duced by playing with the violence of our paffions, and many other parts of your learned differ. tation, which I omit, to avoid tranfcribing the whole, are still lefs valuable for the truth which is peculiar to them, than on account of the prodigious advantages, that may be drawn from them by fuch artists as are capable of unveiling them, and applying ufeful and fuitable obfervations. I owe you my thanks, both as an author and as an Italian, and I give them you with the greateft pleasure. But, jealous as I may be of the good fenfe of a judge like you, yet as a poet I would chufe that my own art fhould lofe nothing, by the preference you have given to mufic, in regarding this as the principal object of the drama, and in attributing its progrefs to its being difengaged from the fhackles of poetry.

neither doth it intereft our paffions, fentiments, or reafon. It only difplays its native charms; but then, what pleafure, what applaufe doth it excite? A pleafure that arifes merely from novelty and furprife; fuch plaudits as cannot be juftly refufed to a rope-dancer, whofe performance exceeds the expectation of the public.

When mufic, in concert with poetry, afpires to fuperiority, it deftroys poetry, and lofes itfelf. It would be a great abfurdity to fuppofe, that the habiliments could ever be capable of meriting more regard, or attracting more attention than the very perfon for whom they were defigned. My dramatic pieces are much better received in all parts of Italy, when they are fimply declaimed, than when they are fung in air or recitative. Make the fame trial of the finest piece of mufic, ftript of the ornament of words, do you imagine it will ftand the test? Thofe airs called bravura, the too frequent ufe of which you justly condemn, are directly the last effort of mufic, endeavouring to ufurpan empire over poetry. Mufic, in these airs, pays no regard to fituation or characters,

Yet proud of this fuccefs, our modern mufic has infolently revolted against poetry, it has neglected the true and genuine expreffion, and has confidered words but as a fervile vehicle, which muft fubmit to all its capricious extravagances in oppofition to the rules of good fenfe. The theatre no longer refounds, but with the airs called bravura, and mufic has thus haftened its own fall, when it had before occafioned the ruin of the drama.

Thofe pleasures which make no impreffion on the understanding, or which intereft not the affections, are of very fhort duration. It is certain mankind eafily yield to mechanical fenfations, when they are agreeable, and have the force' of novelty and furprife, but they cannot abfolutely renounce their reafoning faculty, for the bare fatisfaction of being pleafed. The inconveniency I here complain of, is now arrived at fo intolerable an height, as to make it neceffary from this moment, that mufic, as a rebellious flave,fhould either again fubmit to its lawful fovereign, which can adorn it with fuch grace and beauty, or that it fhould totally withdraw, and blend itself no more with poetry, and let poetry for the future be fatisfied with its own proper melody; whilft mufic fhall be content with regulating the

harmony of a concert, or prefiding over the movements of a dance, without ever meddling with the affairs of the buskin. I have the honour to be, &c.

THE

An Effay on Elegies.

may

HE critics have been very laborious in fettling the boundaries of paftoral writing; and in the delicacy of their judg. ment, have ftruck many compofitions both of Theocritus and Virgil out of the lift, of which it be faid, as Pope handfomely fays of his own, if they are not paftorals, they are fomething better. It were to be wished that they had ufed alfo the fame judicial feverity, in afcertaining the nature of Elegy; though by that means, many a putter together of long and fhort verfe in Latin, and many an alternate rhymift in English, had been at a lofs to know what fpecies of poetry he writ in. The poems of Tyrteus are, it is true, called elegies, but with much the fame propriety, as if we were to call the pifcatory eclogues of Sannazarius, paftorals; they walk, indeed, in the measure of elegy, but breathe all the fpirit of the ode.

The elegiac mufe feems to be the natural companion of diftrefs; and the immediate feelings of the heart, the object of all her expreffion. Hence the is generally called in to the affiftance of defpairing lovers, who, having received their death's wound from their miftrefs's eyes, breathe out their amorous ditties, and like the dying fwan, expire in harmony. What the elegies of Callimachus were, the learned can only conjecture; but

they muft have been better than thofe of his profeffed imitator Propertius, or antiquity had, never been fo lavish in their commendation. In Propertius, we fee the verfifying fcholar, who perhaps never loved any woman at all: in Ovid, the poet, and the man of gallantry, who would intrigue with every woman he met; while the elegant Tibullus, one of love's devoted flaves, as he always fpeaks from his own heart, makes a forcible impreffion upon ours,

The hopes, fears, and anxieties, with all the tumults of paffion which diftract the lover's breaft, will not give him time to think of the mode of expreffion, or to fetch his illufions from books; nature is contented to deliver herself with perfpicuity, and where the fentiment is natural, the phrafe cannot be too fimple. Upon no fubject whatever have fo many prettinees and abfurd conceits been invented as love; yet, furely, where the head has been fo painfully laborious, we may fafely pronounce the heart to have been perfectly at ease. Love is not ingenious; though the affected Italians, and ridiculous French poets of the laft century, not to mention our own Cowley, have brought their judgment in queftion, by an exuberant difplay of falfe wit. The plaintive mule is generally reprefented to us, as

Paffis elegeia capillis,

" as one that difcards all how and appears in dishevelled locks; but the politer moderns are for: putting her hair into papers ; and whether the complaint turns upon the death of a friend, or the lofs of a mistress, the pathon must stand

ftill, till the expreffion is got ready to introduce it. When we are truly affected, we have no leifure to think of art: " Simplex & ingenua eft moeroris vox; flebilis, intermiffa, fracta, concifa oratio*." Then our language is unadorned, and unembarraffed with epithets; and perhaps, in that book, in which there are more inftances of true and fublime fimplicity, than all the ancients together, there are lefs epithets to be met with than in any authors whatever: and I can. not help thinking the ill fuccefs many poets have met with in paraphrafing thofe divine writers, has been principally owing to their weakening the fublimity of the poetry, by idle defcription, and clogging the fimplicity of the fentiment with the affected frippery of epithetical ornament.

