But, he has taken his last farewell of the Muses; and he has done it civilly, by honouring them with the name of his long acquaintances [p. 574]: which is a compliment they have scarce deserved from him.
For my own part, I bear a share in the public loss; and how emulous soever I may be, of his Fame and Reputation, I cannot but give this testimony of his Style, that it is extreme[ly] poetical, even in Oratory; his Thoughts elevated, sometimes above common apprehension; his Notions politic and grave, and tending to the instruction of Princes and reformation of State: that they are abundantly interlaced with variety of fancies, tropes, and figures, which the Critics have enviously branded with the name of Obscurity and False Grammar.
Well, he is now fettered in business of more unpleasant nature [p. 574]. The Muses have lost him, but the Commonwealth gains by it. The corruption of a Poet is the generation of a Statesman.
He will not venture again into the Civil Wars of Censure [Criticism].
Ubi … nullos habitura triumphos.
If he had not told us, he had left the Muses; we might have half suspected it by that word, ubi, which does not any way belong to them, in that place. The rest of the verse is indeed LUCAN's: but that ubi, I will answer for it, is his own.
Yet he has another reason for this disgust of Poesy. For he says, immediately after, that the manner of Plays which are now in most esteem, is beyond his power to perform [p. 574]. To perform the manner of a thing, is new English to me.
However he condemns not the satisfaction of others, but rather their unnecessary understanding; who, like SANCHO PANZA's Doctor, prescribe too strictly to our appetites. For, says he, in the difference of Tragedy and Comedy and of Farce itself; there can be no determination but by the taste; nor in the manner of their composure.
We shall see him, now, as great a Critic as he was a Poet: and the reason why he excelled so much in Poetry will be evident; for it will have proceeded from the exactness of his Judgement.
In the difference of Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce itself; there can be no determination but by the taste. I will not quarrel with the obscurity of this phrase, though I justly might: but beg his pardon, if I do not rightly understand him. If he means that there is no essential difference betwixt Comedy, Tragedy, and Farce; but only what is made by people's taste, which distinguishes one of them from the other: that is so manifest an error, that I need lose no time to contradict it.