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poems, could I (were it not invidious) direct the reader's attention, the style of which is most unpoetic, because, and only because, it is the style of prose? He will not suppose me capable of having in my mind such verses, as I put my hat upon my head And walk'd into the Strand; And there I met another man, Whose hat was in his hand. To such specimens it would indeed be a fair and full reply, that these lines are not bad, because they are unpoetic; but because they are empty of all sense and feeling; and that it were an idle attempt to prove that an ape is not a Newton, when it is evident that he is not a man. But the sense shall be good and weighty, the language correct and dignified, the subject interesting and treated with feeling; and yet the style shall, notwithstanding all these merits, be justly blamable as prosaic, and solely because the words and the order of the words would find their appropriate place in prose, but are not suitable to metrical composition. The _Civil Wars_ of Daniel is an instructive, and even interesting work; but take the following stanzas (and from the hundred instances which abound I might probably have selected others far more striking): And to the end we may with better ease Discern the true discourse, vouchsafe to show What were the times foregoing near to these, That these we may with better profit know. Tell how the world fell into this disease; And how so great distemperature did grow; So shall we see with what degrees it came; How things at full do soon wax out of frame. Ten kings had from the Norman conqu'ror reign'd With intermixt and variable fate, When England to her greatest height attain'd Of power, dominion, glory, wealth, and state; After it had with much ado sustain'd The violence of princes, with debate For titles and the often mutinies Of nobles for their ancient liberties. For first, the Norman, conqu'ring all by might, By might was forc'd to keep what he had got; Mixing our customs and the form of right With foreign constitutions he had brought; Mast'ring the mighty, humbling the poorer wight, By all severest means that could be wrought; And, making the succession doubtful, rent His new-got state, and left it turbulent. Book I, St. vii, viii, and ix. Will it be contended on the one side, that these li
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