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A35672
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Miscellanies in verse and prose a quote / by Mr. Dennis.
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Dennis, John, 1657-1734.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing D1034; ESTC R20371
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46,572
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182
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richness and true Magnificence You could never converse with the Muses so freely as to understand them fully if you did not perfectly speak that language of the Gods in all its Sweetness all its Abundance in all the power of its various Numbers and in all its 〈◊〉 Majesty No My Lord you could never be pleas'd to a height with the Writings of others if in writing your self you had not felt those happy Enthusiasms those violent Emotions those supernatural transports which exalt a 〈◊〉 above mortality give delight and admiration to all the World but shakâ— and ravish a 〈◊〉 Soul with insupportable pleasuâ—â— But it is high time to take leave of a Subject which throws me into a heat which is very inconsistent with the respect that is due to your Lordship's Character Otherwise it would be no hard matter to prove from the same affection which you bear to the Muses that your Lordship's Virtue shines as bright as your Genius Carmen amat quisquis Carmine digna gerit But there is small need of proving that Virtue which all men discover by its own light Your Lordship's Genius shines but to a feâ— to none but those happy few who have some particles in their breasts of the same eternal Fire For inspiration alone can capacitate a Mortal to behold Celestial Beauties The Vulgar discern it as they do a fix'd Star they see that it is they see that it shines but the Rays that it casts at that infinite distance can but just reach their benighted Souls thro the horrid gloom that surrounds them and it is with pleasing wonder that they hear the Sons of Art proclaiming its prodigious Grandeur its amazing Glory But all men have a clear Idea of Virtue tho few have a just notion of Genius Your Virtue My Lord like the Sun is nearer to them tho that too is at a mighty distance yet not so remote but that at the time that it cherishes them it casts more light upon them than their Souls can directly â—ear Who does not admire your Goodness your Charity your generous Condescension your greatness of Mind your noblest Friendship and to crown all your Passionate Concern for your Countries welfare These are the qualities which have caus'd your Lordship to be belov'd universally nay and belov'd too with as much warmth as if you were neither much esteem'd nor respected yet at the same time so profoundly esteem'd and in that awfull manner respected as if you were not belov'd The news of your late Promotion was receiv'd with the universal acknowledgement That your Lordship was an honour to that most noble Order which is an honour to Kings and we all cryed out unanimously with your own Horace Mecoenas equitum decus But I must be forc'd to stop short in this full career lest proceeding I should please all Readers but you whom of all Readers I would least displease Before I conclude I think fit to acquaint your Lordship that I omitted the prefixing your name to this bold Epistle for several reasons the chief of which is that I might not be liable to the accusation which one of our greatest Wits has some time since brought against dedicating Authors which is that they paint so grosly that it were impossible to know for whom the Dawbers design'd their Pictures if they did not to inform us set their names on the Top. I appeal to all those who shall happen to read this if before they found you nam'd they did not conclude that what has been said all along could be addrest to no man and justly applyed to no man but my Lord Dorset alone I am My Lord Your Lordships most Humble Most Obedient and most faithful Servant JOHN DENNIS THE PREFACE THE Verses composing this little Volume were Writ on such various Subjects that many of them requir'd quite different Spirits and quite oppose Characters Some of them demanded the Enthusiastick Spirit and all that others were capapable of was a little good Sense and an air of Gaity The first were the most difficult to handle by much which yet if they should chance to be manag'd aright would make me an ample a mends for my toil For tho mear Enthusiasm is but Madness nothing can be more noble than that which is rightly regulated and nothing can come nearer that which I fancy to be a true description of Wit which is a just mixture of Reason and Extravagance that is such a mixture as reason may always be sure to predominate and make its mortal Enemy subservient to its grand design of discovering and illustrating sacred Truth When I writ the Pindarick Ode the high Idea that I had of the Subject and of the way of writing made me resolve to spare for no Pains before I set Pen to Paper that I might form a design which might have something great and Pindarical For the skilful Reader will easily discern that the disorder in that Ode is studied and that the Transitions which appear so wild and so foreign tend directly to shew what I design'd to prove viz. That the happiness of England and the Success of the Confederacy depended on the King's Person How I have succeeded I must leave to the Readers to judge yet not to every Reader For the Pindarick way if you 'l give credit to a great Master is dangerous both to Writer and Reader The first must have some qualities at the time of writing which are rarely to be found together as Precipitation and Address Boldness and Decency Sublimeness and Clearness Fury and Sense the last inust have Fancy to see his flights and Skill to judge of their Art He who mounts the Pindarick Pegasus may be compar'd to a man a Hawking who rides at all upon a headlong Hunter with his Eye still fix'd on a towring Game so that he must not only have something of Art but of Happiness besides to escape a Fall Let my Fortune be what it will my comfort is this That England since Mr. Cowle ys time has not seen many Pindarick Odes whose Authors have reason to boast of their kind reception I should now say something of the Verses upon the Sea-Fight and one or two Copies more But tho they have something in them that seems bold to presumption yet they have already met with such kind entertainment in the World that the consideration of that in some measure assures me But since almost a third of this little Book consists of Burlesque Composures and since Burlesque at present lies under the disadvantage of having two great Authorities against it viz. Boileau's and Mr. Drydens I think my self oblig'd not only upon that account but upon consideration too of that wonderful pleasure which I have so often receiv'd from Butler to vindicate Burlesque from the scandal that is brought upon it by the Censures of two such extraordinary Men. The charge of Boileau is in his Art of Poetry Chant pre in these Lines Quoyque vous ecriviez evitez la
