Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/153

Rh trying criticism, and the partial judgment of its admirers has been overruled by the irreversible decree of time and opinion. It has great beauties, scattered like gems, here and there along the surface; but the grave faults which pervade the whole composition, more than eclipse their lustre. The fable is languid, the subject of no striking interest, the metre tiresome and monotonous, and the soberness of style we require in an epic vitiated by the quaintness and abruptness, the writers of that age so universally affected. But it has fancy, imagery, enlarged views of life and science, and abounds with striking apophthegms and deep moral reflections, clothed in chaste and forcible language. We present the reader with the following extracts:

Of a court he says:

Of care:

Of the pious man, he

Describing musical instruments, he says, all

Of a temple: