was nothing," he says,' *that Gray more disliked, than that chain of irregular stanzas which Cowley introduced, and falsely called Pindaric; and which, from the extreme facility of execution, produced a number of miserable imitators. Had the regular return of strophe, antistrophe, and epode, no other merit than that of extreme difficulty, it ought, on this very account, to be valued; because we well know, that easy writing is no easy reading."" Voltaire, it is well known, in the preface to the Edipe, has used a similar argument, in saying, "that the difficulty of composing in rhyme in French plays, is a great cause of the pleasure which we receive in the composition. Tragedy," he says, "would be destroyed if it were in blank verse; remove the difficulty, and you take away the merit." In a letter also to Mr. Walpole, he says, "Vous n'observez, vous autres libres Bretons, ni unité de lieu, ni unité de tems, ni unité d'action. En vérité vous n'en faites pas mieux. La vraisemblance doit être comptée pour quelque chose. L'art en devient plus difficile, et les difficultés vaincues donnent en tout genre du plaisir et de la gloire.” And in another part of the same letter he adds, "Permettez-moi de vous dire encore un mot sur la

* See Mason's Memoirs of Gray, vol. iii. p. 156, and Cobb's letter prefixed to his Female Reign, an Ode,' in Dorset's Poems, 1757, p. 119.

This passage from Voltaire is quoted in Dr. Blair's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 316, see Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 634, 636, 4to.

each stanza of the lyric ode should have but nine lines, to make the ear perceive the return of the regular metre; and that Pindar has many such odes." He appears however to have altered his opinion on this subject, before he wrote The Bard. He probably found, that an ode of this structure did not admit sufficient variety. The Ode by Fenton to Lord Gower,* which received the praise of Pope and Akenside, is formed in stanzas of ten lines.

In some observations on this point, Mr. Mason infers the superiority of the regular lyric stanza, over the irregular dithyrambic ode, from the comparative easiness of the latter: it being in the power of any poet to construct such an ode. "There

i. Ant. y. Olymp. vi. Epod. a. y. Olymp. viii. Ep. 6. Pyth. viii. Stroph. y. and also the odes of Horace which Dr. Warton has pointed out in his Essay on Pope (vol. i. p. 396.); viz. Lib. I. Od. xv., Lib. III. Od. iii. ver. 11. 37. and Epode v.

* As an instance of the structure, as well as spirit of this ode, the following stanza may be quoted:

"Beneath the pole, on hills of snow,

Like Thracian Mars, the undaunted Swede,

To dint of sword defies the foe,

In fight unknowing to recede.

From Volga's banks, the impetuous Czar
Leads forth his furry troops to war,

Fond of the softer southern sky;
The Soldan galls the Illyrian coast.
But soon the miscreant moony host

Before the victor-cross shall fly."

was nothing," he says,' *"that Gray more disliked, than that chain of irregular stanzas which Cowley introduced, and falsely called Pindaric; and which, from the extreme facility of execution, produced a number of miserable imitators. Had the regular return of strophe, antistrophe, and epode, no other merit than that of extreme difficulty, it ought, on this very account, to be valued; because we well know, that easy writing is no easy reading.' Voltaire, it is well known, in the preface to the Edipe, has used a similar argument, in saying, "that the difficulty of composing in rhyme in French plays, is a great cause of the pleasure which we receive in the composition. Tragedy," he says, "would be destroyed if it were in blank verse; remove the difficulty, and you take away the merit." In a letter also to Mr. Walpole, he says, "Vous n'observez, vous autres libres Bretons, ni unité de lieu, ni unité de tems, ni unité d'action. En vérité vous n'en faites pas mieux. La vraisem→ blance doit être comptée pour quelque chose. L'art en devient plus difficile, et les difficultés vaincues donnent en tout genre du plaisir et de la gloire." And in another part of the same letter he adds, "Permettez-moi de vous dire encore un mot sur la

* See Mason's Memoirs of Gray, vol. iii. p. 156, and Cobb's letter prefixed to his 'Female Reign, an Ode,' in Dorset's Poems, 1757, p. 119.

This passage from Voltaire is quoted in Dr. Blair's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 316, see Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 634, 636, 4to.

rime que vous nous reprochez. Presque toutes les pièces de Driden sont rimées. Et je soutiens encore que Cinna, Atalie, Iphigénie étant rimés, quiconque voudrait secouer ce joug en France, serait regardé comme un artiste foible, qui n'auroit pas la force de le porter.

"En qualité de vieillard il faut que je vous dire une anecdote. Je demandais un jour à Pope pourquoi Milton n'avoit pas rimé son poëme, dans le tems que les autres poëtes rimoient leurs poëmes à l'imitation des Italiens; il me répondit-because he could not." Both these opinions may seem to be branched off from the general observation made by Aristotle in his Treatise on Rhetoric, rò xaλɛπώτερον, μεῖζον ἄγαθον, and which to a certain extent seems to be strongly founded upon nature and truth.

*

In regard to Mr. Mason's opinion, he has perhaps laid down his position in too unlimited a manner; and placed rather more stress upon the metrical construction of the ode than is due. There are certainly other great difficulties in the composition of the ode, besides the occurrence of the regular metre. It must require nearly the same talents to construct a good ode, either in measure irregular or fixed: nor would inferior talents succeed, though released from the bondage of such

* See Aristotelis Rhetorica, lib. i. cap. vii. ed. Holwell. And A. Smith's Philosophical Essays, 4to. p. lviii. în the account of his Life, by D. Stewart.

restriction. If we receive greater pleasure from the regular ode, which I fully believe, it must be sought for from another cause, in conjunction with that of the difficulté surmontée;' chiefly from the uniformity we associate with our notions of all poetical composition; from our being accustomed to measures which have regularity and proportion in their parts; and from the perplexity and confusion arising in our minds, from intricacy and irregularity of structure. There is a repugnance which we feel at first to the introduction of any novel form of composition: perhaps there is no young reader of poetry, who does not at first dislike the use of the triplet in Dryden, because it is unexpected; and indeed in all cases, the beauty of it will depend on some nice preparation in the cadence, and on the skilfulness of its introduction in the preceding lines. Τὸ συνήθες, says Aristotle,* ἡδὺ μᾶλλον τοῦ ἀσυνηθοῦς. And in a problem he has on this subject, he says, Διὰ τὶ ἥδιον ἀκούουσιν ἀδόντων, ὅσα προεπιστάμενοι τυγχανωσι τῶν μέλων, ἢ ὧν μὴ ἐπιστάνται. And in the forty-first problem of the same chapter, he asks, Διὰ τὶ ἥδιον ἀκούουσιν ἀδόντων, ὅσα ἂν προεπιστάμενοι τύχωσι τῶν μέλων, ἢ ἐὰν μὴ ἐπιστῶνται. πότερον ὅτι μᾶλλον δῆλος ἔστιν ὁ τυγχάνων, ὥσπερ σκόπου, ὅταν γνωρίζωσι τὸ ᾀδόμενον. γνωριζόντων δὲ, ἡδὺ θεωρεῖν ἢ ὅτι συμπαθὴς ἔστιν ὁ ἀκροατὴς, τῷ τὸ γνώριμον ἄδοντι.

* Vid. Problemata θ. ε. p. 763, and 768. ed. Duval: and Probl. θαμ. ρ. 768.