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Absalom and Achitophel is a work so well known, that particular criticism is superfluous. If it be considered as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellences of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition.

It is not, however, without faults; some lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with David.

The subject had likewise another inconvenience: it admitted little imagery or description; and a long poem of mere sentiments easily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interposition of something that sooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the

rest.

As an approach to the historical truth was necessary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is therefore an unpleasing disproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a faction formed of many sects, various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and strong by their supports; while the King's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either part

are

are set forth to view: but when expectation is at the height, the King makes a speech, and

Henceforth a series of new times began.

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brass, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?

In the second part, written by Tate, there is a long insertion, which, for its poignancy of satire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, can add great force to general principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.

The Medal, written upon the same principles with Absalom and Achitophel, but upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem therefore, since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor perhaps generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very skilfully delineated and strongly coloured:

Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence,
The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence,
And malice reconcil'd him to his prince.
Him, in the anguish of his soul, he serv'd;
Rewarded faster still than he desery'd:

Behold

Behold him now exalted into trust;

His counsels oft convenient, seldom just;
Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave,
He had a grudging still to be a knave.
The frauds, he learnt in his fanatick years,
Made him uneasy in his lawful gears,
At least as little honest as he cou'd,
And, like white witches, mischievously good.
To this first bias, longingly, he leans;

And rather would be great by wicked means.

The Threnodia, which, by a term I am afraid neither authorized nor analogical, he calls Augustalis, is not among his happiest productions. Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetick. He seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. "He is," he says, "petrified with grief;" but the marble sometimes relents, and trickles in a joke.

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The sons of art all med'cines try'd, And every noble remedy apply'd :

With emulation each essay'd

His utmost skill; nay, more, they pray'd : Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.

He had been a little inclined to merriment before, upon the prayers of a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep Heathen fables out of his religion:

With him the innumerable crowd of armed prayers Knock'd at the gates of Heaven, and knock'd aloud; The first well-meaning rude petitioners

All for his life assail'd the throne,

All would have brib'd the skies by offering up their

own.

So great a throng not Heaven itself could bar;
'Twas almost borne by force as in the giants war.
The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve, were heard;
His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.

There is throughout the composition a desire of splendour without wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.

He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or elegiack poetry. His poem on the death of Mrs. Killegrew is undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas indeed are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.

In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendor of the second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the word diapason is too technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began;

When Nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay,

And

And could not heave her head,

The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,

In order to their stations leap.

And musick's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began.

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

The diapason closing full in man.

The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis of musick untuning had found some other place.

As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the bless'd above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the sky,

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which the following lines discover their author:

Though all these rare endowments of the mind
Were in a narrow space of life confin'd,
The figure was with full perfection crown'd,
Though not so large an orb, as truly round:
VOL. IX.

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