.. in this nicety of manners does the
excellency of French poetry consist. Their heroes are the most civil
people breathing, but their good breeding seldom extends to a word of
sense. All their wit is in their ceremony; they want the genius which
animates our stage, and therefore 't is but necessary, when they cannot
please, that they should take care not to offend.... They are so careful
not to exasperate a critic that they never leave him any work, ... for no
part of a poem is worth our discommending where the whole is insipid, as
when we have once tasted palled wine we stay not to examine it glass by
glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless
in essentials.... For my part, I desire to be tried by the laws of my own
country." This is said in heat, but it is plain enough that his mind was
wholly changed. In his discourse on epic poetry he is as decided, but
more temperate. He says that the French heroic verse "runs with more
activity than strength.[57] Their language is not strung with sinews like
our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and
body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight,
and _pondere, non numero_, is the British motto.
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