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 phrafe can please none but fuch qui aurem habent Batavam; they must not expect auribus 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 verse I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it; because, though it seems you are resolv'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 verfe and the application. I hope it will be no offence to give my most hearty fervice to Mr Wycherley, though 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 respect 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 fhall ever more make me fo free with him. I could not have thought any man fo very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed, to believe no body, VOL. V. may be a maxim of fafety, but not so much of honefty. There is but one way I know of converfing safely, 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 boast this comfort in my affairs with Mr Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealoufy, which is become his nature, and fhall never be his enemy whatsoever 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 called in question, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions, to express my -esteem. I have just read and compared * Mr Rowe's verfion of the ixth 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 so 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, fays, Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonion's Miscellanies. Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus,. 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? LETTER XXII. Your, &c. Nov. 11. 1710. You OU mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly ufed with my love-verfes, gave me the firft opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natured action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's paf toral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academica; 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, Mox filet. Illa modis totidem refpondet, & artem 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, 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 Breboeuf, the famous French imitator. If I remember right, he fometimes takes the whole comment into the text of the verfion as particularly in lin. 808. Utque folet pariter totis fe effundere fignis Corycii pressura croci.-And in the place you quote, he makes of those 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 Error-Sphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican Syftem, Tycho Brahe himfelf 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 descriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reason than this; Hæc eadem fuadebat hiems, quæ clauferat æquor. The winter's effects on the fea, it feems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, &c. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his fpeech to the foldiers: Then he fetches a compass a vast way round about, to the Nafamones and Jupiter Ammon's temple, purely to ridicule the oracles; and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he fays-fors obtulit, & fortuna via-either Labienus or the map is very much mistaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken. first in his way to Utica) and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who feems to have made Cato speak his own mind when he tells his army-Ire fat eft-no matter whither. I am T LETTER XXIII. Your, &c. From Mr CROMWELL. Nov. 20. 1710. HE fyftem of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as it is novel) could have no room here: Lucan with the rest of the Latin poets, feems to follow Plato, |