cannot help remarking the resemblance betwixt him and our author, in qualities, fame, and fortune; in the distinctions fhewn them by their fuperiors, in the general esteem of their equals, and in their extended reputation amongst foreigners; in the latter of which ours has met with the better fate, as he has had for his tranflators perfons of the most eminent rank and abilities in their refpective nations'. But the refemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abused by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of their times; of which not the least memory will remain but in their own writings, and in the notes made upon them. What Boileau has done in almost all his poems, our author has only in this: I dare answer for him he will do it in no more; and on this principle, of attacking few but who had flandered him, he could not have done it at all, had he been confined from cenfuring obfcure and worthless perfons, for fcarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is fo remarkable, I hope it will continue to the laft; and if ever he fhould Effay on Criticism, in French verfe, by General Hamilton; the fame, in verfe alfo, by Monfieur Roboton, Counsellor and Privy Secretary to King George I. after by the Abbé Reynel, in verfe, with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the Princess of Conti, Paris, 1728, and in Italian verse, by the Abbé Conti, a noble Venetian; and by the Marquis Rangoni, Envoy extraordinary from Modena to King George II. Others of his works by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Effays and Differtations on Homer, feveral times tranflated into French. Effay on Man, by the Abbé Reynel, in verfe; by Monfieur Silhouette, in profe, 1737, and fince by others in French, Italian, and Latin. should give us an edition of this poem himself, I may see some of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by Boileau. In one point I must be allowed to think the character of our English poet the more amiable. He has not been a follower of fortune or fuccefs; he has lived with the great without flattery; been a friend to men in power, without penfions, from whom, as he asked, fo he received, no favour, but what was done him in his friends. As his fatires were the more just for being delayed, fo were his panegyrics; bestowed only on fuch perfons as he had familiarly known, only for such virtues as he had long obferved in them, and only at fuch times as others cease to praise, if not begin to calumniate them, I mean when out of power, or out of fafhion. A satire, therefore, on writers fo notorious for the contrary practice, became no man fo well as himself; as none, it is plain, was fo little in their friendships, or fo much in that of those whom they had moft abused, namely, the greatest and best of all parties. Let me add a further reason, that, though engaged in their friendships, he never efpoufed their animofities; and can As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the town declaimed against his book of poems: Mr. Walsh, after his death; Sir William Trumball, when he had refigned the office of Secretary of State; Lord Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the Queen's death; Lord Oxford, in his last decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the South-Sea year, and after his death; Others only in Epitaphs. can almost fingly challenge this honour, not to have written a line of any man, which, through guilt, through fhame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of Interests, he was ever unwilling to own. I fhall conclude with remarking what a pleasure it must be to every reader of humanity, to fee all along, that our Author in his very laughter is not indulging his own ill nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his Poem, thofe alone are capable of doing it justice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his fubject and his manner) VETUSTIS DARE NOVITATEM, OBSOLETIS NITOREM, OBSCURIS LUCEM, FASTIDITIS GRATIAM. St. James's, Dec. 22, 1728. I am Your most humble fervant, WILLIAM CLELAND. This Gentleman was of Scotlan 1, and bred at the university of Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He ferved in Spain under Earl Rivers. After the peace, he was made one of the commiffioners of the customs in Scotland, and then of Taxes in England; in which, having fhewn himself for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible, though without any other affiftance of fortune, he was fuddenly difplaced by the Minifter, in the fixty-eighth year of his age; and died two months after, in 1741. He was a perfon of univerfal learning, and an enlarged conversation; no man had a warmer heart for his friend, or a fincerer attachment to the conftitution of his country.-And yet, for all this, the public would never believe him to be the author of this letter. P. W. Many reasons have been alledged to prove it was written by our author himself. |