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BIBLIOGRAPHY. |
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(which is to be found, if I mistake not, in the roughest, if rightly repeated) lies in a manner wholly at the mercy of the reader. I have briefly described the nature of these verses in the ode entitled The Resurrection ; * and though the liberty of them may incline a man to believe them easy to be composed, yet the undertaker will find it otherwise.
In 1679, Samuel Woodford, D.D., published a Paraphrase on the Canticles, and Hymns; and in the preface made certain observations on the structure of English verse, which are mentioned, not so much for anything remarkable in his criticism, as for his high commendation, at the period, of Milton's Paradise Lost; though he would rather M it had been composed in rhyme"!
About the same time another work came out, comprising some principles of versification, together with an assistance towards making English verse. The title was the English Parnassus, or a Help to English Poesie ; containing a collection of all the rhyming monosyllables, the choicest epithets and phrases, with some general forms upon all occa-
• The passage in the Ode on the Resurrection, to which he refers, is this:
Stop, stop, my Muse, allay thy vigorous heat,
Kindled at a hint so great;
Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,
Which does to rage begin,
And this steep hill would gallop up with violent course:
'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse,
Fierce and unbroken yet,
Impatient of the spur or bit:
Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place:
Disdains the servile law of any settled pace ;
Conscious and proud of his own natural force:
'Twill no unskilful touch endure,
But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. |
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