expression than in any other sort of writing Whereas in Satyr the thoughts ought to be more simple and the expressions less magnificent It follows from what has been said that if the measure of eight syllables is agreeable in Pindarick Verse it is much more agreeable to Burlesque which is a kind of Satyr Besides it is apparent that in Burlesque the measure is often extended to the ninth and sometimes to the tenth syllable But it is high time to say something of the Rhymes Mr. Dryden complains that they return too thick upon us but then the thoughts have the quicker turns and I never can be persuaded that succinctness can be a fault in writing unless it be destructive of perspicuity It is objected that double and treble Rhymes are effeminate and debase the dignity of Verse below manly Satyr But this objection will be in force too against Tassone whose manner Mr. Dryden seems to approve of For he has writ his Satyr in double and treble Rhymes too but with this difference from Butler that Butler makes use of them but sometimes and Tassone does it perpetually Nay the great Tasso has written his Heroick Poem in them I shall find another time to speak at large of the Gierusalemme but this I can say at present which is remarkably to the purpose That some parts of that Poem are so far from being effeminate that they have incomparably more gravity than any long winded Poem which has been writ by the Moderns if you only except some passages of the Paradise lost of Milton Mr. Dryden himself in his own Satyrs has sometimes made use of double and treble Rhymes ev'n in Heroick Verse And in the Character of Zimri which Mr. Dryden prefers to any part of Absalom and Achitophel there are two couplets in the space of eight Lines which are writ in double Rhymes and those two couplets are two of the very best in all that admirable Character There is more than one considerable advantage that we have by our Burlesque Rhymes For first they show the power and plenty of the English Tongue For neither Italian nor French have a sort of Rhymes for their Burlesque which is different from those which they have for their other kinds of Verse Nor have they in either of those Tongues any of those odd Rhymes to the making up of which two or three words conspire These Rhymes thus constituted which is another advantage of our English Burlesque seem to me to be as peculiarly becoming of a Jest as a roguish Leer or a comical tone of a Voice and that it may plainly appear that this is no Whimsie let the best Versifier in England turn these two Lines of Butler And Pulpet drâ—m Ecclesiastick â—as â—eat with Fist instead of a Stick Let any one I say turn these two Lines into other Rhymes and other Measures and I dare engage that the â—est shall loose considerably Before I take my leave of Burlesque 〈◊〉 Butler I think fit to say something of the latter which has not so direct a reference to his way of writing tho that too is indirectly commended by it as to the incomparable genius of the Man It is this that if any one would set the Common places of Tassone and â—oileau's Lutrin against those of Butler it would appear for the Honour of England that neither the French man nor Italian could stand before us The most diverting thing in all the Lâ—trin is the Battle at Barbin's Shop Chanâ— 5. Yet that if it is compar'd with the Battle in the second Canto of the first part of Hudibras tho it is so diverting when we read it alone will appear to be perfectly insipid Before I conclude I have two things to say farther The one is that the Verses to Flavia were writ by a Friend of mine and only Corrected by me and it is by my friends leave that they are here inserted The other thing is this that tho I may expect to have this little Book severely examined because I have attack'd several great men who are all of them many degrees above me yet I shall not at all repent of any thing I have writ by way of Criticism if I do but in any measure obtain what I design'd by it which was nothing but to advance Polite Learning amongst us Not that I believe my self capable of performing it but I thought that the consideration of my impotency might excite some generous spirits whom Nature and Education have capacitated for so noble a work There is no man should be more glad to see it carried on than my self I love my Country very well and therefore should be ravished to see that we out did the French in Arts at the same time that we contend for Empire with them For Arts and Empire in Civiliz'd Nations have generally flourish'd together Miscellany Poems c. A Pindaric Ode on the KING written Aug. 2. 1691. I. NOw at great Iove's supream command Fortune his Slave with threatning hand Furiously whirls about her wheel Which turning like a vast machine Changes the Worlds great stage unseen Whilst with the motion giddy Nations reel II. Alecto has been rows'd from Hell To punish a flagitious age In human Breasts her Serpents dwell And sting the guilty world to rage The Fury stalks about and raves Germany trembles at her horrid yell She rates the backward French goads on th' abandon'd Slaves To execute the black contrivances of Hell On to prodigious villanies they go Till they want sense their monstrous crimes to know Thro the Palatinate she with them flies And whilst the native by his murderer dies She her infernal Torch to ev'ry house applies A Town she burns for each vast Fun'ral Pile And grinning horribly a ghastly smile Upon the flames as terribly they blaze Th' abominable fiend with dismal Joy doth gaze III. As Deluges whole Kingdoms sweep Urg'd by fierce Tempests and the Deep Wars dreadful inundation swells Rais'd both by wrath Divine and Hells Nor Art nor Nature has the force To stop its noisie course Nor Alps nor Pyreneans keep it out Nor fortify'd Redoubt IV. In vain the Irish Straw-built Hutts forsake And to their Bogs in vain they make There soon does Fate her fugitives o'retake And as with horror and with fear Her grim attendants she draws near The bogs and men with one Convulsion shake V. In vain to the AEtherial Skies Climbing his Alps th' amaz'd Savoyard flies The Bloody French the wretch persue Who pants with toil and terror too And near to Heaven deaf to his piercing cries By impious hands he dies VI. In Belgian Plains whilst th' English Lyon ramps Terror's diffus'd thro Gallick Forts and Camps See how his deadly lifted paw Keeps couchant Luxemburgh in awe At William's mighty name All France with its exalted Idol shakes William's bright sounding fame Like Lightning when from Heav'n it breaks Troubles the great Offender's sight And does his conscious Instruments affright And by its