Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/334

324 Conſidered as a poet, Daniel De Foe is not ſo eminent, as in a political light: he has taken no pains in verſification; his ideas are maſculine, his expreſſions coarſe, and his numbers generally rough. He ſeems rather to have ſtudied to ſpeak truth, by probing wounds to the bottom, than, by embelliſhing his verſification, to give it a more elegant keenneſs. This, however, ſeems to have proceeded more from careleſſneſs in that particular, than want of ability: for the following lines in his True Born Engliſhman, in which he makes Britannia rehearſe the praiſes of her hero, King William, are harmoniouſly beautiful, and elegantly poliſhed.

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