When he gives over, it
is a sign the subject is exhausted, and the wit of man can carry it
no farther. If a fault can be justly found in him, it is that he is
sometimes too luxuriant, too redundant; says more than he needs,
like my friend "the Plain Dealer," but never more than pleases. Add
to this that his thoughts are as just as those of Horace, and much
more elevated; his expressions are sonorous and more noble; his
verse more numerous; and his words are suitable to his thoughts,
sublime and lofty. All these contribute to the pleasure of the
reader; and the greater the soul of him who reads, his transports
are the greater. Horace is always on the amble, Juvenal on the
gallop, but his way is perpetually on carpet-ground. He goes with
more impetuosity than Horace, but as securely; and the swiftness
adds a more lively agitation to the spirits. The low style of
Horace is according to his subject--that is, generally grovelling.
I question not but he could have raised it, for the first epistle of
the second book, which he writes to Augustus (a most instructive
satire concerning poetry), is of so much dignity in the words, and
of so much elegancy in the numbers, that the author plainly shows
the sermo pedestris in his other satires was rather his choice than
his necessity.
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