corruption, and by no means to be allow'd of by critics. Some may mistakenly imagine that it was a fort of Rondeau which the Gallick foldiers fung in Cæfar's triumph over Gaul-Gallias Cafar fubegit, &c. as it is recorded by Suetonius in Julio, and fo derive its original from the ancient Gauls to the modern French: but this is erroneous; the words there not being ranged according to the Laws of the Rondeau, as laid down by Clement Marot. If you will fay, that the fong of the foldiers might be only the rude beginning of this kind of poem, and fo confequently imperfect, neither Heinfius nor I can be of that opinion; and fo I conclude, that we know nothing of the matter. But, Sir, I ask your pardon for all this buffoonery, which I could not address to any one fo well as to you, fince I have found by experience, you most easily forgive my impertinencies. 'I'is only to fhow you that I am mindful of you at all times, that I write at all times; and as nothing I can fay can be worth your reading, fo I may as well throw out what comes uppermoft, as study to be dull. I am, &c. LETTER XV. From Mr. CROMWELL. July 15, 1710. Tlaft I have prevailed over a lazy humour to A transcribe this elegy: I have changed the fitu ation of fome of the Latin verses, and made fome interpolations, but I hope they are not abfurd, and foreign to my author's fenfe and manner: but they are refer'd to your cenfure, as a debt; whom I efteem no less a critic than a poet: I expect to be treated G 2 with with the fame rigour as I have practis'd to Mr. Dryden and you. Hanc veniam petimufque damufque viciffim. I defire the favour of your opinion why Priam, in his fpeech to Pyrrhus in the fecond Æneid, fays this to him, At non ille, fatum quo te mentiris, Achilles. He would intimate (I fancy by Pyrrhus's answer) only his degeneracy: but then these following lines of the verfion (I fuppofe from Homer's hiftory) feem abfurd in the mouth of Priam, viz. He chear'd my forrows, and for fums of gold I am Your, &c. I LETTER XVI. July 20, 1710. Give you thanks for the verfion you sent me of Ovid's elegy. It is very much an image of that author's writing, who has an agreeableness that charms us without correctnefs, like a mistress, whose faults we fee, but love her with them all. You have very judicioufly alter'd his method in fome 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 criticifms. 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 fenfe. 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 almost all I can rec kon ken up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, nor, 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 IIth 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 afk my opinion in the fecond Æneid, 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 say, that "Achilles (whom furely you only feign to be your "father, fince your actions are fo different from his) "did not use me thus inhumanly. He blush'd at "his murder of Hector, when he faw my forrows "for him; and restored his dead body to 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 faid 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 miney the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in fome measure leffening 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 queftion'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 thefe words, "O my friend Patroclus! forgive me that I quit the corps of him who kill'd "thee; I have great gifts in ranfom for it, which I "will beftow upon thy funeral.” I am, &c. LETTER XVI. 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, whofe 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 topography of Sulmo in the 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 moft 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 &c. * In Voiture's Poems. P. † Ovid's Amorum, l. ii. el. xvi. Pars me Sulmo, P. the the celestial orb; which expreffes in fome fort the Sidus Caftoris in parte coli-How trees can enjoy, let the naturalifts determine; but the poets make them fenfitive, lovers, batchelors, and married. Virgil in his Georgics, lib. ii. Horace Ode xv. lib. ii. Platanus coelebs evincet ulmos. Epod. ii. Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine Altas maritat papules. 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 fhall ever be Your, &c. You 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 Lon don, I have not heard a word from him; tho' juft before, and once fince, I writ to him, and tho' I know myself guilty of no offence but of doing fincerely just what he bid me-Hoc mihi libertas, bec pia lingua dedit! But the greatest 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 verfe enough to be fevere upon, in revenge for my laft criticism: In one point I must perfift, that is to fay, my diflike of your Paradise, in which I take no pleafure; I know very well that in Greek 'tis not only us'd by Xenophon, but is a common word for Correcting his verfes. See the letters in 1706, and the following years, of Mr.Wycherley and Mr. Pope. P. G 4 any |