Quae super-imposito moles geminata Colosso

carries a more thundering kind of sound, than

  Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi:

yet Virgil had all the majesty of a lawful prince, and Statius only the blustering of a tyrant.  But when men affect a virtue which they cannot easily reach, they fall into a vice, which bears the nearest resemblance to it.  Thus, an injudicious poet, who aims at loftiness, runs easily into the swelling puffy style, because it looks like greatness.  I remember, when I was a boy, I thought inimitable Spencer a mean poet, in comparison of Sylvester’s “Dubartas,” and was wrapt into an ecstasy when I read these lines: 

  Now, when the winter’s keener breath began
  To crystalize the Baltic ocean;
  To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods,
  And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods:—­[5]

I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian, that is, thoughts and words ill-sorted, and without the least relation to each other; yet I dare not answer for an audience, that they would not clap it on the stage:  so little value there is to be given to the common cry, that nothing but madness can please madmen, and the poet must be of a piece with the spectators, to gain a reputation with them.  But, as in a room, contrived for state, the height of the roof should bear a proportion to the area; so, in the heightenings of poetry, the strength and vehemence of figures should be suited to the occasion, the subject, and the persons.  All beyond this is monstrous:  it is out of nature, it is an excrescence, and not a living part of poetry.  I had not said thus much, if some young gallants, who pretend to criticism, had not told me, that this tragi-comedy wanted the dignity of style; but, as a man, who is charged with a crime of which he thinks himself innocent, is apt to be too eager in his own defence; so, perhaps, I have vindicated my play with more partiality than I ought, or than such a trifle can deserve.  Yet, whatever beauties it may want, it is free at least from the grossness of those faults I mentioned:  what credit it has gained upon the stage, I value no farther than in reference to my profit, and the satisfaction I had, in seeing it represented with all the justness and gracefulness of action.  But, as it is my interest to please my audience, so it is my ambition to be read:  that I am sure is the more lasting and the nobler design:  for the propriety of thoughts and words, which are the hidden beauties of a play, are but confusedly judged in the vehemence of action:  all things are there beheld, as in a hasty motion, where the objects only glide before the eye, and disappear.  The most discerning critic can judge no more of these silent graces in the action, than he who rides post through an unknown country can distinguish the situation of places, and the nature of the soil.  The purity of phrase, the clearness of conception and expression,