Elegy, it must be confeffed, has often extended her province, and the moral contemplations of the poet have fometimes worn her me. lancholy garb. As in the celebrated poem of Mr. Gray, written in a church-yard. For though the is generally the felfish mourner of domestic diftrefs, whether it be upon the lofs of a friend, or difappointment in love; the fometimes enlarges her reflections upon univerfal calamities, and with a becoming dignity, as in the infpired writers, pathetically weeps over the fall of nations.

In short, whatever the fubject is, the language of this fpecies of poetry fhould be fimple and unaffected, the thoughts natural and pathetic, and the numbers flowing and harmonious. Mr. Mafon has written elegies, with fome fuccefs: but whoever examines them, in expectation of meeting these requi

fites, will be difappointed; he will be fometimes pleafed indeed; but feldom fatisfied. For, in his mo ral effays, or epiftles, or any thing but elegies, the fentiments, which are but thinly fcattered, though they glitter with the glare of expreffion, and amble along by the artful aid of alliteration:

"Play round the head, but come

not near the heart."

Yet, even though we can fee the labour the poet has been at, in culling his words, and pairing his epithet with his fubftantive, his fuccefs has not been always equal to his labours. There is, indeed, too apparently, in his poems, the curiofitas verborum; but not always the curiofa felicites.

I cannot take leave of this fubject, without indulging myfelf in one remark, which may perhaps be of ufe to thofe poets who have never read, and are determined to write. The elegy, ever fince Mr. Gray's excellent one in the churchyard, has been in alternate rhyme, which is by many ridiculously imagined to be a new measure adapted to plaintive fubjects, introduced by that ingenious author, whereas it is heroic verfe, and to be met with in Dryden's Annus Mirabilis; and all through the long and tedious poem of Davenant's Gondibert. The couplet is equally proper for this kind of poetry, as the alter. nate rhyme; and though Gray and Hammond have excelled in the laft, Pope's elegy on the death of an unfortunate young lady, will prove thofe numbers equally expreflive and harmonious; nor fhall I doubt to place our English ballads, fuch as have been written by Rowe,

Gay,

in general, confift of malefactors condemned for life to this tafk, they are fed at the public expence; but they feldom confume much provifion, as they lofe their appetites in a fhort time; and commonly in about two years expire, from a total contraction of all the joints of the body.

In this horrid manfion I walked after my guide for fome time, pondering on the ftrange tyranny and avarice of mankind, when I was accofted by a voice behind me, calling me by name, and enquiring after my health with the moft cordial affection. I turned and faw a creature all black and hideous, who approached me, and with a moft piteous accent, demanding, "Ah! Mr. Everard, don't you know me!" Good God, what was my furprife, when, through the veil of his wretchednefs, I difcovered the features of my old and dear friend, Alberti. I flew to him with affection; and, after a tear of condolence, asked how he came there? To this he replied, that having fought a duel with a general of the Auftrian infantry, against the emperor's command, and having left him for dead, he was obliged to fly into one of the forefts of Iftria, where he was firft taken, and afterwards fheltered by fome banditti, who had long infefted that quarter. With thefe he had · lived for nine months, till, by a clofe inveftiture of the place in which they were concealed, and after a very obftinate refiftance, in which the greater part of them were killed, he was taken, and carried to Vienna, in order to be broke alive upon the wheel. However, upon arriving at the capital, he was quickly known, and feveral of the

affociates of his accufation and danger witneffing his innocence, his punishment of the rack was changed into that of perpetual confinement and labour in the mines of Idra; a fentence, in my opinion, a thousand times worfe than death.

As Alberti was giving me this account, a young woman came up to him, who at once I faw to be born for better fortune; the dreadful fituation of the place was not able to deftroy her beauty, and even in this fcene of wretchednefs, fhe feemed to have charms to grace the moft brilliant affembly. This lady was, in fact, daughter to one of the firft families in Germany, and having tried every means to procure her lover's pardon without effect, was at laft refolved to share his miferies, as fhe could not relieve them. With him she accordingly defcended into thefe mansions from whence few of the living return; and with him fhe is contented to live, forgetting the gaieties of life; with him to toil, defpifing the fplendours of opulence, and contented with the confcioufnefs of her own conftancy.

I am, dear Sir,

Your's, &c.

LETTER II.

Dear Sir,

MY laft to you was expreflive,

and perhaps too much fo, of the gloomy fituation of my mind. I own the deplorable fitua tion of the worthy man defcribed in it, was enough to add double