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"paffages that occafioned them: I cannot but take "notice that our English author has after the fame man

ner exemplified several of the precepts in the very "precepts themfelves." He then produces fome inftances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with faying, that "there are three poems in our tongue of the fame nature, and each a masterpiece in its kind: The Effay on Tranflated Verfe; the Effay on the Art of Poetry; and the Effay on "Criticism."

Of WINDSOT FOREST, pofitive is the judgment of the affirmative

Mr JOHN DENNIS,

"That it is a wretched rhapfody, impudently writ in emulation of the Cooper's Hill of Sir John "Denham: the author of it is obfcure, is ambiguous, ❝is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous t." But the author of the Dispensary,

Dr GARTH,

in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: Those who have seen these two excellent "poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windfor Foreft, the "one written by Sir John Denham, the other by Mr "Pope, will fhew a great deal of candor if they ap

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s Letter to B. B. at the ends of the Remarks on Pope's Ho

mer, 1717.

t Printed 1728, p. 12.

Of the Epistle of Eloifa, we are told by the obfcure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That because "Prior's Henry and Emma charm'd the finest tastes, ·66 our author writ his Eloife in opposition to it; but "forgot innocence and virtue: If you take away her "tender thoughts, and her fierce defires, all the rest "is of no value." In which, methinks, his judgment resembleth that of a French taylor on a villa and gardens by the Thames. "All this is very fine, but take away the river, and it is good for nothing.'

But very contrary hereunto was the opinion of

Mr PRIOR

himfelf, faying in his Alma ",
O Abelard! ill fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler Poet's fong:

Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd,
With kind concern and skill has weav'd

A filken web: and ne'er fhall fade

Its colours: gently has he laid

The mantle o'er thy fad distress,

And Venus fhall the texture blefs, &c.

Come we now to his tranflation of the ILIA D, celebrated by numerous pens, yet fhall it fuffice to mention the indefatigable

u Alma, Cant. 2.

Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE, Kt.

Who (tho' otherwise a severe censurer of our author) yet ftyleth this a "laudable tranflation"." That ready writer

Mr OLD MIXON,

in his forementioned Effay, frequently commends the fame. And the painful

Mr LEWIS THEOBALD

thus extols it *, "The fpirit of Homer breathes all "through this tranflation.-I am in doubt, whether "I fhould moft admire the juftnefs to the original, "or the force and beauty of the language, or the "founding variety of the numbers: But when I find all "these meet, it puts me in mind of what the poet fays of "one of his heroes, That he alone rais'd and flung with "ease a weighty stone, that two common men could "not lift from the ground; juft fo, one fingle perfon "has performed in this tranflation, what I once des ❝spaired to have seen done by the force of several mas"terly hands." Indeed, the fame gentleman appears "to have changed his fentiment in his Effay on the "Art of finking in reputation, (printed in Mift's Journal, March 30. 1728.) where he fays thus: " in order "to fink in reputation, let him take into his head "to defcend into Homer (let the world wonder, as

w In his Effays, vol 1. printed for E. Curl.

x Cenfor, vol. ii. n. 33.

"it will, how the devil he got there) and pretend to "do him into English, so his version denote his neglect "of the manner how." Strange Variation! We are told in

MIST'S JOURNAL, June 8.

"That this tranflation of the Iliad was not in all ref"" pects conformable to the fine taste of his friend Mr "Addison; infomuch that he employed a younger muse "in an undertaking of this kind, which he fupervised "himfelf." Whether Mr Addifon did find it conformable to his taste or not, beft appears from his own teftimony the year following its publication, in these words:

Mr ADDISON, FREEHOLDER, No. 40.

"When I confider myself as a British freeholder, I am in a particular manner pleased with the labours "of those who have improved our language with the "translations of old Greek and Latin authors.—We "have already most of their Hiftorians in our own

tongue, and what is inore for the honour of our lan66 guage, it has been taught to exprefs with elegance "the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illi"terate among our own countrymen may learn to "judge from Dryden's Virgil of the moft perfect Epic

performance. And those parts of Homer which have "been published already by Mr Pope, give us reafon "to think that the Iliad will appear in English with "as little difadvantage to that immortal poem."

As to the reft, there is a flight mistake, for this younger muse was an elder: Nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by Mr Addison to translate it after him, fince he faith himself that he did it before Y. Contrariwife, that Mr Addifon engaged our author in this work, appeareth by declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad, printed fome time before his death, and by his own letters of Otober 26, and November 2. 1713, where he declares it is his opinion, that no other perfon was equal to it.

Next comes his Shakespear on the stage: "Let him "(quoth one, whom I take to be,

Mr THEOBALD, Mift's Journal, June 8. 1728. "publish such an author as he has leaft ftudied, and "forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. "In this project let him lend the bookfeller his name "(for a competent fum of money) to promote the "credit of an exorbitant subscription." Gentle reader, be pleased to caft thine eye on the Propofal below quoted, and on what follows (fome months after the former affertion) in the fame of Journalist of June 8. "The bookfeller propofed the book by fubfcription, "and raised fome thousands of pounds for the fame: "I believe the gentleman did not share in the profits "of this extravagant fubfcription.

y Vid. pref. to Mr Tickel's tranflation of the first book of the Iliad, quarto.

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