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ELEGANT EXTRACTS?

or useful and Entertaining
PIECES of POETRY,
Selected for the

IMPROVEMENT of YOUTH,

I.V

Speaking, Reading, Thinking, Compofing;

and in the

CONDUCT of LIFE;

being similar in Design to

ELEGANT EXTRACTS IN PROSE.)

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PREFACE.

SING INCE Poetry affords young perfons an innocent pleasure, a tafte for it, under certain limitations, fhould be indulged. Why fhould they be forbidden to expatiate, in imagination, over the flowery fields of Arcadia, in Elyfium, in the Ifles of the Bleft, and in the Vale of Tempè? The harmlers delight which they derive from Poetry, is furely fufficient to recommend an attention to it, at an age when pleafure is the chief purfuit, even if the fweets of it were not blended with utility.

But if pleafure were the ultimate object of Poetry, there are fome who, in the rigour of auftere wisdom, would maintain that the precious days of youth might be more advantageously employed than in cultivating a tafte for it. To obviate their objections, it is neceffary to remind them, that Poetry has ever claimed the power of conveying inftruction in the most effectual manner, by the vehicle of pleasure.

There is reafon to believe that many young perfons of natural genius would have given very little attention to learning of any kind, if they had been introduced to it by books appealing only to their reafon and judgment, and not to their fancy. Through the pleafant paths of Poetry, they have been gradually led to the heights of icience: they have been allured, on firft fetting out, by the beauty of the fcene prefented to them, into a delightful land, flowing with milk and honey; where, after having been nourished like the infant from the mother's breaft, they have gradually acquired ftrength enough to relish and digeft the folideft food of philofophy.

This opinion feems to be confirmed by actual experience; for the greatest men, in every liberal and honourable profeffion, have given their early years to the charms of Poetry. Many of the moft illuftrious worthies in the church. and in the ftate, were allured to the land of learning by the fong of the Mufe; and they would perhaps have never entered it, if their preceptors had forbidden Of fo much confequence is Poetry to the general ad

them to lend an ear.

vancement of learning.

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And as to morals, Poetry," in the words of Sir Philip Sydney, "doth not only fhew the way, but giveth fo fweet a profpect of the way, as will entice any man to enter into it; nay, the Poet doth, as if your journey fhould be through a fair vineyard, at the very firft give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that tafte, you may long to pafs farther. He beginneth not with obfcure definitions, but he cometh to you with words fet in delightful propor❝tion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting kill of mufic;-and with a tale;-he cometh unto you with a tale, which boldeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner. Even thofe hard"hearted evil men, who think virtue a fchool-name, and defpife the auftere admonitions of the philofopher, and feel not the inward realons they ftand upon, yet will be contented to be delighted; which is all the good fellow "Poet feems to promife; and fo fteal to fee the form of goodness; which feen, they cannot but love, ere themfelves be aware, as if they took a medicine of

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Thus Poetry, by the gentle, yet certain method of allurement, leads both to learning and to virtue.

reftrictions, it is properly addreffed to all young minds, in the courfe of a liberal

I conclude, therefore, that, under a few felf-evident

education.

It must be confeffed, at the fame time, that many fenfible men, both in the world and in the schools of philofophy, have objected to it. They have thought that a tafte for it interfered with an attention to what they call the MAIN CHANCE. What poet ever fined for fheriff? fays Oldham. It is feldom feen that any one difcovers mines of gold and filver in Parnaffus, fays Mr. Locke. Such ideas have predominated in the exchange and in the warehoufe; and while they continue to be confined to thofe places, may perhaps, in some instances, be advantageous. But they ought not to operate on the mind of the gentleman, or the man of a liberal profeffion; and indeed there is no good reafon to be given why the mercantile claffes, at least of the higher order, should not amuse their leifure with any pleasures of polite literature.

That fome object to the ftudy of Poetry as a part of education, is not to be wondered at, when it is confidered that many, from want of natural fenfibility, or from long habits of inattention to every thing but fordid intereft, are totally unfurnished with faculties for the perception of poetical beauty. But fhall we deny the cowflip and violet their vivid colour and fweet fragrance, because the quadruped who feeds in the meadow, tramples over them without perceiving either their hues or their odours? Against the opposers of Poetry, the tafte of mankind, from China to Peru, powerfully militates.

Young minds have commonly a tafte for Poetry. Unfeduced by the love of money, and unhacknied in the ways of vice, they are indeed delighted with nature and fact, though unembellished; because all objects with them have the grace of novelty: but they are tranfported with the charms of Poetry, where the funfhine of fancy diffufes over every thing the fine glofs, the rich colouring, of beautiful imagery and language. "Nature" (to cite Sir Philip Sydney again) "never fet forth the earth in fo rich tapeftry as diverfe poets have done,

neither with fo pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, fweet-fmelling flowers, nor "whatsoever may make the earth more lovely.-The world is a brazen world' "the poets only deliver a GOLDEN; which whoever diflike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of tafle, and not in the fweet food of SWEETLY-UTTERED "KNOWLEDGE."

It will be readily acknowledged, that ideas and precepts of all kinds, whether of morality or fcience, make a deeper impreffion when inculcated by the vivacity, the painting, the melody of poetical language. And what is thus deeply impreffed will alto long remain; for metre and rhyme naturally catch hold of the memory, as the tendrils of the vine cling round the branches of the elm.

Old Orpheus and Linus are recorded in fable to have drawn the minds of favage men to knowledge, and to have polifhed human nature, by Poetry. And are not children in the ftate of nature? And is it not probable that Poetry may be the best inftrument to operate on them, as it was found to be on nations in the favage ftate? Since, according to the mythological wisdom of the ancients, Amphion moved ftones, and Orpheus brutes, by mufic and verse, is it not reasonable to believe, that minds which are dull, and even brutally infenfible, may be penetrated, sharpened, softened, and irradiated, by the warm influence of fine Poetry?

But it is really fuperfluous to expatiate either on the delight or the utility of Poetry. The fubje&t has been exhaufted; and, whatever a few men of little tafte and feeling, or of minds entirely fordid and fecular, may object, fuch are the charms of the Goddefs, fuch her powerful influence over the heart of man, that she will never want voluntary votaries at her fhrine. The Author of Nature has kindly implanted in man a love of Poetry, to folace him under the

labours

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