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is to be observed in the use of them: for unnecessary coinage, as well as unnecessary revival, runs into affectation; a fault to be avoided on either

light on the subject of poetical diction. See his notes on the ARS POETICA.

"I should ill consult my own credit, if I were to oppose my judgment to that of this able critick and excellent author. Yet I would beg leave to say, that to me the poet seems, through the whole passage, from verse 46 to verse 72, to be speaking of the formation of new words; a practice whereof he allows the danger, but proves the necessity. And I find I cannot divest myself of an old prejudice in favour of another interpretation, which is more obvious and fimple, and which I considered as the best, long before I knew it was authorized by that judicious annotator, Joannes Bond, and by Dryden in his Notes upon the Æneid, as well as by the Abbe Batteux, in his Commentary on Horace's ART OF POETRY. • New ⚫ words (says the poet) are to be cautiously and sparingly ' introduced; but when necessary, an author will do well ' to give them such a position in the sentence, as that the 'reader shall be at no loss to discover their meaning.' For I would construe the passage thus: Dixeris egregiè, si callida junctura reddiderit novum verbum notum.-But why, it may be said, did not Horace, if this was really his meaning, put novum in the first line, and notum in the second? The answer is easy. His verse would not admit that order; for the first syllable of novum is short, and the first syllable of notum long." ESSAYS ON POETRY AND MUSICK, p. 242.

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Jason de Nores, who published an edition of Horace's Art of Poetry, separately at Venice, in 1553, and again at Paris, in 1554, with very valuable notes, construes the passage in the same manner as Dr. Hurd has done.

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hand. Neither will I justify Milton for his blank verse, though I may excuse him, by the example of Hannibal Caro and other Italians, who have used it; for, whatever causes he alleges for the abolishing of rhyme, (which I have not now the leisure to examine,) his own particular reason is plainly this,

that rhyme was not his talent; he had neither the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his JUVENILIA, or verses written in his youth; where his rhyme is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the soul is most pliant, and the passion of love makes almost every man a rhymer, though not a poet.

By this time, my lord, I doubt not but that you wonder, why I have run off from my biass so long together, and made so tedious a digression from satire to heroick poetry. But if you will not excuse it by the tattling quality of age, which, as Sir William D'Avenant says, is always narrative, yet I hope the usefulness of what I have to say on this subject, will qualify the remoteness of it; and this is the last time I will commit the crime of prefaces, or trouble the world with my notions of any thing that relates to verse.I have then, as you see, observed the failings of many great wits amongst the moderns, who have attempted to write an epick poem. Besides these, or the like animadversions of them by other men, there is yet a farther reason given, why they cannot possibly succeed so well as the ancients; even though we could allow them

not to be inferior, either in genius, or learning, or the tongue in which they write; or all those other wonderful qualifications which are necessary to the forming of a true accomplished heroick poet. The fault is laid on our religion: they say that Christianity is not capable of those embellishments which are afforded in the belief of those ancient heathens.

And it is true, that in the severe notions of our faith, the fortitude of a Christian consists in patience, and suffering, for the love of God, whatever hardships can befall in the world; not in any great attempt, or in performance of those enterprises which the poets call heroick, and which are commonly the effects of interest, ostentation, pride, and worldly honour: that humility and resignation are our prime virtues; and that these include no action but that of the soul; whenas, on the contrary, an heroick poem requires, to its necessary design, and as its last perfection, some great action of war, the accomplishment of some extraordinary undertaking; which requires the strength and vigour of the body, the duty of a soldier, the capacity and prudence of a general, and, in short, as much or more of the active virtue, than the suffering. But to this the answer is very obvious. GOD has placed us in our several stations; the virtues of a private Christian are patience, obedience, submission, and the like; but those of a magistrate, or general, or a king, are prudence, counsel, active fortitude, coercive power, awful command, and the exercise of magnanimity, as well as justice.

So that this objection hinders not, but that an epick poem, or the heroick action of some great commander, enterprised for the common good, and honour of the Christian cause, and executed happily, may be as well written now, as it was of old by the heathens; provided the poet be endued with the same talents; and the language, though not of equal dignity, yet as near approaching to it, as our modern barbarism will allow; which is all that can be expected from our own or any other now extant, though more refined; and therefore we are to rest contented with that only inferiority, which is not possibly to be remedied.

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I wish I could as easily remove that other difficulty which yet remains. It is objected by a great French critick as well as an admirable poet, yet living, and whom I have mentioned with that honour which his mèrit exacts from me, I mean Boileau, that the machines of our Christian religion in heroick poetry are much more feeble to support that weight, than those of heathenism. Their doctrine, grounded as it was on ridiculous fables, was yet the belief of the two victorious monarchies, the Grecian and Roman. Their gods did not only interest themselves in the event of wars, (which is the effect of a superior providence,) but also espoused the several parties, in a visible corporeal descent; managed their intrigues, and fought their battles, sometimes in opposition to each other though Virgil (more discreet than Homer in that last particular) has contented him

self with the partiality of his deities, their favours, their counsels or commands, to those whose cause they had espoused, without bringing them to the outrageousness of blows. Now, our religion (says he) is deprived of the greatest part of those machines; at least the most shining in epick poetry. Though St. Michael in Ariosto seeks out DISCORD, to send her amongst the Pagans, and finds her in a convent of friars where peace should reign, which indeed is fine satire; and Satan, in Tasso, excites Solyman to an attempt by night on the Christian camp, and brings an host of devils to his assistance; yet the archangel, in the former example, when DISCORD was restive, and would not be drawn from her beloved monastery with fair words, has the whiphand of her, drags her out with many stripes, sets her, on GoD's-name, about her business, and makes her know the difference of strength betwixt a nuncio of heaven, and a minister of hell. The same angel, in the latter instance from Tasso, (as if God had never another messenger belonging to the court, but was confined, like Jupiter to Mercury, and Juno to Iris,) when he sees his time, that is, when half of the Christians are already. killed, and all the rest are in a fair way to be routed, stickles betwixt the remainders of GOD'S host, and the race of fiends; pulls the devils backward by the tails, and drives them from their quarry; or otherwise the whole business had miscarried, and Jerusalem remained untaken. This, says Boileau, is a very unequal match for the poor

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