exact, is somewhat more sparing; but he frequently indulges himself in this practice, and always, if I am not mistaken, with evident satisfaction. It recurs perhaps too often in the elder poet, and more judiciously in his admirer; for a mode of versifying adopted for variety loses its effect by too much repetition. Rhymes strictly correct are perhaps indispensable in very short compositions, or in such as Mr. Addison in his preface to the Georgicks calls, with simplicity enough, "a copy of verses;" but not even in these should I wish to see a vigorous expression weakened, or a thought maimed, for any compensation the ear could receive from the most exact consonance. Licentia sumpta pudenter can never appear objectionable; and this a good taste only can regulate. Rhymes, which almost constitute the essence of French poetry, in ours are but an adjunct; and yet to what shifts, what poor expedients, to what identity of sounds and terminations, are not the best versifiers of France often reduced? Take the piece in disorder from

the frame, and the poetical texture will be no more discernible: we shall not find, as in Ennius, disjecti membra poetæ.

One short argument upon this point appears to me to be irrefragable. He is always considered as a good reciter of rhymes, who in his recitation hardly suffers the hearer to perceive them. Why it should be requisite for the poet to produce what it is a merit in the reader to conceal, I know not. It is something almost superfluous; like the present fashion in dress, of wearing fine laceruffles under the sleeve of a coat which very nearly covers them. The late Mr. Quin, whom I have heard recite, though not upon the stage, and Garrick, who was consummate in the science of enunciation, would have turned away with disgust or pity from the repeater of verses who let them know that they were such, by the mere rattling of the metrical faggot.*

*He faggotted his notions, as they fell,

And if they rhym'd and rattled, all was well. DRYDEN.

If this licence be not in a certain degree allowable, I may at least observe that it is mostly reprehended by the fastidious, and best admitted by more liberal scholars. Swift, who was a poet as he was a parson, rather from resolution than choice, is particularly rigid about rhymes, and sometimes remonstrates with Pope upon his negligence; but much as the latter feared or respected him, I do not recollect that the nightingale paid much attention to the admonitions of the raven. A great wit sometimes makes but a subordinate poet. Swift, I think, was both.

This mode of arguing, I am sensible, might be pushed much beyond my meaning, to the entire suppression of rhymes, and to the preference of the blank song upon every occasion. But not so; I acknowledge that they give a great grace to every species of poetical composition, except the Dramatick, Epick, and mock Heroick, in which last the effect is much heightened by misplaced pomp, and ludicrous

ludicrous dignity. All I mean to contend for is this; that very precise rhyme being not always easily found, the judicious critick will not endeavour to make that more hard which is in itself sufficiently difficult, and will suffer any other beauty in a couplet to atone for some deficiency in the exactness of consonance. Let it be a pilaster, but not the prop of the building.

What may be the reception of this poem, however anxious I may be concerning it, I cannot foresee. Every purchaser of a book buys at the same time his right to judge of and to censure it ; praise too in general comes but unwillingly, and not to be pleased is considered by many as a mark of superior discernment. If however it meets with half the approbation from the publick, which it received in the manuscript, I shall have reason to be contented. It would still be a higher gratification to me, if I could flatter myself that the form of the present work might suggest an idea to some author of

better

better endowments than I possess, and with more inclination, to produce to the world the prominent events and distinguished characters of England, with superior splendour. How abundant are the materials! How important the revolutions! How diversified the characters! How many sovereigns eminent for great virtues, vices, and achievements! What changes in religion and government! What wars and factions! Many of her statesmen and poets may vie with the outspread names which adorn the annals, and consecrate the muses, of Greece and Italy. I should not wish to see such a work brought lower than the accession of the House of Hanover; because, though I think that auspicious event established the felicity and freedom of Great Britain, and that her ascendency never appeared more conspicuously than at the present period, I apprehend it to be very difficult, if not almost impossible, in the display of transactions and characters so recent, to preserve candour and total exemption from party prejudice.

We have seen

controversy