ls. It is not that I am mortified to
all ambition, but I scorn as much to take it from half-witted judges,
as I should to raise an estate by cheating of bubbles. Neither do I
discommend the lofty style in tragedy, which is naturally pompous and
magnificent; but nothing is truly sublime, that is not just and
proper. If the antients had judged by the same measure, which a common
reader takes, they had concluded Statius to have written higher than
Virgil, for,

_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 i