And Nature tir'd with his unusual Length
Of Life, which put her to her utmost Strength;
So vast a Soul, unable to supply,
To save herself, was forc'd to let him die.
Whatever it is we understand by Nature, we can have no such Idea of it, as to imagine Mr. Hobbes cou'd have been too hard for it.
These Verses of Mr. Waller, on Westminster-Abbey escaping a Fire, are finely imagined:
So Snow on Ætna does unmelted lie,
Whence rolling Flames, and scatter'd Cinders flie:
The distant Country in the Ruin shares,
What falls from Heaven the burning Mountain spares.
Tho' some of these fine Thoughts are very nearly allied to the Noble, yet one may easily perceive, that there is not so much Dignity, tho' there may be as much Beauty in the One as in the Other. Thus also, as to delicate and agreeable Thoughts, they are as nearly related; but a Thing may be agreeable which is not delicate, tho' it cannot be delicate, but it must be agreeable: An agreeable Thought expresses it self entirely; a delicate One leaves something to the Readers Imagination which is very flattering.
As in this beauteous old Verse of Chaucer's, preserv'd in Dryden's, Palamon and Arcite:
Uprose the Sun, and uprose Emily.
Had Chaucer said, Up rose the Sun, and then up rose Emily brighter than the Sun, Emily and the Reader would have been entertain'd with only a common Complement; but now the Reader fills up the Thought himself, and imagines that the Sun rose to prepare the Way for something brighter than himself: Up rose Emily.
Mr. Dryden, in another place,