages lose, their innocence.

You pretty losses, that revive the fate
Which in your mother Death did antedate,
O let my high-swoll'n grief distil on you
The saddest drops of a parental dew:
You ask no other dower than what my eyes

Lay out on your untimely exequies :

When once I have discharged that mournful score,
Heaven hath decreed you ne'er shall cost me more.
Since you release and quit my borrow'd trust,

By taking this inheritance of dust.

Many poets have acknowledged their obligations to Sandys; none with more generosity than Pope. I began writing verses of my own invention further back than I can

MASON.

I admit that with all my admiration of the heroic measure, its stateliness, its music, and its comprehension, I am not insensible of what Daniel* calls those continual cadences, running on with a sound of one nature, and a kind of certainty that satiates and fatigues the ear. You miss the sweet surprises of the various lyric.

GRAY.

Waller seems to have preserved his courtliness to the end of his days. St. Evremond said, that he experienced none of the infirmities of old age, and retained at fourscore, the gallantry and tenderness of his youth. But I look upon his character with no affection. He resembled Prior somewhat in disposition, though not in genius; they were both poets of society, deriving much of their popularity from the liveliness of their conversation, and the fashion and power of their associates. Of such persons, who bustle their way into notice, Petrarch has left a very caustic account in his

well remember. Ogilby's translation of Homer, was one of the first large poems that I read-and it was that great edition with pictures; I was then about eight years old. This led me to Sandys' Ovid, which I liked extremely."-These fragments of autobiography are very delightful.

*Defence of Rhyme, 1603.

Senilia. But a reputation of this kind is of a perishable character; the flame dies with the fan. There is a story current at Cambridge, illustrative of Prior's extempore talents. On his return from France, whither he had gone upon the Queen's business, he paid a visit to the master of his College St. John's-who retained his seat while the Queen's Envoy was permitted to stand. During his walk to the inn, where he was staying with a friend, he struck off the following epigram:

I stood, Sir, patient at your feet,
Before your elbow chair,

But make a Bishop's throne your seat,

I'll kneel before you there.

One only thing can keep you down,

For your great soul too mean,
You'd not, to mount a Bishop's throne,
Pay homage to the Queen.

The sting, you see, is not very acute. Prior's forte was humour; and his Alma, with all its defects, is the only poem we have to compare with Hudibras, whose author he has praised with great propriety and taste:

He, consummate Master, knew

When to recede, and where pursue;

His noble negligences teach,

What others toils despair to reach.

He, perfect dancer, climbs the rope,
And balances your fear and hope:
If after some distinguished leap,
He drops his pole, and seems to slip,
Straight gathering all his active strength,
He rises higher half his length.

His description of infant instruction is very amusing: it is quite a juvenile reminiscence :

I mentioned different ways of breeding;
Begin we in our children's reading.
To master John, the English maid
A hornbook gives of ginger-bread,
And that the child may learn the better,
As he can name, he eats the letter.
Proceeding thus with vast delight,

He spells and gnaws, from left to right:
But show a Hebrew's hopeful son

Where we suppose the book begun,

The child would thank you for your kindness,
And read quite backward from our finis;
Devour he learning ne'er so fast,

Great A would be reserved the last.

Canto 2.

Pope only returned the compliment offered to him in Alma by plundering it*.

* "Pope," remarks Shenstone, "I think never once mentions Prior; though Prior speaks so handsomely of Pope in his Alma. One might imagine, that the latter, indebted as he was to the former for such numberless beauties, should have

MASON.

Is it superior to the Spleen?

GRAY.

It shows, perhaps, a stronger and richer mind, though neither so playful, nor brightened by so many happy flashes of thought; such as, News "the manna of a day,"-Ambition, "the active lunacy of pride." Critics,—

Those tayl'ring artists for our lays,

Invent cramp'd rules, and with short stays,
Striving fair Nature's shape to hit,
Emaciate sense, before they fit.

These are touches of a very free and vigorous pencil; Greene seems to have learned from Nature, what Prior, with infinite labour, acquired from Art. But some of his smaller poems are perfect; they are written upon a plan, and realize the remark of Dryden, that the sweetest essences should be contained in the smallest glasses. Poems comprising a few stanzas, require peculiar attention.

readily repaid this poetical obligation. This can only be imputed to pride or party cunning. In other words, to some modification of selfishness." But though Pope was silent respecting Prior, in his verses, he freely admitted his merits, declared his willingness to have been the author of Alma, and numbered him with the authorities for poetical language.

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