Lives of the Poets | Page 8

imitation of "Hudibras," and has at least
one accidental resemblance: "Hudibras" wants a plan because it is left
imperfect; "Alma" is imperfect because it seems never to have had a
plan. Prior appears not to have proposed to himself any drift or design,
but to have written the casual dictates of the present moment.
What Horace said when he imitated Lucilius, might be said of Butler
by Prior; his numbers were not smooth nor neat. Prior excelled him in
versification; but he was, like Horace, inventore minor; he had not
Butler's exuberance of matter and variety of illustration. The spangles
of wit which he could afford he knew how to polish; but he wanted the
bullion of his master. Butler pours out a negligent profusion, certain of
the weight, but careless of the stamp. Prior has comparatively little, but
with that little he makes a fine show. "Alma" has many admirers, and
was the only piece among Prior's works of which Pope said that he
should wish to be the author.
"Solomon" is the work to which he entrusted the protection of his name,
and which he expected succeeding ages to regard with
veneration.
His affection was natural; it had undoubtedly been written with great
labour; and who is willing to think that he has been labouring in vain?
He had infused into it much knowledge and much thought; had often
polished it to elegance, often dignified it with splendour, and
sometimes heightened it to sublimity: he perceived in it many
excellences, and did not discover that it wanted that without which all
others are of small avail--the power of engaging attention and alluring
curiosity.
Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults; negligence or errors are
single and local, but tediousness pervades the whole; other faults are
censured and forgotten, but the power of tediousness propagates itself.
He that is weary the first hour is more weary the second, as bodies
forced into motion, contrary to their tendency, pass more and more
slowly through every successive interval of space. Unhappily this
pernicious failure is that which an author is least able to discover. We
are seldom tiresome to ourselves; and the act of composition fills and
delights the mind with change of language and succession of images.

Every couplet, when produced, is new, and novelty is the great source
of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line superfluous when he
first wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had
subsided. And even if he should control his desire of immediate renown,
and keep his work NINE YEARS unpublished, he will be still the
author, and still in danger of deceiving himself: and if he consults his
friends he will probably find men who have more kindness than
judgment, or more fear to offend than desire to instruct. The
tediousness of this poem proceeds not from the uniformity of the
subject, for it is sufficiently diversified, but from the continued tenor of
the narration; in which Solomon relates the successive vicissitudes of
his own mind without the intervention of any other speaker or the
mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra; the reader is only to learn
what he thought, and to be told that he thought wrong. The event of
every experiment is foreseen, and therefore the process is not much
regarded. Yet the work is far from deserving to be neglected. He that
shall peruse it will be able to mark many passages to which he may
recur for instruction or delight; many from which the poet may learn to
write and the philosopher to reason.
If Prior's poetry be generally considered, his praise will be that of
correctness and industry, rather than of compass of comprehension or
activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his greater
pieces are only tissues of common thoughts; and his smaller, which
consist of light images or single conceits, are not always his own. I
have traced him among the French epigrammatists, and have been
informed that he poached for prey among obscure authors. The "Thief
and Cordelier" is, I suppose, generally considered as an original
production, with how much justice this epigram may tell, which was
written by Georgius Sabinus, a poet now little known or read, though
once the friend of Luther and Melancthon:-
"De Sacerdote Furem consolante.
"Quidam sacrificus furem
comitatus euntem
Huc ubi dat sontes carnificina neci.
Ne sis moestus, ait; summi
conviva Tonantis

Jam cum coelitibus (si modo credis) eris.
Ille gemens, si vera mihi
solatia praebes,
Hospes apud superos sis meus oro, refert.
Sacrificus contra; mihi non
convivia fas est
Ducere, jejunas hac edo luce nihil."
What he has valuable he owes to his diligence and his judgment. His
diligence has justly placed him amongst the most correct of the English
poets; and