has not proceeded only from the Pleasure and Delight, but likewife from the Usefulness and Prone of Poetical Writings.

This is a very good Reason why thofe who first apply'd themselves to Learning, fhould make Choice of a Stile confined to Numbers, and exalted by MeJody; but it betrays Sir William's Opinion to be, that Verfe was effential to Poetry, or that what was Verse was Poetry. Gerrard Voffius feems of the fame Opi nion in the beginning of his Difcourfe on the Na ture and Inftitution of Poefie; but in his following Treatise he makes a Poet a fomething more exalted Being than a Verfifier, and Poetry to be very diffe rent from meer Verfification.

Sir William, on the other fide, is fo fixt in this Opinion, that one of the Causes of the Decay and Declenfion of Poetry is affigned by him to be first the tranflating Poetry into Profe, or cloathing it in those loofe Robes, or common Veils, that difguis'd and cover'd the true Beauty of its Features, and Exactnefs of its Shape. This (continues the Knight) was done first in Greek by #fop. The next Succeffion of Poetry in Profe feems to have been in the Milefian Tales, which were a fort of little Pastoral Romances; and though much in Request in Old Greece and Rome, yet we have no Examples, that I know of them, unlefs it be the Longi Paftoralia, which gives a Taste of the great Delicacy and Pleasure, that was found fo generally in thofe forts of Tales. The laft kind of Poetry in Profe (continues he) is that, which in later Ages has over-run the World under the Name of Romances; which tho' it feem modern, and a Production of the Gothic Genius; yet the Writing is ancient. The Remainders of Petronius Arbiter feem. to be of this Kind, and, that which Lucian calls his True Hiftory: But the most ancient that paffes by the Name, is Heliodorus, famous for the Author's chufing to lose his Bishopric, rather than difown the Child

t

of his Wit. The true Spirit or Vein of ancient Poetry in this Kind, feems to fhine moft in Sir PhiLip Sidney, whom I efteem (fays Sir William) both the greatest Poet, and the nobleft Genius of any that have left Writings behind them, and publish'd in ours, or any other modern Language. A Perfon born capable, not only of forming the greateft Ideas, but of leaving the noblest Examples, if the length of his Life had been equal to the Excellence of his Wit and his Vir

tues.

Allowing the juft Encomium he gives Sir Philip, I must diffent from him in his Opinion of the Caufe of the Decay of Poetry; and I would rather efteem the Growth of Verfificators and their Multiplicity are the Cause of their Neglect and Contempt. This Art, in its first Appearance in the World, was exercis'd only by the Knowing, and Men of as great Judgment as Genius; but in Procefs of Time every one attempted Verfification, and by that endeavour'd to pass for Poets ; but when Men found nothing great and touching in their Verfes, nothing that penetrated the Soul, and fatisfy'd the Understanding; when all was refolv'd into Numbers, and peculiarity of Phrafe, that lively Pleasure, which true Poetry gave, ceafing, the Admiration of Mankind alfo had an End, and that being no more, Efteem foon vanished.

I know very well that Gerrard Voffius ftrives hard against Arißotle, and other great Men of Antiquity, that the Name of Maker or Poet was given to Authors from their writing in Verfe, and not from their framing a Defign, and forming a Fable; that is not from Imitation, but Numbers; yet at the End of his Constitution he feems to recant this Opinion, and allow that of Ariftotle, which is grounded on Reafon, and the Judgment of a politer Age and People, than any of the Country and Time of Voffius. He might as well have pretended that Painters deriv'd their Name and Efteem from Colouring, and

not

not from the Defigning of their Pieces, against which Pliny, and all Antiquity, declare.

But I cannot yet difmifs Sir William Temple, who elsewhere gives fome better Reasons of this Decay of the ancient Poetry, at leaft in Italy, where it Яourifh'd after it almost disappear'd in Greece. Firft the incorporating or Confluence of Germans, Gauls, Syrians, Spaniards, and the like, at Rome, which corrupt ed the Language. Here Sir William feems ftill to make Poetry confift in the Diction, than which nothing can be farther from Truth; which has indeed nothing to do with the Effence of Poetry, fince that may be in all Languages.

