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THE

RAMBLER.

N° 107. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1751.

Alternis igitur contendere versibus ambo
Capere: alternos musa meminisse volebant.

On themes alternate now the swains recite;
The muses in alternate themes delight.

VIRG.

ELPHINSTON,

AMONG the various censures which the unavoidable comparison of my performances, with those of my predecessors, has produced, there is none more general than that of uniformity. Many of my readers remark the want of those changes of colours, which formerly fed the attention with unexhausted novelty, and of that intermixture of subjects, or alternation of manner, by which other writers relieved weariness, and awakened expectation.

I have, indeed, hitherto avoided the practice of uniting gay and solemn subjects in the same paper, because it seems absurd for an author to counteract himself, to press at once with equal force upon both parts of the intellectual balance, or give medicines, which, like the double poison of Dryden, destroy the force of one another. I have endeavoured sometimes to divert, and sometimes to elevate; but have imaVOL. XXI.

B

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