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I am obliged to Mr. Caryl (whom, you tell me, you met at Epfom) for telling you truth, as a man is in thefe days to any one that will tell truth to his advantage; and I think none is more to mine, than what he told you, and I fhould be glad to tell all the world, that I have an extreme affection and efteem for you.

Tecum etenim longos memini confumere foles,
Et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes;
Urum opus & requiem pariter difponimus ambo,
Atque verecunda laxamus feria menfa.

By thefe Epule, as 1 take it, Perfius meant the Portugal fnuff and burnt Claret, which he took with his mafter Cornutus; and the verecunda menfa was, without difpute, fome coffee-house table of the ancients. I will only obferve, that these four lines are as elegant and mufical as any in Perfius, not excepting those fix or feven which Mr. Dryden quotes as the only fuch in all that author.-I could be heartily glad to repeat the fatisfaction describ'd in them, being truly

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Your, &c.

LETTER XX.

October 28, 1710.

I

Am glad to find by your last letter that you write to me with the freedom of a friend, fetting down your thoughts as they occur, and dealing plainly

with me in the matter of my own trifles, which, I Taffure you, I never valued half fo much as I do that fincerity in you which they were the occafion of discovering to me; and which while I am happy in, I may be trufted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry; fince I fhall do nothing with it but after afking and following your advice. I value fincerity the more, as I find by fad experience, the practice of it is more dangerous; writers rarely pardoning the executionvers of their verfes, even tho' themfelves pronounce sentence upon them. As to Mr. Philips's Paftorals, I take the first to be infinitely the beft, and the fe"cond the worst the third is for the greateft part a tranflation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not foreftal your judgment of the reft, only obferve in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (fpeaking of the mufician's playing on the harp)

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Now lightly fkimming o'er the ftrings they pass,
Like winds that gently brush the plying grafs,
And melting airs arife at their command;
And now, laborious, with a weighty hand,
He finks into the cords, with folemn pace,
And gives the fuelling tones a manly grace.

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To which nothing can be objected, but that they are too lofty for paftoral, especially being put into the mouth of a fhepherd, as they are here in the poet's own perfon they had been (I believe) more proper. They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of VOL. VIII.

I

paftoral

paftoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a small copy of the fame author publifh'd in the Tatler No. 12. on the Danish winter: 'Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your perusal.galiiton ob Hauf I sand

Dr. Garth's poem I have not feen, but believe I shall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's, who swore it was good: for, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, yet I think one may do it more fafely when they commend, than when they blame. ho

I agree with you in your cenfure of the ufe of fea-terms in Mr. Dryden's Virgil; not only because Helenus was no great prophet in those matters, but because no terms of Art or cant words fuit with the majefty and dignity of ftyle which epic poetry requires.-Gui 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 dextrously.)

Tho' you fay you did not rightly take my mean. ing in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it, becaufe, tho' it feems you are refolv'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 moft hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, tho' 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 kindnefs 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, may be a maxim of fafety, but not fo much of honefty. There is but one way I know of converfing fafely, 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 boaft this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealousy, which is become his nature, and shall never be his enemy whatsoever he fays of me.

Your, &c.

LET

I

LETTER XXI.

From Mr. CROMWELL.

Nov. 5, 17ro.

Find I am obliged to the fight of your loveverfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been call'd in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions to exprefs my esteem.

I have just read and compar'd* 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 lashing the priests; one where Cato fays-Sortilegis egeant dubii-and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois-fatidici Sabai-He is fo 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,

Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus,
Semidei manes habitant.

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?

Your, &c.

* Pieces printed in the 6th, of Tonfon's Mifcellanies.

LET

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