pastoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a small copy of the fame author publifh'd in the Tatler N°. 12. on the Danish winter: 'Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your perusal. Dr. Garth's poem I have not feen, but believe I fhall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's, who fwore it was good: for, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, yet I think one may do it more fafely when they commend, than when they blame. I agree with you in your cenfure of the use of fea-terms in Mr. Dryden's Virgil; not only because Helenus was no great prophet in those matters, but because no terms of Art or cant words fuit with the majefty and dignity of ftile which epic poetry requires.-Cui mens divinior atque os magna fonaturum. -The Tarpawlin phrase can please none but fuch qui aurem habent Batavam; they must not expect axribus Atticis probari, I find by you. (I think I have brought in two phrafes of Martial here very dextroufly.) Tho' you fay you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it; because, though it seems you are refolv'd to take me for a critic, I would by no means be thought a commentator.-And for another reafon too, because I have quite forgot both the verse and the application. I hope it will be no offence to give my moft hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, tho' I perceive by his laft to me, I am not to trouble him with my letters, fince he there told me he was going inftantly out of town, and till his return was my fervant, &c. I guess by yours he is yet with you, and beg you to do what you may with all truth and honour, that is, affure him I have ever borne all the refpect and kindness imaginable to him. I do not know to this hour what it is that has eftranged him from me; but this I know, that he may for the future be more fafely my friend, fince no invitation of his shall ever more make me fo free with him. I could not have thought any man fo very cautious and suspicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed to believe no body, may be a maxim of fafety, but not fo much of honesty. There is but one way I know of converfing fafely, with all men, that is, not by concealing what we fay or do, but by faying or doing nothing that deferves to be conceal'd. and I can truly boat this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealoufy, which is become his nature, and shall never be his enemy whatfoever he fays of me. Your, &c. I LETTER XXI. From Mr. CROMWELL. Nov. 5, 1710. Find I am obliged to the fight of your love verfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been call'd in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon so many other occafions to exprefs my esteem. I have just read and compar'd* Mr. Rowe's verfion of the ix of Lucan, with very great pleasure, where I find none of thofe abfurdities fo frequent in that of Virgil, except in two places, for the fake of lafhing the priests; one where Cato fays-Sortilegis egeant dubii-and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois-fatidici Sabai-He is fo errant a whig, that he strains even beyond his author, in paffion for liberty, and averfion to tyranny; and errs only in amplification. Lucan ix. in initio, defcribing the feat of the Semidei manes, says, Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus, Semidei manes habitant. Mr. Rowe has this Line, Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Ray, Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphæricus in this or no? Your, &c. *Pieces printed in the 6th vol, of Tonfon's Mifcellanies. You LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. OU mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly us'd with my love-verses, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natur'd action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's paftoral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academicæ; only the tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclufion of the Culex. I can't forbear giving you a paffage out of the Latin poem I mention, by which you will find the English poet is indebted to it. Alternat mira arte fides: dum torquet acutas, This poem was many years fince imitated by Crafhaw, out of whofe verfes the following are very remarkable. From this to that, from that to this he flies, His fingers fruggle with the vocal threads. I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Rowe's ixth book of Lucan : Indeed he amplifies too much, as well as Brebœuf, the famous French imitator. If I remember right, he fometimes takes the whole comment into the text of the version, as particularly in lin. 808. Utque folet pariter totis fe effundere fignis Corycii prefura croci. And in the place you quote, he makes of thofe two lines in the Latin, Vidit quanta fub nocte jaceret Noftra dies, rifitque fui ludibria trunci, no less than eight in English. What you obferve, fure, cannot be an ErrorSphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; Tycho Brahe himself will be on the tranflator's fide. For Mr. Rowe here fays no more, than that he look'd down on the rays of the fun, which Pompey might do, even tho' the body of the fun were above him. You can't but have remarked what a journey Lucan here makes Cato take for the fake of his fine defcriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reason than this; Hæc eadem fuadebat biems, quæ clauferat æquor. |