MR. SEWARD'S PREFACE.
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roper dignity to the sublimity of the one, or to descend with ease to thejocose familiarity of the other. Besides the cramp of rhime every line iscot asunder by so strong a casure, that in English we should divide it intothe three-foot stanza, as " When Fannv bloomine fairFirst caugnt my ravisn*d sightsStruck with her snape and airI felt a strange delight/' * Take one of the rhimes from these, and write them in two lines, they arcexactly the same with the French tragic and epic metre. *' When Fanny blooming fair, first caught my ravishM sight.Struck with her air and shape, I felt a strange delight.** In a language where this is their sublimest measure, no wonder that theirgreatest poet should write his Telemaqu& an epic poem in prose. Everyone must know that the genteel parts of comedi/, descriptions of politelife, moral sentences, paternal fondness, filial duty, generous friendship,and particularly the delicacy and tenderness of lovers' sentiments areequally proper to poetry in (comedy as tragedy; in these things there is nosort of real diflFerence between the two, andf what the Greeks and Latinsformed had no foundation in nature; our old poets therefore made nosuch difiference, and their comedies in this respect vastly excel the Latinsand Greeks. Jonson who reformed many faults of our drama, and fol-lowed the plans of Greece and Rome very closely in most instances, yetf reserved the poeti-j fire and diction of comedy as a great excellence,low many instances of inimitable 2>oe^/<; beauties might one produce fromShakespeare's comedies'^ Not so many yet extremely numerous are thoseof our authors, and such as in an ancient classic would be thought beautiesof the first magnitude. These lie before me in such variety, that I scarceknow where to fix. But I'll confine myself chiefly to moral sentiments.In the Elder Brother, Charles the scholar thus speaks of the joys ofliterature; being asked by his father ■ ■ "*' Nor will you
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