Fancy and art in gay Petronius please, All ranged in order and disposed with grace; Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire, 675 Thus long succeeding critics justly reign'd, 680 License repress'd, and useful laws ordain'd. 669 Grave Quintilian. The manuscripts of Quintilian, complete, were found by the learned Poggio, in 1417, in the dust at the bottom of a tower of the monastery of St. Gal, near Constance: Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus were exhumed from the burial of centuries at the same place and period. This was the age of learned discovery, and the enthusiasm of the discoverers was fully proportioned to the value of the prize. Leonardo Aretino congratulates Poggio in raptures worthy only of a scholar and an Italian :- By your exertions we are at length in possession of a perfect copy of Quintilian. I have inspected the titles of the books; we have now the intire treatise, of which before we had only one half, and that in a very mutilated state. O, what a valuable acquisition! what an unexpected pleasure! Shall I then behold Quintilian whole and intire, who, even in his imperfect state, was so rich a source of delight? I entreat you, my dear Poggio, to send me the manuscripts as soon as possible, that I may see them before I die.'-Shepherd's Life of Poggio. 690 From the same foes, at last, both felt their doom, 701 705 705 Immorta! Vida. A rare instance of poetry leading to the highest honors of professional life. Vida was the son of a Cremonese peasant, but of an ancient Italian line. In a day when Latin was the universal language of scholarship, and verse the favorite accomplishment of the Roman court, the young poet and scholar was taken into the patronage of the most accomplished, elegant, and voluptuous prince that ever refined the taste, or swelled the profligacy, of modern RomeLeo X. from Leo he obtained a priory. He was now in the high road to fortune: by Clement VII. he was preferred, on the merits of his 'Christiad,' to the bishopric of Alba: from Paul III. he was on the point of obtaining Cremona now shall ever boast thy name, But soon by impious arms from Latium chased, Yet some there were, among the sounder few 'Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.' the more important bishopric of his native city. But the pope died: Vida's poetic fire, his fame, or the pontifical fondness for poetry, passed away with him; and the author of the 'Scacchia,' of all modern Latinity, perhaps the most dexterous and the most popular specimen, remained in Alba, where, in 1566, at the age of seventy-six, he died. He was a vigorous critic, an active political writer, and a learned controversialist; but his poetry was the foundation of his fortune. 723 Such was the Muse. The duke of Buckingham's rank, opulence, and love of literature, intitled him to more distinction than he deserved by his ability: but he was the object of panegyric to the whole living generation of poets. Yet not to all with equal success. Pope's insertion of this couplet in his second edition, touched the feeling or the vanity, which had been so often wooed in vain; and from that period this powerful nobleman was his friend. 726 Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than good; Such late was Walsh-the Muse's judge and friend, 730 Who justly knew to blame or to commend; 736 Her guide now lost, no more attempts to rise, view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew: 740 Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame : Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend. 725 Such was Roscommon. An Essay on Translated Verse' seems, at first sight, to be a barren subject; yet Roscommon has decorated it with many precepts of utility and taste, and enlivened it with a tale in imitation of Boileau. 744 Nor yet too vain to mend. Probably adopted from the concluding lines of Boileau's Art of Poetry:' Censeur un peu facheux, mais souvent nécessaire ; MORAL ESSAYS, IN FOUR EPISTLES: TO SEVERAL PERSONS. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se HORACE. |