trying criticism, and the partial judgment of its admirers has been overruled by the irreversible decree of time and opinion. It has great beauties, scattered like gems, here and there along the surface; but the grave faults which pervade the whole composition, more than eclipse their lustre. The fable is languid, the subject of no striking interest, the metre tiresome and monotonous, and the soberness of style we require in an epic vitiated by the quaintness and abruptness, the writers of that age so universally affected. But it has fancy, imagery, enlarged views of life and science, and abounds with striking apophthegms and deep moral reflections, clothed in chaste and forcible language. We present the reader with the following extracts:
Of a court he says:
"There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake."
Of care:
"She visits cities, but she dwells on thrones."
Of the pious man, he
"Served Heaven with praise, the world with prayer."
"The laws,
Men from themselves, but not from power, secure."
"If you approve what numbers lawful think,
Be bold, for numbers cancel bashfulness;
Extremes from which a King would blushing shrink,
Unblushing senates act as no excess."
Describing musical instruments, he says, all
"That joy did e'er invent, or breath inspired,
Or flying fingers touch'd into a voice."
Of a temple:
"This, to soothe Heaven, the bloody Clephes built,
As if Heaven's King so soft and easy were,
So meanly housed in heaven, and kind to guilt,
That he would be a tyrant's tenant here."
