Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	write_n	write_v	writing_n	18	3	8.3071	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67452	Letters and poems, amorous and gallant	Walsh, William, 1663-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing W647; ESTC R8169	35,279	138

Passion which the Ancients thought most proper for Love-Verses is wanting and at the same time that we must allow Dr. Donne to have been a very great Wit Mr. Waller a very gallant Writer Sir Iohn Suckling a very gay one and Mr. Cowley a great Genius yet metbinks I can hardly fancy any one of them to have been a very great Lover And it grieves me that the Ancients who could never have handsomer Women than we have should nevertheless be so much more in Love than we are But it is probable the great Reason of this may be the Cruelty of our Ladies for a Man must be imprudent indeed to let his Passion take very deep root when he has no reason to expect any sort of return to it And if it be so there ought to be a Petition made to the Fair that they would be pleas'd sometimes to abate a little of their Rigor for the propagation of good Verse I do not mean that they should confer their Favours upon none but Men of Wit that would be too great a Confinement indeed but that they would admit them upon the same foot with other People and if they please now and then to make the Experiment I fancy they will find Entertainment enough from the very Variety of it There are three sorts of Poems that are proper for Love Pastorals Elegies and Lyrick Verses under which last I comprehend all Songs Odes Sonnets Madrigals and Stanza's Of all these Pastoral is the lowest and upon that account perhaps most proper for Love since it is the Nature of that Passion to render the Soul soft and humble These three sorts of Poems ought to differ not only in their Numbers but in the Designs and in every Thought of them Though we have no Difference between the Verses of Pastoral and Elegy in the Modern Languages yet the Numbers of the first ought to be looser and not so sonorous as the other the Thoughts more simple more easy and more humble The Design ought to be the representing the Life of a Shepherd not only by talking of Sheep and Fields but by showing us the Truth Sincerity and Innocence that accompanies that sort of Life For though I know our Masters Theocritus and Virgil have not always conform'd in this Point of Innocence Theocritus in his Daphnis having made his Love too wanton and Virgil in his Alexis plac'd his Passion upon a Boy yet if we may be allow'd to censure those whom we must always reverence I take both those things to be Faults in their Poems and should have been better pleas'd with the Alexis if it had been made to a Woman and with the Daphnis if he had made his Shepherds more modest When I give Humility and Modesty as the Character of Pastoral it is not however but that a Shepherd may be allow'd to boast of his Pipe his Songs his Flocks and to shew a Contempt of his Rival as we see both Theocritus and Virgil do But this must be still in such a manner as if the Occasion offer'd it self and was not sought and proceeded rather from the Violence of the Shepherd's Passion than any natural Pride or Malice in him There ought to be the same difference observ'd between Pastorals and Elegies as between the Life of the Country and the Court. In the first Love ought to be represented as among Shepherds in the other as among Gentlemen They ought to be smooth clear tender and passionate The Thoughts may be bold more gay and more elevated than in Pastoral The Passions they represent either more Gallant or more Violent and less innocent than the others The subjects of them Prayers Praises Expostulations Quarrels Reconcilements Threatnings Iealousies and in fine all the natural Effects of Love Lyricks may be allow'd to handle all the same subjects with Elegy but to do it however in a different manner An Elegy ought to be so entirely one thing and every Verse ought so to depend upon the other that they should not be able to subsist alone Or to make use of the words of a great Modern Critick there must be a just Coherence made Between each Thought and the whole Model laid So right that every step may higher rise Like goodly Mountains till they reach the Skies Lyricks on the other hand tho' they ought to make one Body as well as the other yet may consist of Parts that are entire of themselves It being a Rule in Modern Languages that every Stanza ought to make up a compleat sence without running into the other Frequent Sentences which are accounted Faults in Elegies are Beauties here Besides this Malherb and the French Poets after him have made it a Rule in the Stanzas of six Lines to make a pause at the third and in those of ten Lines at the third and the seventh And it must be confest that this exactness renders them much more Musical and Harmonious tho' they have not always been so Religious in observing the latter Rule as the former But I am engaged in a very vain or a very foolish Design Those who are Criticks it wou'd be a presumption in me to pretend I cou'd instruct and to instruct those who are not at the same time I write my self is if I may be allow'd to apply another Man's Simile like selling Arms to an Enemy in time of War Tho' there ought perhaps to be more indulgence shewn to things of Love and Gallantry than any others because they are generally written when People are young and intended for Ladies who are not supposed to be very old and all young People especially of the fair Sex are more taken with the liveliness of Fancy than the correctness of Iudgment It may be also observ'd that to write of Love well a Man must be really in Love and to correct his Writings well he must be out of Love again I am well enough satisfi'd I may be in Circumstances of writing of Love but I am almost in despair of ever being in Circumstances of correcting it This I hope may be a Reason for the Fair and the Young to pass over some of the Faults and as for the Grave and Wise all the Favour I shall beg of them is that they wou'd not read 'em Things of this Nature are calculated only for the former If Love-Verses work upon the Ladies a Man will not trouble himself with what the Criticks say of them and if they do not all the Commendations the Criticks can give him will make but very little amends All I shall say for these trifles is That I pretend not to vye with any Man whatsoever I doubt not but there are several now living who are able to write better upon all Subjects than I am upon any one But I will take the boldness to say That there is no one Man among them all who shall be readier to acknowledge his own Faults or to do Iustice to the Merits of other People LETTERS Gallant