a fide of words that comes in upon the English Poet, and overflows whatever he builds: but this was lefs His cafe than any man's that ever wrote; and the mifchief of it is, this very complaint will last long enough to confute itself: for, though English be mouldering stone, as he tells us there, yet he has certainly picked the best out of a bad quarry. We are no lefs beholden to Him for the new turn of Verfe, which he brought in, and the improvement he made in our Numbers. Before His time, men rhymed indeed, and that was all: as for the harmony of meafure, and that dance of words, which good ears are fo much pleased with, they knew nothing of it. Their Poetry then was made up almost entirely of monofyllables; which when they come together in any cluster, are certainly the most harsh untuneable things in the world. If any man doubts of this, let him read ten lines in Donne, and he will be quickly convinced. Befides, their verses ran all into one another; and hung toge ther, throughout a whole copy, like the hooked Atoms that compofe a Body in Defcartes. There was no diftinction of parts, no regular ftops, nothing for the ear to rest upon: but, as soon as the copy began, down it went, like a larum, inceffantly; and the reader was fure to be out of breath, before he got to the end of it. So that really Verse in those days was but down-right profe, tagged with rhymes. Mr. Waller removed all these faults; brought in more polysyllables, and smoother measures; bound up his thoughts better; and in a cadence more agreeable to the nature of the Verfe He wrote To my Lady ***. MADAM, OUR commands for the gathering thefe fticks. Yinto a faggot had fooner been obeyed; but, in tending to prefent you with my whole vintage, I stayed till the latest grapes were ripe: for, here your Ladyship has not only all I have done, but all I ever mean to do of this kind. Not but that I may defend the attempt I have made upon Poetry, by the examples (not to trouble you with history) of many wise and worthy persons of our own times; as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, Cardinal Perron (the ableft of his countrymen), and the former Pope; who, they fay, inftead of the triple crown, wore fometimes the Poet's ivy, as an ornament, perhaps, of leffer weight and trouble. But, Madam, thefe Nightingales fung only in the fpring; it was the diverfion of their youth; as Ladies learn to fing, and play, when they are children, what they forget when they are women. The refemblance holds further; for as you quit the lute the fooner, because the pofture is fufpected to draw the body awry; fo this is not always practifed without fome villany to the mind; wrefting it from prefent occafions; and accuftoming us to a style somewhat removed from common ufe. But that you may not think his cafe deplorable who had made verses; we are told, that Tully (the greatest Wit among the Ro'mans) was once fick of this disease; and yet recovered fo well, that of almost as bad a Poet as your fervant, B ས he |