How thou doft make

Such a mistake;

Such love I mean alone

As by thy cruel predeceffors has been

fhewn;

For, tho' I have too much cause to

doubt it,

I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.

The reader of this will be inclined to

cry out with Prior

-Ye Criticks, fay,

How poor to this was Pindar's ftile!

Even thofe who cannot perhaps find in the Ifthmian or Nemeæan fongs, what Antiquity has difpofed them to expect, will at leaft fee that they are ill reprefented

by

by fuch puny poetry; and all will determine that if this be the old Theban ftrain, it is not worthy of revival. -To the difproportion and incongruity of Cowley's fentiments must be added the uncertainty and loofenefs of his meafures. He takes the liberty of ufing in any place a verfe of any length, from two fyllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he obferves, very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the fyllables we perceive them. to be regular, and have reafon enough for fuppofing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the found. The imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to have preferved a con

ftant return of the fame numbers, and to have fupplied fmoothnefs of tranfition and continuity of thought.

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of poefy fit for all manner of fubjects. But he fhould have remembered, that what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verfe arifes from the known mcafure of the lines, and uniform ftructure of the ftanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved.

If the Pindarick ftile be, what Cowley thinks it, the highest and nobleft kind of writing in verfe, it can be adapted only to high and noble fubjects; and it

will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the critick, or to conceive how that can be the higheft kind of writing in verfe, which, according to Sprat, is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to profe.

This lax and lawlefs verfification fo much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately overfpread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleafing fafhion, and they' that could do nothing elfe could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and diforder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhap

pily inferted in the Mufa Anglicana. Pindarifm prevailed above half a century; but at last died gradually away, and other imitations fupply its place.

The Pindarique Odes have fo long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am not willing to difmifs them with unabated cenfure; and furely though the mode of their compofition be erroneous, yet many parts deferve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehenfion of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is difgraced by the littleness of another, and total negligence of language gives the nobleft conceptions the

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