The cold regardless maid to move, II. But fhe, alas! unkindly wife, To all my fighs and tears replies, • 'Tis ev'ry prudent maid's concern 'Her lover's fondness to improve • If to be happy you shall learn, 'You quickly would forget to love." The fecond SONG. 1. BOaft not, mistaken fwain, thy art The charms that have fubdu'd my heart, H. Thy face is to my humour made, Perhaps by fome fond whim betray'd, III. Vain youth, to your confufion know, You all your fancy'd beauties owe, IV. For your own fake, if not for mine, You should preferve my fire : Since you, my fwain, no more will fhine, When I no more admire. To Mrs ANNABELLA LIZARD. MADAM, T fee how abfolute your commands are ❤❤ you ver me, and to convince you of the opinion I have of your good fenfe, I fhall, without any preamble of compliments, give you my thoughts upon fong-writing, in the fame order as they have occured to me. Only allow me, in my own defence, to say, that I do not remember to have met with any piece of criticifm upon this fubject; fo that if I err, or feem fingular in my opinions, you will be the more at liberty to differ from them, fince I do not pretend to fupport them by any authority. In all ages, and in every nation, where poetry has been in fashion, the tribe of fonneteers hath been very numerous. Every pert young fellow that has a moving fancy, and the leaft jingle of verfe in his head, fets up for a writer of fongs, and refolves to immortalize his bottle or his mistress. What a world of infipid productions in this kind have we been pestered with fince the revolution, to go no higher? This, no doubt, proceeds in a great measure from not forming a right judgment of the nature of thefe little compofitions. It is true, they do not require an elevation of thought, nor any extraordinary capacity, nor an extenfive knowledge: but then they demand great regularity, and the utmost nicety; an exact purity of ftyle, with the most eafy and flowing numbers; an elegant and unaffected turn of wit, with one uniform and fimple defign. Greater works cannot well be without fome inequalities and o verfights, and they are in them pardonable; but a fong lofes all its luftre if it be not polifhed with the greatest accuracy. The smallest blemish in it, like a flaw in ́a jewel, takes off the whole value of it. A fong is, as it were, little image in enamel, that requires all the nice touches of the pencil, a glofs and a smoothness, with those delicate finishing strokes, which would be fuperfluous and thrown away upon larger figures, where the ftrength and boldness of a masterly hand gives all the grace. Since you may have recourfe to the French and Eng N° 16. lish translations, you will not accufe me of pedantry, when I tell you, that Sappho, Anacreon, and Horace in fome of his shorter lyrics, are the compleateft models for little odes or fonnets. You will find them generally purfuing a single thought in their fongs, which is driven to a point, without thofe interruptions and deviati ons fo frequent in the modern writers of this order. To do juftice to the French, there is no living language that abounds fo much in good fongs. The genius of the people, and the idiom of their tongue, feems adapted to compofitions of this fort. Our writers generally croud into one fong materials enough for feveral; and fo they ftarve every thought, by endeavouring to nurfe up more than one at a time. They give you a ftring of imperfect fonnets, inftead of one finifhed piece; which is a fault Mr Waller, whofe beauties cannot be too much admired, fometimes falls into. But of all our countrymen, none are more defective in their fongs, through a redundancy of wit, than Dr Donne and Mr Cowley. In them, one point of wit flashes fo faft upon another, that the reader's attention is dazzled by the continual Sparkling of their imagination: you find a new defign ftarted almost in every line, and you come to the end without the fatisfaction of feeing any one of them executed. A fong fhould be conducted like an epigram; and the only difference between them is, that the one does not require the lyric numbers, and is ufually employed upon fatyrical occafions; whereas the business of the other, for the most part, is to exprefs, as my Lord Rofcommon tranflates it from Horace, Love's pleafing cares, and the free joys of wine. I fhall conclude what I have to fay upon this fubject, by obferving, that the French do very often confound the fong and the epigram, and take the one reciprocally for the other. An inftance of which I fhall give you in a remarkable epigriam which paffes current abroad for an excellent fong. Tu parles mal par tout de moi, Quel malheur eft le notre ? L'on ni croit ni l'un, ni lautre. For the fatisfaction of fuch of your friends as may not understand the original, I fhall venture to tranflate it after my fashion, fo as to keep ftrictly to the turn of thought, at the expence of lofing fomething in the poetry and verfification. Thou speakest always ill of me, Thus, Madam, I have endeavoured to comply with your commands; not out of any vanity of erecting myfelf into a critic, but out of an earnest defire of being thought, upon all occafions, Your moft obedient fervant. <**<*>{*}************<*) ex No 17. Tuesday, March 31. Minimumque libidine peccant. Juv. Sat. 6. v. 134. Luft is the fmalleft fin they own. Dryden. I' F it were poffible to bear up against the force of ridicule, which fashion has brought upon people for acknowledging a veneration for the most facred things, a man might say, that the time we now are in is fet apart for humiliation; and all our actions should at prefent more particularly tend that way. I remember, about thirty years ago, an eminent divine, who was also most exactly well-bred, told his congregation at Whitehall, that if they did not vouchsafe to give their lives a new turn, they must certainly go to a place which he did not think fit to name in that courtly audience. It is with me as with that gentleman. I would, if poffible, reprefent the errors of life, efpecially thofe arifing from what we call gallantry, in fuch a manner as the people VOL. I. G of pleasure may read me. In this cafe I must 'not be rough to gentlemen and ladies, but fpeak of fin as a gentleman. It might not perhaps be amifs, if therefore I should call my prefent precaution a criticifm upon fornication; and by reprefenting the unjuft tafte they have who affect that way of pleasure, bring a diftalte upon it among all those who are judicious in their fatisfactions. I will be bold then to lay down for a rule, That he who follows this kind of gratification, gives up much greater delight by pursuing it, than he can poffibly enjoy from. it. As to the common women and the flews, there is no one but will allow this affertion at firft fight; but if it will appear, that they who deal with thofe of the fex who are lefs profligate, defcend to greater basenef. ies than if they frequented brothels, it fhould methinks, bring this iniquity under fome discountenance. The rake who, without fenfe of character or decency, wallows and ranges in common houses, is guilty no farther than of proflituting himfelf, and expofing his health to difeafes. But the man of gallantry cannot pursue his pleafures without treachery to fome man he ought to love, and making defpicable the woman he admires. To live in a continual deceit; to reflect upon the difhonour you do fome hufband, father, or brother, who does not deferve this of you, and whom you would destroy, did you know they did the like towards you, are circumItances which pall the appetite, and give a man of any fenfe of honour very painful mortification. What more need be faid again't a gentleman's delight, than that he himself thinks himself a base man in pursuing it? When it is thoroughly confidered, he gives up his very being as a man of integrity who commences gallant. Let him or her who is guilty this way, but weigh the matter a little, and the criminal will find, that those whom they molt esteemed, are of a fudden become the most difagreeable companions; nay, their good qualities are grown odious and painful. It is faid, people who have the plague, have a delight in communicating the infection in like manner, the fenfe of fhame, which is never wholly overcome, inclines the guilty this way to contribute to the deftruction of others. And women are pleased to introduce more women into the fame conditi |