YOU LETTER XXI. Nov. 11, 1710. OU mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly us'd with my love-verfes, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natur'd action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's paftoral, 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. Yo Alternat mira arte fides; dum torquet acutas, 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 Brebeuf, 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 preffura croci.-And in the place you quote, he makes of thofe 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 ErrorSphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; 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 defcriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reason than this; Hæc eadem fualel at hiems, que clauferat æquor. The D The winter's effects on the fea, it feems, were mo 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 compals a vaft way round about, to the Nafamonés and Jupiter Ammon's temple, purely to ridicule the oracles: and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he says-fors obtulit, &fortuna vie-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 fpeak his own mind, when he tells his army-Ire fat eft-no matter whither. I am Your, &c. T LETTER XXIII. 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, whofe order of the fpheres is clear in Cicero, De natura Deorum, De fomnio Scipionis, and in Macrobius. The feat of the Semidei manes is Platonic too, for Apuleius De deo Socratis affligns the fame to the Genii, viz. the region of the Air for their intercourfe I 4 O make, ufe of that freedom and familiarity. Tof of style, which we have taken up in our cor refpondence, and which is more properly talking upon paper, than writing; I will tell you without any preface, that I never took Tycho Brahe for one of the ancients, or in the leaft an acquaintance of Lucan's; nay, 'tis a mercy on this occafion, that I do not give you an account of his life and converfation; as how he liv'd fome years like an inchanted knight in a certain island, with a tale of a King of Denmark's miftrefs that shall be nameless-But I have compaffion on you, and would not for the world you should ftay any longer among the Genii and Semidei Manes, you know where; for if once you get fo near the moon, Sappho will want your prefence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great lofs Drury-lane will fuftain, when Mr. C is in the milky way. These celestial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a fort of Sortilegi in one sense, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at best in an uncertainty, whereas the fetters-up are fure of fomething. Priests indeed in their character, as they represent God, are facred; and fo are Conftables as they reprefent the King; but you will own a great many of them are very odd |