that the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to confefs fuperior, is haftening daily to a level with ourselves. By delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the exact time when his genius paffed the zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion. Intellectual decay is doubtlefs not uncommon; but it feems not to be univerfal. Newton was in his eightyfifth year improving his Chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my my opinion, to have loft at eightytwo any part of his poetical power.

His Sacred Poems do not please like fome of his other works; but before the fatal fiftyfive, had he written on the fame fubjects, his fuccefs would hardly have been better.

It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verfe has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry; that they have very feldom

attained

attained their end is fufficiently known, and it may not be improper to enquire why they have mifcarried.

The doctrines defended in a

Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in oppofition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often pleafe. of religion may indeed be didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verfe, will not lofe it because his fubject is facred. A poet may defcribe the beauty and the grandeur of Nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvefts of Autumn, the viciffitudes of the Tide, and the revolutions of the Sky, and praise the Maker for his works in lines which no reader fhall lay afide. The fubject of the difputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the defcription is not God, but the works of God.

Contemplative piety, or the intercourfe between God and the human foul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher ftate than poetry can confer.

The

The effence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing fomething unexpected, furprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are few, and being few are uni verfally known; but, few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of fentiment, and very little from novelty of expreffion.

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themfelves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of thofe parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel the imagination: but religion must be shewn as it is; fuppreffion and addition equally corrupt it; and fuch as it is, it is known already.

From poetry the reader juftly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehenfion and elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, defireable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity

I

cannot

cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.

The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effufions, yet addreffed to a Being without paffions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather than expreffed. Repentance trembling in the prefence of the judge, is not at leifure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of man to man may diffuse itfelf through many topicks of perfuafion; but fupplication to God can only cry for

mercy.

Of fentiments purely religious, it will be found that the moft fimple expreffion is the moft fublime. Poetry lofes its luftre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of fomething more excellent than itself. All that pious verfe can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very ufeful; but it fupplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian

3

Theo

Theology are too fimple for eloquence, too facred for fiction, and too majestick for örňament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the fidereal hemisphere.

As much of Waller's reputation was ow ing to the foftness and fmoothhefs of his Numbers; it is propers to confider those minute particulars to which a versifyer must attend.

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He certainly very much excelled in fmoothnefs most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. The Poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davis, which, though merely philofophical, yet feldom leaves the ear ungratified.

But he was rather smooth than strong; of the full refounding line, which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The critical decifion has given the praife of ftrength

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