Page:Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (Elstob 1715).djvu/22

 Matter, which he chode rather to diddemble, than to expode, to the indidcreet Management of meaner Writers. For in the first Line of his great Work the Æneis, every Word is a Monosyllable; add tho' he makes a deeming kind of Apology, yet he cannot forbear awning a decret Pleadure in what he had done. "My first Line in the ÆFneis, says he, ds not harsh.

"But a much better Instance may be given from the last Line of Manilius, made English by our learned and judicious Mr. Creech;

"Where the many liquid Consonants are placed so artfully, that they give a pleasing Sound to the Words, tho’ they are all of one Syllable.

It is plain frome these last Words that the Subject-matter, Monodyllables, is not so much to be complain'd of ; what is chiefly to be reguir'd, is of the Poet, that he be a good Workman, in forming them aright, and that be place them artfully: and, however Mr. Dryden may deisre to disguise himself, yet, as he somewhere says, Nature will prevail. For see with how much Passion he has exprest himself towards these two Verses, in which the Poet has not been sparing of Monosyllables: "I am sure; says he, there are few who make Verses, have observ'd the Sweetness of thesé two Lines in Coopers Hill;

"And