His praife of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that fhe "faves "lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes "are cured by lopping the limb," prefents nothing to the mind but disgust and horror. Of the Battle of the Summer Iflands, it seems not easy to say whether it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginning is too fplendid for jeft, and the conclufion too light for seriousness. The verfification is ftudied, the fcenes are diligently difplayed, and the images artfully amplified; but as it ends neither in joy nor forrow, it will scarcely be read a fecond time. The Panegyrick upon Cromwel has obtained from the public a very liberal dividend of praife, which however cannot be said to have been unjustly lavished; for such a series of verfes had rarely appeared before in the English language. Of the lines fome are grand, fome are graceful, and all are mufical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought; but its great fault is the choice of its hero. The poem of The War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and ftriking than Waller is accuftomed to produce. The fucceeding parts are variegated with better passages and worfe. There is fomething too farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on, by faluting St. Lucar with cannon, to lambs awakening the lion by bleating. The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who were burnt in their fhip, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor expreffed their affection and their end by a conceit at once falfe and vulgar: Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd, The verses to Charles, on his Return, were doubtless intended to counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwel. If it has been thought inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its deficience has been already remarked. The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine fingly. They must be fuppofed to have faults and beauties of the fame kind with the reft. The Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they were the work of Waller's declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his great predeceffor Petrarch bequeathed to pofterity, upon his review of that love and poetry which have given him immortality. That natural jealoufy which makes every man unwilling to allow much excellence in another, always produces a difpofition to believe that the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to confefs fuperior, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. By delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion. Intellectual decay is doubtless not uncommon; but it seems not to be univerfal. Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving his Chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to have loft at eighty-two any part of his poetical powers. His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the fame fubjects, his fuccefs would hardly have been better. It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry; that they have very feldom attained their end is fufficiently known, and it may not be improper to enquire why they have mifcarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in oppofition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often pleafe. The doctrines of religion may indeed be defended in a didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verfe, will not lofe it becaufe his fubject is facred. A poet may defcribe the beauty and the grandeur of Nature, the flowers of the Spring, and the harvests of Autumn, the viciffitudes of the Tide, and the revolutions of the Sky, and praise the Maker for his works in lines which no reader fhall lay afide. The fubject of the difputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the defcription is not God, but the works of God. Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human foul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer. The effence of poetry is invention; fuch invention as, by producing fomething unexpected, furprifes and delights. The topicks of devotion are few, and being few are univerfally known; but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of fentiment, and very little from novelty of expreffion. Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of thofe parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel the imagination but religion must be fhewn as it is; fuppreffion and addition equally corrupt it; and fuch as it is, it is known already. From poetry the reader juftly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehenfion and elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped by Chriftians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, defirable, or tremendous, is comprifed in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved. The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thankf giving, giving, the most joyful of all holy effufions, yet addreffed to a Being without paffions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather than expreffed. Repentance, trembling in the prefence of the Judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself through many topicks of perfuafion; but fupplication to God can only cry for mercy. Of fentiments purely religious, it will be found that the moft fimple expreffion is the moft fublime. Poetry lofes its luftre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of fomething more excellent than itself. All that verfe can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear, and for thefe purposes it may be very ufeful; but it fupplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Chriftian Theology are too fimple for eloquence, too facred for fiction, and too majeftick for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the fidereal hemifphere. As much of Waller's reputation was owed to the foftness and fmoothnefs of his Numbers; it is proper to confider those minute particulars to which a verfifyer must attend. He certainly very much excelled in smoothnefs most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though merely philofophical, yet feldom leaves the ear ungratified. But |