I more approve of his affigning the Growth of E pigrams as a Caufe of this Decay among the Romans. Martial Aufonius, and others (fays he) fell into this Vein, and us'd it indifferently on all Subjects. This Vein of Conceit feem'd proper for fuch Scraps and Splinters into which Poetry was broken, and was fo eagerly follow'd, as almoft to over-run all that was compos'd in our modern Languages. The Italians, the French, the Spaniards, as well as English, were for a great while full of nothing elfe but Conceit. It was an Ingredient, that gave a Tafte to Compofitions, which had little of themfelves; 'twas a Sauce that gave Point to Meat that was flat, and fome Life to Colours that were fading. Thus far the Knight feems to have touch'd one Caufe at leaft of the Lofs of the ancient and true Strain of Poetry. And I think he is as much or more in the right in what follows.

Another Vein which entred and help'd to corrupt our modern Poetry (fays he) is that of Ridicule, as if nothing pleasd but what made one laugh, which yet came from two different Actions of the Mind. For as Men have no Difpofition to laugh at what they are most pleas'd with; fo they are very little pleas'd with many Things which they laugh, at.

D 3

But

But let the Execution be what it will, the Defign, the Cuftom, the Example, are very pernicious to Poetry, and indeed to all Virtue and good Qualities" among Men, which must be indeed difheartned by finding how unjustly and undiftinguifh'd they fall under the Lash of Railery, and this Vein of ridiculing the good, as well as the bad, the guilty and the innocent together.

And in his firft Effay he has a juft Reflection on this Vein of Ridicule. I wish (fays he) that the Vein of ridiculing all that is ferious and good; all Honour and Virtue, as well as Learning and Poetry, may have no worse Effects on any other State (than on the Spanish Monarchy made by Cervonites by his Book of Don Quixot.) Tis the Itch of our Age and Climate, and has over-run both the Court and the Stage, enters a House of Lords and Commons as boldly as a Coffee-House ; Debates of Council, as well as private Conversation; and I have known in my Life more than one or two Minifters of State, who had rather have faid a witty thing, than have done a wife one, and made the Company laugh, rather than the Kingdom rejoyce.

Had Sir William liv'd to fee Men arrive at the firft Form of Wits by no other Quality, he might still more justly have deplor'd the Lofs of all that was noble and great in Writing, while the poor and rambling Amusements of Buffoons, carry'd the Town away from all relish of any thing ferious, and dogmatically dictated their Rules of Excellence contrary to Truth and Reafon.

There is ftill a greater Cause of the Decay of the ancient Poetry, which is the Poets quitting that which rais'd them above the Moderns, that is the incorporating their Religion in their Poems; it was by this means that they excell'd the Poets of our Ages, as in Homer and the Athenian Tragic Poets. For the Moderns, in moft Parrs of Poetry, which depend nor only on Religion, have either excell'd, or come ve

ry

ry near them, as in Comedy and Satyr. In Comedy, certainly Ben. Jolmfon has, or ought to have, the Preference of Plautus and Terence; and as far as we can difcover by these two Latin Poets, of the Greek likewife; and in Satyr, Monfieur Boileaus is not far behind either Homer or Juvenal; though it must be confefs'd that he built on their Foundation.

Thus having feen the Decay and Lofs of Poetry, which was compleated by the Inundation of the Gothis, Vandals, Hunns, and the other barbarous Nations that funk the Empire and Wit of Rome in one common Ruin, let us examine a little into its Refurrection. Sir William Temple gives us an Account of the Runnes, from whence he derives the Rimers, or Poets of the Goths, who gave to the Moderns their Way of Writing in Rime; which, on the Revival of Poetry in the modern Tongues, impos'd it felf on all the Writers of thofe Times, and has fix it self so in all Nations, that it is to be feared, it will scarce ever be wholly banish'd the Confines of Poetry. As to the Runnes, I refer you to Sir William, and fhall only give you a fhort History of Poefy, from its Rife in Provence, from whence Italy her felf took her Pattern and Mode of Writing.

In the Beginning of the laft Century but two,' when People began to open their Eyes, and look faither into good Literature, Italy had much the Start of the rest of Europe, by the generous Care of the Medici, by whom, and under whose Influence, Ariftothe's Works were first brought into the Hands of the curious, and his Poetics chiefly employed the Study and. Application of the ingenious. The Balian Men of Letters were by thefe Means perfect in them, before they were so much as known on this Side the Alps; which gave them this Reflexion on the Tramontani, that they made no Confcience of breaking the whol fome Laws of the Greeks and the Romans. Bibiena (af terwards a Cardinal) first try'd his Genius in a Come