Dicere cedit eos, 'ignava multa fatetur;

Et fapit, et mecum facit, et Jove judicat aequo

Philip Sidney. He attempted to introduce the Roman hexameter and pentameter meafure into English verfe. Baif, a French Poet, in the time of their Hen. II. had attempted the fame thing before him, and with the fame fuccefs.

VER. 107. And God the Father turns a School-divine.] Ben Johnfon ridicules the humour of his age, when the audience chofe to take their knowledge of English History from Shakefpear's Plays. The present fafhion for Milton makes us ready to learn our Religion from the Paradife L: though it be certain, he was as poor and fanciful a Divine, as Shakespear was a licentious Hiltorian. This appears from many places of that admirable Poem. As he here degrades the Father by making him follow the fchool-fstems; fo, in his Paradife Regain'd, he difhonours the Son, by making him the Author of the MAHOMETAN Oeconomy of grace.

"Victorious deeds

"Flam'd in my heart, heroic acts, one while
"To refcue Ifrael from the Roman yoke;
"Then to fubdue and quell o'er all the Earth
"Brute violence, and proud tyrannic pow'r,
"Till truth was freed and equity restor❜d:
"Yet held it more humane, more heav'nly, FIRST
"By winning words to conquer willing hearts,
"And make perfuafion do the work of fear;
"At least to try, and teach the erring foul
"Not willingly mifdoing, but unaware
"Mifled; the ftubborn only to destroy."

VER. 104. Bentley.] This excellent Critic, who had the fortune to be extravagantly defpifed and ridiculed by two of the greatest Wits, [P. S.] and as extravagantly feared and flattered by two of the greatest Scholars of his time, [C. H.]

Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, Now Serpent-like, in 'profe he sweeps the

ground,

In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join,

And God the Father turns a School-divine.

m

100

Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like flashing Bentley with his defp'rate hook,

n

- NOTES.

will deferve to have that justice done him now, which he never met with while alive.

He was a great Master both of the languages and the learning of polite Antiquity; whofe Writings he ftudied with no other defign than to correct the errors of the text. For this he had a strong natural understanding, a great share of penetration, and a fagacity and acumen very uncommon. All which qualities he had greatly improved by long exercise and application. Yet, at the fame time, he had fo little of that elegance of judgment, we call Tafte, that he knew nothing of Style, as it accommodates itfelf, and is appropriated to, the various kinds of compofition. And his reafoning faculty being infinitely better than that of his imagination, the Style of Poetry was what he leaft understood. So that, that clearness of conception, which so much affifted his critical fagacity, in discovering and reforming errors in books of fcience, where a philofophical precifion, and grammatical exactnefs of language is employed, ferved but to betray him into abfurd and extravagant conjectures, whenever he attempted to reform the text of a Poet; whofe diction he was always for reducing to the profaic rules of logical feverity; and whenever he found what a great mafter of fpeech calls verbum ardens, he was fure not to leave it till he had thoroughly quenched it in his critical ftandish. But to make Philology amends, he was a perfect Master of all the myfteries of the ancient Rythmus.

Effe reor, memini quae "plagofnm ° mihi parvo

Orbilium dictare;

fed emendata videri

Pulchraque, et exactis minimum diftantia, miror:

NOTES.

The most important of his Works, as a scholar, is his Critique on the Epifles of Phalaris: and the leaft confiderable, his Remarks on the Difcourfe concerning Free-thinking. Yet the first, with all its fuperiority of learning, argument, and truth, was borne down by the vivacity and clamour of a Party, which (as ufual) carried the public along with them: while the other, employed only in the eafy and trifling task of expofing a very dull and very ignorant Rhapfodift, was as extravagantly extolled. For it was his odd fortune (as our Poet expreffes it) to pass for

"A Wit with Dunces, and a Dunce with Wits :"

whereas in truth he was neither one nor the other. The injuftice that had been done him in the firft cafe, made him always fpeak, amongst his friends, of the blind partiality of the public, in the latter, with the contempt it deferved. For however he might fometime mistake his own force, he was never the dupe of the public judgment: Of which, a learned Prelate, now living, gave me this inftance: He accidentally met Bentley in the days of Phalaris; and after having complimented him on that noble Piece of Criticifm (the Answer to the Oxford writers) he bad him not be difcouraged at this run upon him: for though they had got the laughers on their fide, yet mere wit and raillery could not hold it out long against a Work of fo much Merit. To which the other replied, "Indeed, Dr. S. I am in no pain about the matter. "For it is a maxim with me, that no man was ever written "out of reputation, but by himself."

Or damn all Shakespear, like th' affected Fool 105 At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.

But for the Wits of either Charles's days, The Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Eafe; Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, (Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er) 110

NOTES.

Ibid. his defp'rate hook] Alluding to the several paffages of Milton, which Bentley has reprobated, by including them within hooks; fome with judgment, and fome without any.

VER. 108. The Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Eafe;] The Poet has here very happily exemplified this envied quality of easy uriting, in the turn of the verfes which expofe it. Thefe Wits formed themselves, for the most part, on SUCKLING, a fine original genius. But on fo flippery a ground it was no wonder, fuch Imitators fhould fall; and either fink his free and eafy manner into infipidity; or abuse it, to ribaldry and licentioufnefs: They did both; till eafy writing came to be defined a negligence of what they faid, and how they faid it. This was called writing like a Gentleman. But as fashions take their turn, Lord Shaftesbury has introduced a new fort of Gentleman-like writing, which confifts indeed, like the other, in a negligence of what is faid, but joined to much affectation in the manner of faying it.

VER. 109. Sprat,] Rightly put at the head of the small Wits. He is now known to most advantage as the Friend of Mr. Cowley. His Learning was comprised in the well rounding a period: For, as Seneca faid of Triarius, "Compofi

tione verborum belle cadentium multos Scholafticos delecta"bat, omnes decipiebat." As to the turn of his piety and genius, it is beft feen by his laft Will and Teftament, where he gives God thanks that he who had been bred neither at Eaton nor Westminster, but at a little country fchool by the Churchyard fide, fhould at last come to be a Bishop.-But the honour of being a Westminster School-boy fome have at one

Injuste totum ducit venitque poema.

'Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quiacraffe Compofitum, illepideve putetur, fed quia nuper; Nec veniam antiquis, fed honorem et proemia pofci.

*Recte necne crocum florefque perambulet Attae

Fabula, fi dubitem; clament periiffe pudorem
Cuncti pene patres: ea cum reprehendere coner,
Quae gravis Aefopus, quae doctus Rofcius egit.

NOTES.

age, and some at another; and fome all their life long. Our grateful Bishop, though he had it not in his youth, it came upon him in his old age.

VER. 113. gleams thro' many a page,] The image is taken from half-formed unripe lightening, which ftreams along the fky, and is just fufficient to fhow the deformity of those black vapours, to which it ferves (as Milton expreffes it) for a silver lining.

VER. 119. On Avon's bank,] At Stratford in Warwickfhire, where Shakespear had his birth. The thought of the Original is here infinitely improved-Perambulet is a low allufion to the name and imperfections of Atta.

VER. 121. One Tragic fentence if I dare deride.] When Writers of our Author's rank have once effectually expofed