tendency, pass more and more slowly through every successive
interval of space. Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which
an author is least able to discover. We are seldom tiresome to
ourselves; and the act of composition fills and delights the mind
with change of language and succession of images. Every couplet,
when produced, is new, and novelty is the great source of pleasure.
Perhaps no man ever thought a line superfluous when he first wrote
it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had
subsided. And even if he should control his desire of immediate
renown, and keep his work NINE YEARS unpublished, he will be still
the author, and still in danger of deceiving himself: and if he
consults his friends he will probably find men who have more
kindness than judgment, or more fear to offend than desire to
instruct. The tediousness of this poem proceeds not from the
uniformity of the subject, for it is sufficiently diversified, but
from the continued tenor of the narration; in which Solomon relates
the successive vicissitudes of his own mind without the intervention
of any other speaker or the mention of any other agent, unless it be
Abra; the reader is only to learn what he thought, and to be told
that he thought wrong. The event of every experiment is foreseen,
and therefore the process is not much regarded. Yet the work is far
from deserving to be neglected. He that shall peruse it will be
able to mark many passages to which he may recur for instruction or
delight; many from which the poet may learn to write and the
philosopher to reason.

If Prior's poetry be generally considered, his praise will be that
of correctness and industry, rather than of compass of comprehension
or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his
greater pieces are only tissues of common thoughts; and his smaller,