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I found myself at a lofs, when I attempted to write a french tragedy. I was almost accustomed to think in English. I perceived that the french terms did not offer themselves to my imagination in the fame abundance they formerly did. It was a rivulet whose fource had been diverted another way both time and pains were neceffary to bring it back to its former channel. I became fenfible that, to fucceed in an art, we must cultivate it our whole life.

What terrified me moft, was the great ftrictness of our poetry and the flavery of rhime. I regretted that liberty you poffefs of writing your tragedies in blank verse, of lengthening, or of fhortening almost all your words at pleasure, of throwing one line into another, and of creating new terms at will, which are always adopted by the nation when their neceffity is obvious, their fenfe eafily understood, and their found harmonious *. An

* It must be remarked that in France the admittance of new words finds much more difficulty

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An english poet, I used to fay, is a free man, who fubjects his language to his genius; the Frenchman is a constant slave to rhime, often obliged to write four verses to convey a thought, which in English can be expreffed in one. An Englishman fays what he will fay, but a Frenchman, only what he can. The one runs on boldly in a vast career; the other, loaded with chains, fteps on flowly in a flippery narrow path.

Notwithstanding these reflections and complaints, we shall never be able to free ourselves from the yoke of rhime. It is effential to french poetry. Our language does not admit of tranfpofitions, our verse does not allow of lines running into each

than the naturalization of a foreign fubject. One remarkable inftance I remember, which is the word Profateur, profe-writer; the famous Menage, who wrote fo much and fo well on the French language, and of its origin, was very fond of Profateur, and laboured forty years, tis faid, among his brethren of the French academy to introduce this really-ufeful term; but without fuccefs. The writers of that nation are fince grown a little lefs difficult, and among others, this word has gained admittance.

other,

other, our fyllables are incapable of caufing any fenfible harmony by long or fhort measures. Our hemiftics and a stated number of feet are not alone fufficient to diftinguish profe from verfe, and therefore the addition of rhime is abfolutely neceffary in french poetry.

Besides, fo many great writers, who have made ufe of rhime, fuch as the Corneilles, Racines and Boileaus, have fo accustomed our ears to that kind of harmony, that we can endure no other; and I must repeat it, whoever attempts to get rid of a burden which was borne by the great Corneille, will be, with justice, looked upon, not as an enterprizing genius, who opens out to himself a new road, but as a very weak man unable to support himself in the ancient track.

It has been attempted to give us tragedies in profe; but I do not fuppofe that this undertaking will ever fucceed. They

* In French verfe, there is, generally, a paufe about the middle of every line, which is called Céfure, and each half-line is diftinct from the other, and called Hémiftiche.

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who have more will not be easily satisfied with lefs. He that diminishes the public's pleafure, will be always ill received by them. If, among the pictures of Rubens or of Paul Veronese, any body placed his own designs in crayon, would he not be in the wrong to put himself in competition with thefe painters? We are accuftomed at feasts to fing and dance ;- would it be enough merely to walk and speak, because it would be easier and more natural?

It is probable that verfe will be every where found neceffary in the tragic scene, and rhime always in our's. It is even to this constraint of rhime, and to the extreme feverity of our versification, that we are indebted for the excellent performances we poffefs in our language.

We infift that rhime fhould not be at the expence of thought; it must be neither trivial nor far-fetched. We require the fame purity and exactness in our poetry as in our profe. We do not suffer the leaft license. An author muft never difcontinue to wear his chains, and yet he muft

must always appear as if free from them. We acknowledge for poets, only fuch as have fulfilled all these conditions.

On this account it is eafier to make an hundred verses in any other language than four in French. The example of our abbé Regnier Defmarais of the french academy, and of the academy della crufca, is an evident proof of this affertion. He tranflated Anacreon into italian verse, with fuccefs; and yet his french poetry, excepting a few ftanzas, is extremely indifferent. Our Menage was juft in the fame cafe. How many of our ingenious countrymen have wrote excellent latin verse; whose french poetry is not even tolerable.

*

I know how many difputes I have had about our verfification, in England, and the reproaches made me by the learned bishop of Rochester on this puerile conftraint, which, he pretends, we impofe on ourselves without any colour of neceffity. But be affured, my lord, that the more a

* Dr. Atterbury.

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