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Of dulcet fymphonies and voices fweet,
Built like a temple, whose pilafters round
Were fet, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave *.

THIS Circumstance of the temple's enlarging with the growing figure of the goddess, is lively, new, and well imagined. The reader feels a pleasure in having his eye carried through a length of building, almost to an immenfity. Extenfion is certainly a cause of the fublime. In this view the following paffage of Thompson may be confidered, where he speaks of a lazar-house in his Castle of Indolence +.

Through the drear caverns ftretching many a mile, The fick uprear'd their heads, and dropp'd their woes awhile.

21. Next these a youthful train their vows express'd,
With feathers crown'd, and gay embroid❜ry drefs'd:
Hither, they cry'd, direct your eyes and fee
The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry;
Ours is the place, at banquets, balls and plays,
Sprightly our nights, polite are all our days:

* Par. Loft, b. i. ver. 712.

+ Stanza Ixix. c. 2.

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Of unknown dutcheffes lewd tales we tell,

Yet, would the world believe us, all were well *.

STROKES of pleasantry and humour, and fatirical reflections on the foibles of common life, are furely too familiar, and unfuited to

fo

grave and majestic a poem as this hitherto has appeared to be. Such incongruities offend propriety; though I know ingenious perfons have endeavoured to excuse them, by faying that they add a variety of imagery to the piece. This practice is even defended by a paffage in Horace.

Et fermone opus eft modo trifti, fæpe jocofo,
Defendente vicem modo rhetoris atque poetæ,
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas confulto.--

But this judicious remark is, I apprehend, confined to ethic and preceptive kinds of writing, which ftand in need of being enlivened with lighter images, and sportive thoughts; and where strictures on common

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life, may more gracefully be inferted. Eut in the higher kinds of poefy they appear as unnatural and out of place, as one of the burlefque fcenes of Heemfkirk would do, in a folemn landscape of Pouffin. When I fee fuch a line as

"And at cach blast a lady's honour dies".

in the TEMPLE of FAME, I lament as much to find it placed there, as to fee shops, and fheds, and cottages, erected among the ruins of Dioclefian's Baths.

ON the revival of literature, the first writers feemed not to have obferved any SELECTION in their thoughts and images. Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio, Ariofto, make

very fudden tranfitions from the fublime to the ridiculous. Chaucer in his Temple of Mars, among many pathetic pictures, has brought in a frange line,

The coke is fealded for all his long ladell *.

Thus again;-"As op's dogs contending for a bone.”—-— and many others,

No

No writer has more religioufly obferved the decorum here recommended than Virgil.

22. This having heard and feen, fome pow'r unknown Strait chang'd the scene, and fnatch'd me from the throne;

Before my view appear'd a ftructure fair,
Its fite uncertain, if in earth or air *.

THE scene here changes from the TEMPLE of FAME to that of Rumour. Such a change is not methinks judicious, as it deftroys the unity of the fubject, and diftracts the view of the reader; not to mention, that the difference between Rumour and Fame is not fufficiently diftinct and perceptible. POPE has however the merit of compreffing the fenfe of a great number of Chaucer's lines into a small compafs. As Chaucer takes every opportunity of fatyrizing the follies of his age, he has in this part introduced many circumftances, which it was prudent in POPE to omit, as they would not have been either relished or understood in the prefent times.

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23. While thus I ftood intent to fee and hear,

One came, methought, and whifper'd my ear:
What could thus high thy rash ambition raise?
Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praise ?
'Tis true, faid I, not void of hopes I came,
For who fo fond as youthful bards of Fame * ?

THIS Conclufion is not
Chaucer; and is judicious.

copied from Chaucer has

finished his story inartificially, by saying he was furprized at the fight of a man of great authority, and awoke in a fright. The fucceeding lines give a pleafing moral to the allegory, and the two last shew the man of honour and virtue, as well as the poet.

Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown:
Oh grant an honest fame, or grant me none !

IN finishing this Section, we may observe, that POPE's alterations of Chaucer are introduced with judgment and art; that these alterations are more in number, and more important in conduct, than any Dryden has made of the fame author. This piece was communicated to Steele, who entertained a

* Ver. 496.

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