And still more distinctly in the next : —
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My comforts drop and melt away like snow;I shake my licad, and all the thoughts and endsWhich my fierce youth did bandy, fall and flowLike leaves about mc, or, like summer friends,Flies of estate and sunshine." The beautiful phrase, " summer friends," wintroduced by Gray into his Hymn on AdveraitOnce more : — " Art thou a magistrate ? then bo severe :If studious, copy fair what time hath blurred.Redeem Truth from his jaws ; if soldier,Chase brave employments with a naked swordThroughout the world." Pages might easily be filled with instances cfelicitous words and phrases. In the poem cProvidence, we have the "leaning" elephanafterwards exhibited by Thomson in his magnficent landscape : — " Peaceful, beneath primeval trees that castTheir ample shade Q'er Niger's yellow stream,And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave,High-raised in solemn theatre around,Leans the huge elephant." Summer, 721. • MEMOIR OF HERBERT. Herbert's versification is frequently affected byhis manner of thinking. The compression ofthought causes harshness. Sometimes the rhythmdrags with a slow, jolting, uneven step ; makingthe reader to remember Walpole's criticism of anOde, amended by Mason, which, he told him, hada sudden sink, like a man with one leg shorterthan the other. But not seldom the harmony issoft and flowing, and lovely fancies are chanted totheir own music. The " Flower," " Virtue," and" Gratefulness," are exquisite specimens of thisclass. The poetry and the prose of Herbert differ asmuch as Cowley's. He has not, indeed, left anycomposition to be compared with the delightfulEssays ; but he possessed a large share of thesame freshness, gaiety, and ease. If we had themanuscripts that perished in the flames of HighnamHouse, we might propose a nearer parallel. ButFuller justly pronounced even his remains to beshavings of gold. The " Country Parson " is destinedto live. Among the few English writings of apractical class, between 1600 and 1650, and yetretaining a reputation, Mr. Hallam* places thistreatise of Herbert ; which he judges to be, " onthe whole, a pleasing little book," but " with theprecepts sometimes so overstrained, as to give anair of affectation." This is faint praise ; and the * literature of Europe, ill. 129.
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