Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/112

, just after the defeat at Cannæ, falls, unknowingly, into a Verse not unworthy Virgil himself. Hæc ubi dicta dedit, stringit gladium, cuneoq; Facto per medios, &c. Ours and the French ''can at best but fall into Blank Verse, which is a fault in Prose. The misfortune indeed is common to us both, but we deserve more compassion, because we are not vain of our barbarities. As Age brings Men back into the state and infirmities of Childhood, upon the fall of their Empire, the Romans doted into Rhime, as appears sufficiently by the Hymns of the Latin Church; and yet a great deal of the French Poetry does hardly deserve that poor Title. I shall give an Instance out of a Poem which had the good luck to gain the Prize in 1685, for the Subject deserv'd a Nobler Pen''. Tous les jours ce grand Roy des autres Roys l'exemple, S'ouvre nouveau chemin au faiste de un ton temple, &c. The Judicious Malherbe ''exploded this sort of Verse near Eighty Years ago. Nor can I forbear wondering at that passage of a Famous Academician, in which he, most compassionately, excuses the Ancients for their not being so''