you ever 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 trusted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry; fince I fhall do nothing with it but after asking 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 executioners of their verses, even though themselves pronounce fentence them. As to Mr. Philips's Paftorals, I upon take the first to be infinitely the best, and the second he worst; the third is for the greatest part a translation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not forestal your judgment of the rest, only observe in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (fpeaking of the musician's playing on the harp): Now lightly skimming o'er the strings they pass, 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 person they had been (I believe) more proper. They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of pastoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a fmall copy of the fame author published in the Tatler N° 12. on the Danish winter: 'Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your perufal. Dr. Garth's poem I have not feen, but believe I fhall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's, who fwore it was good: for though I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, yet I think one may do it more fafely when they commend, than when they blame. I agree with you in your cenfure of the use of featerms in Mr. Dryden's Virgil; not only because Helenus was no great prophet in these matters, but because no terms of art or cant-words fuit with the majesty and dignity of style which epic poetry requires.- -Cui mens divinior atque os magna fonaturum. — The Tarpawlin phrase can please none but such 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 dextroufly.) Though you fay you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it; because, though it seems you are refolved * They are as certainly improper and abfurd, as his ufe of the fame kind of terms in his Annus Mirabilis, where a fea-engagement is described. Boileau values himself for being the first French poet that introduced gun-powder, and a peruke, gracefully into poetry. A ftrange boast undoubtedly! resolved to take me for a critic, I would by no means be thought a commentator-And for another reason too, because I have quite forgot both the verse and the application. I hope it will be no offence to give my moft hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, though I perceive, by his last 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, etc. 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 shall 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 nobody, may be a maxim of safety, but not fo much of honesty. 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 deserves to be concealed, and I can truly boast 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 says of me. Your, etc. LETTER XXI. FROM MR. CROMWELL. Nov. 5, 1710. I FIND I am obliged to the fight of your love-verses, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been called in question, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions, to exprefs my esteem. S I have just read and compared Mr. Rowe's verfion of the ixth of Lucan, with very great pleasure, where I find none of those absurdities so 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 arrant 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, describing the seat of the Semidei manes, fays, Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus, 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, etc. • Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonfon's Mifcellanies. P. LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. γου ou mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly used with my love-verfes, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natured action of yours has done fince, confirmed me more in that opinion. The fable of the Nightingale in Philip's Paftorals 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 a paffage out of the Latin poem I mention, by which you will find the English poet is indebted to it. Alternat mira arte fides: dum torquet acutas, Jamque manu per fila volat; fimul hos, fimul illos Delibrat* vocem, tremuloque reciprocat* ore. This poem was many years fince imitated by Crashaw, out of whofe verfes the following are very remarkable: From * Neither of these words are used by Horace or Virgil: reci« procat is to be found in Lucretius, Book iii. 1101, but in another fenfe. |