Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/150

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unusual an exercise, he recollects himself occasionally, and produces a firm and metrical line. After all, it will appear on perusal, that where he failed as the bard, he could still support the character of the reasoner. The ideas follow one another in a just and regular concatenation; and generally find expressions suited to their tenor. The argument constantly presses forward, without being drawn aside, or in danger of escaping from our hold, to run after foreign objects or incongruous speculations. Had the author of these lines been better acquainted with the mechanism of versification and regular arrangement, which practice would have mastered by degrees, he would have had no reason to despair of becoming a poet.

In me delight is spread, to mark th' approach
Of Spring, when roses and all other flowers
Scatter with beauty the new-moistened ground
Of the then bright'ning year: to mark their shew