he has taken from them. Tis no flattery at all to say, that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age1. I shall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my house, I shall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this letter. I am, Sir, etc.

LETTER II.

MR. WALSH TO MR. POPE.

June 24, 1706.

I RECEIVED the favour of your letter2, and shall be very glad of the continuance of a correspondence, by which I am like to be so great a gainer. I hope

1 Sixteen.

2 Walsh, though a feeble and flimsy poet, yet from these letters, and from the Essay on Pastoral, which he gave to Dryden, appears to have been a man of some taste and literature, but of narrow ideas in poetry. He seems to be the first of our critics that attended much to the Italian poets. We ought to esteem him for his early praise and encouragement of Pope, which perhaps contributed to determine Pope to devote himself to the study of Poetry. The best of Walsh's poetry is a Parody on the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, in which Tories, Nonjurors, and Jacobites, are vigorously attacked and ridiculed; and an Imitation of the Justum et tenacem of Horace, B. 3. Ode 3. in which a speech of King William, from stanza the 4th to the 13th, is given with much energy and force. Some of Addison's best verses are also a translation of this very Ode; and it is remarkable that Oldmixon relates it was he that desired Mr. Addison to give a translation of this Ode; certainly one of his most spirited composi

tions.

when I have the happiness of seeing you again in London, not only to read over the verses I have now of yours, but more that you have written since; for I make no doubt but any one who writes so well, must write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the best; I believe the contrary is rather true. I mentioned somewhat to you in London of a Pastoral Comedy, which I should be glad to hear you had thought upon since. I find Menage in his observations upon Tasso's Aminta, reckons up fourscore pastoral plays in Italian : And in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many pastoral and piscatory plays, which, I suppose, Menage reckons together. I find also by Menage, that Tasso is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before him which he himself had never seen, nor indeed have I. But as the Aminta, Pastor Fido3, and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli, are the three best, so, I think, there is no dispute but that Aminta is the best of the three: Not but that the discourses in Pastor Fido are more entertaining and copious in several people's opinion, though not so proper for pastoral; and the fable of Bonarelli more surprising. I do not remember many in other languages, that have written in this- kind with success. Racan's Bergeries are much inferior to his lyric poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the design of pastoral plays to be taken

* It is surprising that Walsh should make no mention of that exquisite Pastoral Comedy, The Faithful Shepherdess, of Beaumont and Fletcher; nor of the Comus of Milton, who in truth has borrowed much from Fletcher.

from the Cyclops of Euripides. I am sure there is nothing of this kind in English worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourself. You see I write to you without any sort of constraint or method, as things come into my head, and therefore use the same freedom with me, who am, etc.

LETTER III.

TO MR. WALSH.

Windsor Forest, July 2, 1706.

I CANNOT omit the first opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing those papers of mine. You have no less right to correct me, than the same hand that raised a tree has to prune it. I am convinced as well as you that one may correct too much; for in poetry as in painting, a man may lay colours one upon another till they stiffen and deaden the piece. Besides, to bestow heightening on every part is monstrous: Some parts ought to be lower than the rest; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, seem all on a level: "Tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grass, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undistin

It is impossible not to stop and admire the good taste and sound judgment of our Author, so well expressed in such early youth. What has Horace, Vida, or Boileau, said better on the difficult subject of correcting, and making every passage uniformly splendid?

guished. I believe too that sometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first squeezing of the grapes makes the finest and richest wine.

I have not attempted any thing of a pastoral comedy, because I think, the taste of our age will not relish a poem of that sort. People seek for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing: Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit; insomuch that the critics have excluded wit from the loftiest poetry, as well as the lowest, and forbid it to the Epic no less than the Pastoral. I should certainly displease all those who are charmed with Guarini and Bonarelli, and imitate Tasso not only in the simplicity of his Thoughts, but in that of the Fable too. If surprising discoveries should have place in the story of a pastoral comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make them the effects of chance than of design; intrigue not being very consistent with that innocence, which ought to constitute a shepherd's character. There is nothing in all the Aminta (as I remember) but happens by mere accident; unless it be the meeting of Aminta with Sylvia at the fountain, which

Dr. Blair has observed, that Bouhours, Fontenelle, Addison, and the last translators of Virgil's Eclogues, have injured and misrepresented Tasso as too much abounding in points and conceits, and seem to misunderstand what Sylvia says on viewing herself in a fountain with a garland of flowers on her head.

is the contrivance of Daphne; and even that is the most simple in the world: The contrary is observable in Pastor Fido, where Corisca is so perfect a mistress of intrigue, that the plot could not have been brought to pass without her. I am inclined to think the pastoral comedy has another disadvantage as to the manners: Its general design is to make us in love with the innocence of rural life, so that to introduce shepherds of a vicious character must in some measure debase it: And hence it may come to pass, that even the virtuous characters will not shine so much, for want of being opposed to their contraries. These thoughts are purely my own, and therefore I have reason to doubt them but I hope your judgment will set me right.

I would beg your opinion too as to another point: it is, how far the liberty of borrowing may extend ; I have defended it sometimes by saying, that it seems not so much the perfection of sense, to say things that had never been said before, as to express those best that have been said oftenest; and that writers, in the case of borrowing from others, are like trees, which of themselves would produce only one sort of fruit, but by being grafted upon others may yield variety. A mutual commerce makes poetry flourish; but then poets, like merchants, should repay with something of their own what they take from others; not, like pirates, make prize of all they meet. I de. to tell me sincerely if I have not stretched this licence too far in these pastorals? I hope to be

sire

you

6

He should rather have said, the perfection of conception. W.