so largely supplied, hath deformed his best plays with these prodigious incongruities.

29. QUI VARIARE CUPIT REM PRODIGIALITER UNAM, &c.] Though I agree with M. Dacier that prodigialiter is here used in a good sense, yet the word is so happily chosen by our curious speaker as to carry the mind to that fictitious monster, under which he had before allusively shadowed out the idea of absurd and inconsistent composition, in v. 1. The application, however, differs in this, that, whereas the monster, there painted, was intended to expose the extravagance of putting together incongruous parts, without any reference to a whole, this prodigy is designed to characterize a whole, but deformed by the ill-judged position of its parts. The former is like a monster, whose several members, as of right belonging to different animals, could, by no disposition, be made to constitute one consistent animal. The other, like a landskip, which hath no objects absolutely irrelative, or irreducible to a whole, but which a wrong position of the parts only renders prodigious. Send the boar to the woods; and the dolphin to the waves; and the painter might shew them both on the same canvass.

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Each is a violation of the law of unity, and a real monster: the one, because it contains an assemblage of naturally incoherent parts; the other, because its parts, though in themselves coherent, are misplaced, and disjointed.

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34. INFELIX OPERIS SUMMA: QUIA PONERE TOTUM NESCIET.] This observation is more particularly applicable to dramatic poetry, than to any other, an unity and integrity of action: being of its very essence. The poet illustrates his observation very happily in the case of statuary; but it holds of every other art, that hath a whole for its object. Nicias, the painter, used to say, "That the subject was to him, what the fable is to the poet." Which is just the sentiment of Horace, reversed. For by the subject is meant the whole of the painter's plan, the totum, which it will be impossible for those to express, who lay out their pains so solicitously in finishing single parts. Thus, to take an obvious example, the landskip-painter is to draw together, and form into one entire view, certain beautiful, or striking objects. This is his main care. It is not even essential to the merit of his piece, to labour, with extreme exactness, the principal constituent parts. But for the rest, a shrub or flower, a straggling goat or sheep, these may be touched very negligently. We have a great modern instance. Few painters have obliged us with finer scenes, or have possessed the art of combining woods, lakes, and rocks, into more agreeable pictures, than G.. POUSSIN: Yet his animals are observed to be scarce worthy an ordinary artist. The use of these is simply to decorate the scene; and so their beauty depends, not on the truth and correct

a See Victor. Comm, in Dem. Phaler. p. 73. Florent. 1594.

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ness of the drawing, but on the elegance of their disposition only, For, in a landskip, the eye carelessly glances over the smaller parts, and regards them only in reference to the surrounding objects. The painter's labour therefore is lost, or rather misemployed, to the prejudice of the whole, when it strives to finish, so minutely, particular objects. If some great masters have shewn themselves ambitious of this fame, the objects, they have laboured, have been always such, as are most considerable in themselves, and have, besides, an effect in illustrating and setting off the entire scenery. It is chiefly in this view, that Ruisdale's waters, and Claude Lorain's skies are so admirable.

40.— CUI LECTA POTENTER ÈRIT RES.] Potenter i. e. xalà dúvapiv, Lambin: which gives a pertinent sense, but without justifying the expression. The learned editor of Statius proposes to read pudenter, a word used by Horace on other occasions, and which suits the meaning of the place, as well. A similar passage in the epistle to Augustus adds some weight to this conjecture;

nec meus audet

REM tentare PUDOR, quam vires ferre recusent.

AUCTOR

45. Hoc AMET, HOC SPERNAT, PROMISSI CARMINIS IN VERBIS ETIAM TENUIS CAUTUSQUE SERENDIS.] Dr. Bentley hath inverted the order of these two lines; not merely, as I conceive, without

sufficient reason, but in prejudice also to the scope and tenor of the poet's sense; in which case only I allow myself to depart from his text. The whole precept, on poetical distribution, is delivered, as of importance:

[Ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor.] And such indeed it is: for, 1. It respects no less than the constitution of a whole, i. e. the reduction of a subject into one entire, consistent plan, the most momentous and difficult of all the offices of invention, and which is more immediately addressed, in the high and sublime sense of the word, to the POET. 2. 'Tis no trivial whole, which the Precept had in view, but, as the context shews, and as is further apparent from v. 150, where this topic is resumed and treated more at large, the epos and the drama : With what propriety then is a rule of such dignity inforced by that strong emphatic conclusion,

Hoc amet, hoc spernat, promissi carminis auctor : i. e. "Be this rule held sacred and inviolate by him, "who hath projected and engaged in a work, de"serving the appellation of a poem." Were the subject only the choice or invention of words, the solemnity of such an application must be ridiculous.

As for the construction, the commonest reader can find himself at no loss to defend it against the force of the Doctor's objections.

46. IN VERBIS ETIAM TENUIS, &c.] I have said, that these preparatory observations concerning an unity of design, the abuse of language, and the different colourings of the several species of poetry, whilst they extend to poetic composition at large, more particularly respect the case of the drama. The first of these articles has been illustrated in note on v. 34. The last will be considered in note v. 73. I will here shew the same of the second, concerning the abuse of words. For 1. the style of the drama representing real life, and demanding, on that account, a peculiar ease and familiarity in the language, the practice of coining new words must be more insufferable in this, than in any other species of poetry. The majesty of the epic will even sometimes require to be supported by this means, when the commonest ear would resent it, as downright affectation upon the stage. Hence the peculiar propriety of this rule to the dramatic writer,

In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis.

2. Next, it is necessary to keep the tragic style, though condescending, in some sort, to the familiar cast of conversation, from sinking beneath the dignity of the personages, and the solemnity of the representation. Now no expedient can more happily effect this, than what the poet prescribes concerning the position and derivation of words. For thus, the language, without incurring the odium of absolutely invented terms, sustains itself in a becoming stateliness and reserve, and, whilst it seems to stoop