are that may properly be exposed by Name for publick Examples of Vices and Follies: and therefore I will trouble your Lordship no farther with them. Of the best and finest manner of Satyr, I have faid enough in the Comparison betwixt Juvenal and Horace: 'Tis that fharp, well-manner'd way, of laughing a Folly out of Countenance, of which your Lordship is the best Mafter in this Age I will proceed to the Verfification, which is moft proper for it, and add fomewhat to what I have faid already on that Subject. The Sort of Verfe which is call'd Burlesque, confifting of Eight Syllables, or Four Feet, is that which our excellent Hudibras has chosen. I ought to have mention'd him before, when I fpake of Donn; but by a flip of an Old Man's Memory he was forgotten. The Worth of his Poem is too well known to need any Commendation, and he is above my Cenfure: His Satyr is of the Varronian kind, tho' unmix'd with Profe. The Choice of his Numbers is fuitable enough to his Defign, as he has manag'd it: But in any other Hand, the Shortnefs of his Verfe, and the quick Returns of Rhyme, had debafed the Dignity of Style. And befides, the double Rhyme, (a neceffary Companion of Burlesque Writing) is not fo proper for Manly Satyr, for it turns Earneft too much to Jeft, and gives us a Boyith kind of Pleasure. It tickles aukwardly with a kind of Pain, to the best fort of Readers; we are pleased ungratefully, and if I may say so, against our liking. We thank him not for giving us that unfeasonable Delight, when we know he could have given us a better, and more folid. He might have left that Task to others, who not being able to put in Thought, can only make us grin with the Excrefcence of a Word of two or three Syllables in the Clofe. 'Tis, indeed, below fo great a Mafter to make use of fuch a little Inftrument. But his good Senfe is perpetually fhining through all he writes; it affords us not the time of finding Faults. We pafs through through the Levity of his Rhyme, and are immediately carry'd into fome admirable useful Thought. After all, he has chofen this kind of Verfe; and has written the beft in it: And had he taken another, he would always have excelled. As we fay of a Court-Favourite, that whatsoever his Office be, he fill makes it uppermoft, and most beneficial to himself. The Quickness of your Imagination, my Lord, has already prevented me; and you know before hand, that I wou'd prefer the Verfe of Ten Syllables, which we call the English Heroique, to that of Eight. This is truly my Opinion: For this fort of Number is more roomy: The Thought can turn it felf with greater ease in a larger compass. When the Rhyme comes too thick upon us, it ftraitens the Expreffion; we are thinking of the Clofe, when we fhou'd be employ'd in adorning the Thought. It makes a Poet giddy with turning in a Space too narrow for his Imagination; he lofes many Beauties, without gaining one Advantage. For a Burlefque Rhyme, I have already concluded to be none; or if it were, 'tis more eafily purchas'd in Ten Syllables than in Eight: in both occafions 'tis as in a TennisCourt, when the Stroaks of greater force are given, when we ftrike out and play at length. Taffone and Boileau have left us the best Examples of this way, in the Secchia Rapita, and the Lutrin. And next them Merlin Coccajus in his Baldus. I will speak only of the two former, because the laft is written in Latin Verfe. Secchia Rapita is an Italian Poem, a Satyr of the Varronian kind. 'Tis written in the Stanza of Eight, which is their Measure for Heroique Verfe. The Words are ftately, the Numbers smooth, the Turn both of Thoughts and Words is happy. The firft fix Lines of the Stanza feem Majestical and Severe; but the two last turn them all into a pleasant Ridicule. Boileau, if I am not much deceiv'd, has model'd from hence his famous Lutrin. He The had had read the Burlefque Poetry of Scarron, with fome kind of Indignation, as witty as it was, and found nothing in France that was worthy of his Imitation. But he copy'd the Italian so well, that his own may pass for an Original. He writes it in the French Heroique Verse, and calls it an Heroique Poem: His Subject is Trivial, but his Verfe is Noble. I doubt not but he had Virgil in his Eye, for we find many admirable Imitations of him, and fome Parodies; as particularly this Paffage in the Fourth of the Æneids. Nec tibi Diva parens; generis nec Dardanus auctor, Which he thus Tranflates, keeping to the Words, but altering the Senfe : Non, ton Pere a Paris, ne fut point Boulanger: And, as Virgil in his Fourth Georgique of the Bees, perpetually raises the Lowness of his Subject, by the Loftinefs of his Words; and enobles it by Comparifons drawn from Empires, and from Monarchs. Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum, And again: Sic Genuus immortale manet; multofque per annos We fee Boileau purfuing him in the fame flights; and fcarcely yielding to his Mafter. This, I think, my Lord, to be the most Beautiful, and most Noble kind of Satyr. Here is the Majefty of the Heroique, finely mix'd with the Venom of the other; and raifing the Delight which otherwise wou'd be flat and vulgar, by the Sublimity of the Expreffion. I cou'd say somewhat more of the Delicacy of this and fome other of his Satyrs; but it might turn to his Prejudice, if 'twere carry'd back to France. I have given your Lordship but this bare Hint, in what manner this fort of Satyr may best be manag'd. Had I time, I cou'd enlarge on the beautiful Turns of Words and Thoughts; which are as requifite in this, as in Heroique Poetry it felf; of which the Satyr is undoubtedly a Species. With thefe Beautiful Turns I confess my felf to have been unacquainted, till about twenty Years ago, in a Conversation which I had with that Noble Wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzy: He ask'd me why I did not imitate in my Verses the Turns of Mr. Waller and Sir John Denham ; of which, he repeated many to me. I had often read with pleasure, and with fome profit, those two Fathers of our English Poetry; but had not seriously enough confider'd thofe Beauties which give the laft Perfection to their Works. Some fprinklings of this kind I had also formerly in my Plays; but they were cafual, and not defign'd. But this Hint, thus feasonably given me, first made me fenfible of my own Wants, and brought me afterwards to feek for the Supply of them in other English Authors. I look'd over the Darling of my Youth, the famous Cowley; there I found, instead of them, the Points of Wit, and Quirks of Epigram, even in the Davideis, an Heroick Poem, which is of an oppofite nature to those Puerilities; but no elegant Turns either on the Word or on the Thought. Then I confulted a greater Genius (without offence to the Manes of that Noble Author) I mean Milton; but as he endeavours every where to exprefs Homer, whofe Age had not arriv'd to that Fineness, I found in him a true Sublimity, lofty Thoughts, which were cloathed with admirable Grecifms, and ancient Words, which he had been digging from the Mines of Chaucer and Spencer, and which, with all their Rufticity, had fomewhat of Venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I look'd. At laft I had recourfe to his Mafter, Spencer, the Author of that immortal Poem call'd the Fairy Queen; and there I met with that which I had been looking for fo long in vain. Spencer had study'd Virgil to as much advantage as Milton had done Homer; and amongst the reft of his Excellencies had Copy'd that. Looking farther into the Italian, I found Tasso had done the fame ; nay more, that all the Sonnets in that Language, are on the Turn of the first Thought; which Mr. Walsh, in his late ingenious Preface to his Poems, has obferv'd. In fhort, Virgil and Ovid are the two Principal Fountains of them in Latin Poem. And the French at this day are fo fond of them, that they judge them to be the first Beauties. Delicate & bien tourné, are the higheft Commendations, which they beftow, on fomewhat which they think a Mafter- Piece. An Example of the Turn on Words, amongst a thoufand others, is that in the last Book of Ovid's Metamorphofes : Heu quantum fcelus eft, in vifcera, vifcera condi! |