PREFACE. Ir has been a long complaint of the virtuous and refined world, that Poesy, whose original is divine, should be enslaved to vice and profaneness; that an art inspired from Heaven, should have so far lost the memory of its birth-place, as to be engaged in the interests of hell. How unhappily is it perverted from its most glorious design! How basely has it been driven away from its proper station in the temple of God, and abused to much dishonour! The iniquity of men has constrained it to serve their vilest purposes; while the sons of piety, mourn the sacrilege and the shame. The eldest song which history has brought down to our ears, was a noble act of worship paid to the God of Israel, when his right-hand be. came glorious in power; when thy right-hand, O Lord, dashed in pieces the enemy: the chariots of Pharaoh and his hosts were cast into the Red Sea; thou didst blow with thy wind, the deep covered them, and, they sank like lead in the mighty waters.' Exod. xv. This art was maintained sacred through the following ages of the church, and employed by kings and prophets, by David, Solomon, and Isaiah, in describing the nature and the glories of God, and in conveying grace or vengeance to the hearts of men. By this method they brought so much of Heaven down to this lower world, as the darkness of that dispensation would admit; and now and then, a divine and poetic rapture lifted their souls far above the level of that economy of shadows, bore them away far into a brighter region,and gave them a glimpse of evangelic day. The life of angels was harmoniously breathed into the children of Adam, and their minds raised near to Heaven in melody and devotion at once. In the younger days of heathenism the Muses were devoted to the same service: the language in which old Hesiod addresses them is this; 'Pierian Muses, fam'd for heavenly lays, Descend, and sing the God your Father's praise.' And he pursues the subject in ten pious lines, which I could not forbear to transcribe, if the aspect and sound of so much Greek were not terrifying to a nice reader. But some of the latter poets of the Pagan world have debased this divine gift; and many of the writers of the first rank, in this our age of national Christians, have, to their eternal shame, surpassed the vilest of the gentiles. They have not only disrobed Religion of all the ornaments of verse, but have employed their pens in pious mischief, to deform her native beauty, and defile her honours. They have exposed her most sacred character to drollery, and dressed her up in a most vile and ridiculous disguise, for the scorn of the ruder herd of mankind. The vices have been painted like so many Goddesses; the charms of wit have been added to debauchery; and the temptation heightened, where Nature needs the strongest restraints. With sweetness of sound, and delicacy of expression, they have given a relish to blasphemies of the harshest kind; and when they raut at their Maker in sonorous numbers, they fancy themselves to have acted the hero well. Thus almost in vain have the throne and the pulpit cried reformation; while the stage and licentious poems have waged open war with the pious design of church and state. The press has spread the poison far, and scattered wide the mor. tal infection. Unthinking youth have been enticed to sin beyond the vicious propensities of nature, plunged early into diseases and death, and sunk down to damnation in multitudes. Was it for this that Poesy was endued with all those allurements that lead the mind away in a pleasing =captivity? Was it for this, she was furnished with so many intellectual charms, that she might seduce the heart from GOD, the original beauty, and the most lovely of beings? Can I ever be persuaded, that those sweet and resistless forces of metaphor, wit, sound, and number, were given with this design, that they should be all ranged under the banner of the great malicious spirit, to invade the rights of Heaven, and to bring swift and everlast ing destruction upon men? How will these allies of the nether world, the lewd and profane versifiers, stand aghast before the great Judge; when the blood of many souls, whom they never saw, shall be laid to the charge of their writings, and be dreadfully requited at their hands? The reverend Mr. Collier has set this awful scene before them in just and flaming colours. If the application 1 In his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, &c.' were not too rude and uncivil, that noble stanza of my Lord Roscommon, on Psalm cxlviii, might be addressed to them: 'Ye dragons, whose contagious breath Change your dire hissings into heavenly songs, And praise your Maker with your forked tongues.' This profanation and debasement of so divine an art, has tempted some weaker Christians to imagine that poetry and vice are naturally akin; or at least, that verse is fit only to recommend trifles, and entertain our looser hours, but is too light and trivial a method to treat any thing that is serious and sacred. They submit, indeed, to use it in divine psalmody, but they love the driest translation of the psalms best. They submit, indeed, to a dull hymn or two at church, in tunes of equal dulness; but still they persuade themselves, and their children, that the beauties of poesy are vain and dangerous. All that arises a degree above Mr. Sternhold is too airy for worship, and hardly escapes the sentence of unclean and abominable.' "Tis strange, that persons that have the Bible in their hands, should be led away by thoughtless prejudices to so wild and rash an opinion. Let me entreat them not to indulge this sour, this censorious humour, too far; lest the sacred writers fall under the lash of their unlimited and unguarded reproaches. Let me entreat them to look into their Bibles, and remember the style and way of writing that is used by the ancient prophets. Have they forgot, or were they never told, that many parts of the Old Testament are Hebrew verse? and the figures are stronger, and the metaphors -bolder, and the images more surprising and strange |