very judiciously alter'd his method in some places, and I can find nothing which I dare infift upon as an error: what I have written in the margins being merely gueffes at a little improvement, rather than criticisms. I affure you I do not expect you should fubfcribe to my private notions but when you fhall judge them agreeable to reafon and good sense. What I have done is not as a critic, but as a friend; I know too well how many qualities are requifite to make the one, and that I want almoft all I can reckon up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, mor, I hope, capacity to be the other. Nor fhall I take it at all amifs, that another diffents from my opinion: "Tis no more than I have often done from my own; and indeed, the more a man advances in understanding, he becomes the more every day a critic upon himself, and finds fomething or other ftill to blame in his former notions and opinions. I could be glad to know if you have tranflated the 11th elegy of lib. ii. Ad amicam navigantem. The 8th of book iii, or the 11th of book iii, which are above all others my particular favourites, especially the last of these.

As to the paffage of which you ask my opinion in the fecond Eneid, it is either fo plain as to require no folution; or elfe (which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam would fay, that "Achilles (whom furely you only feign to be your father, fince your actions are fo different from his) did not ufe me thus inhumanly. He

66

*blufh'd at his murder of Hector, when he faw my "forrows for him; and reftored his dead body to

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me to be buried." To this the answer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough, "Go then to the shades, and tell Achilles how I degenerate from "him :" granting the truth of what Priam had said of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judiciously paffes in filence, the circumftance of Achilles's felling for money the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in some measure lessening the character of Achilles's generofity and piety, which is the very point of which Priam endeavours in this place to convince his fon, and to reproach him with the want of. But the truth of this circumftance is no way to be question'd, being exprefly taken from Homer, who reprefents Achilles weeping for Priam, yet receiving the gold, Iliad xxiv. For when he gives the body, he uses these words, "O my friend Pa

troclus! forgive me that I quit the corpfe of him "who kill'd thee; I have great gifts in ransom for “it, which I will bestow upon thy funeral "

I am, &c.

L

LETTER XVII.

From Mr. CROMWELL.

Aug. 5, 1710.

OOKING among fome French rhymes, I was agreeably furpriz'd to find in the Rondeau of *Pour le moins--your Apoticaire and Lavement, which I took for your own; fo much is your Mufe of intelligence with the wits of all languages. You have refin'd upon Voiture, whose Où vous favez is much inferior to your You know where—You do not only pay your club with your author (as our friend fays) but the whole reckoning; who can form fuch pretty lines from fo trivial a hint..

For my Elegy; 'tis confefs'd, that the topogra graphy of Sulmo in Latin makes but an awkward figure in the verfion. Your couplet of the dog-star

is very fine, but may be too fublime in this place. I

laugh'd heartily at your note upon Paradife; for to make Ovid talk of the garden of Eden, is certainly most abfurd; but Xenophon in his Oeconomics, fpeaking of a garden finely planted and watered (as. is here defcribed) calls it Paradifos: 'Tis an interpolation indeed, and ferves for a gradation to the celeftial orb; which expreffes in fome fort the Sidus Caftoris in parte cali-How trees can enjoy, let the naturalifts determine; but the poets make them sen

In Voiture's Poems.

† Ovi's Amorum, 1. ii. el. xvi. Pars me Sulmo, &c.

fitive, lovers, bachelors, and married. Virgil in his Georgics, lib. ii. Horace Ode xv. lib. ii. Platanus calebs evincet ulmos. Epod. ii. Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine Altas maritat populos. Your critique is a very Dolcepiccante; for after the many faults you justly find, you smooth your rigour: but an obliging thing is owing (you think) to one who fo much efteems and admires you, and who shall ever be

Your, &c.

*

LETTER XVIII.

August 21, 1710.

OUR Letters are a perfect charity to a man in retirement, utterly forgotten of all his friends. but you; for fince Mr. Wycherley left London, I have not heard a word from him; though juft before, and once fince, I writ to him, and tho' I know myfelf guilty of no offence but of doing fincerely just what he bid me-Hoc mihi libertas, hoc pia lingua dedit!-But the greateft injury he does me is the keeping me in ignorance of his welfare, which I am always very folicitous for, and very uneafy in the fear of any indifpofition that may befal him. In what I fent you fome time ago, you have not verse enough to be severe upon, in revenge for my laft criticism: In one point I must perfift, that is to fay, H 4

*Correcting his verfes. See the letters in 1706, and the fol

lowing years, of Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Pope,

my diflike of your Paradise, in which I take no pleasure; I know very well that in Greek 'tis not only us'd by Xenophon, but is a common word for any garden; but in English it bears the fignification and conveys the Idea of Eden, which alone is (I think) a reafon against making Ovid use it; who will be thought to talk too much like a Christian in your verfion at least, whatever it might have been in Latin or Greek. As for all the rest of my remarks, fince you do not laugh at them as at this, I can be fo civil as not to lay any ftrefs upon them (as, I think, I told you before) and in particular in the point of trees enjoying, you have, I must own, fully fatisfied me that the expreffion is not only defenfible, but beautiful. I fhall be very glad to see your tranflation of the elegy, Ad amicam navigantem, as foon as you can; for (without a compliment to you) every thing you write, either in verse or profe, is welcome to me; and you may be confident, (if my opinion can be of any fort of consequence in any thing) that I will never be unfincere, tho' I may be often mistaken. To ufe fincerity with you is but paying you in your own coin, from whom I have experienced fo much of it; and I need not tell you, how much I really esteem you, when I esteem nothing in the world fo much as that quality. I know, you fometimes fay civil things to me in your epiftolary ftyle, but those I am to make allowance for, as particularly when you talk of admiring; 'tis a word you are fo us'd to in converfation of Ladies, that it