him died the secret
of the old poetical diction of England,--the art of producing rich
effects by familiar words. In the following century it was as completely
lost as the Gothic method of painting glass, and was but poorly supplied
by the laborious and tesselated imitations of Mason and Gray. On the
other hand, he was the first writer under whose skilful management the
scientific vocabulary fell into natural and pleasing verse. In this
department, he succeeded as completely as his contemporary Gibbons
succeeded in the similar enterprise of carving the most delicate flowers
from heart of oak. The toughest and most knotty parts of language became
ductile at his touch. His versification, in the same manner, while it
gave the first model of that neatness and precision which the following
generation esteemed so highly, exhibited at the same time, the last
examples of nobleness, freedom, variety of pause, and cadence. His
tragedies in rhyme, however worthless in themselves, had at least served
the purpose of nonsense-verses; they had taught him all the arts of
melody which the heroic couplet admits. For bombast, his prevailing
vice, his new subjects gave little opportunity; his better taste
gradually discarded it.

He possessed, as we have said, in a pre-eminent degree the power of
reasoning in verse; and this power was now peculiarly useful to him. His
logic is by no means uniformly sound. On points of criticism, he always
reasons ingeniously; and when he is disposed to be honest, correctly.
But the theological and political questions which he undertook to treat
in verse were precisely those which he understood least. His arguments,
therefore, are often worthless. But the manner in which they are stated
is beyond all praise. The style is transparent. The topics follow each
other in the happiest order. The objections are drawn up in such a
manner that the whole fire of the reply may be brought to bear on them.
The circumlocutions which are substituted for technical phrases are
clear, neat, and exact. The illustrations at once adorn and elucidate
the reasoning. The sparkling epigrams of Cowley, and the simple
garrulity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are alternately employed, in
the happiest manner, to give effect to what is obvious or clearness to
what is obscure.

His literary creed was catholic, even to latitudinarianism; not from any
want of acuteness, but from a disposition to be easily satisfied. He was
quick to dis