Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/185

Rh When he describes the Last Day, and the decisive tribunal, he intermingles this image: When rattling bones together fly, From the four quarters of the sky. It was indeed never in his power to resist the temptation of a jest. In his Elegy on Cromwell: No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd, Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweigh'd; His fortune turn'd the scale He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to shew, as may be suspected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the use of French words, which had then crept into conversation; such as fraicheur for coolness, fougue for turbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they stood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators.

These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is Rh