what more to wish you than this, I do not know; unless it be a great deal of patience to read and examine the verses I fend you: I promise you in return a great deal of deference to your judg ment, and an extraordinary obedience to your fentiments for the future (to which, you know, I have been fometimes a little refractory). If you will please to begin where you left off laft, and mark the margins, as you have done in the pages immediately before, (which you will find corrected to your sense fince your laft perufal,) you will extremely oblige me, and improve my tranflation. Eefides thofe places which may deviate from the fenfe of the author, it would be very kind in you to obferve any deficiencies in the diction or numbers. The Hiatus in particular I would avoid as much as poffible, to which you are certainly in the right to be a profeffed enemy; though, I confefs, I could not think it poffible at all times to be avoided by any writer, till I found by reading Malherbe lately, that there is fcarce any throughout his poems. I thought your obfervation true enough to be paffed into a rule, but not a rule without exceptions, nor that ever it had been reduced to practice: But this example of one of the most correct and * 募 best The first correct Poet of France; to whom their language had ineftimable obligations. The notes of Menage on the Works of Malherbe, abound in many curious critical remarks and digreffions. Ronfard had a more vigorous imagination than Malherbe, but not fo true a taste and judgment; his ftyle is harfh, and full of barbarifms and foreign idioms. WARTON. best of their Poets has undeceived me, and confirms your opinion very strongly, and much more than Mr. Dryden's authority, who, though he made it a rule, feldom obferved it. Your, etc. LETTER VII. June 10, 1709. I HAVE received part of the verfion of Statius, and return you my thanks for your remarks, which I think to be juft, except where you cry out (like one in Horace's Art of Poetry) pulchre, bene, recte! There I have fome fears you are often, if not always, in the wrong. One of your objections, namely on that paffage, The rest revolving years fhall ripen into fate, may be well-grounded, in relation to its not being the exact fenfe of the words Certo reliqua ordine ducam. But the duration of the Action of Statius's poem may as well be excepted againft, as many things befides in him; (which I wonder Boffu has not observed ;) for inftead of confining his narra See the first book of Statius, v. 302. tion POPE. Boffu did not write a critique upon Statius, but only used him, as he did other poets, occafionally, for an example. So that it is no wonder there fhould be faults and beauties in Statius which he did not take notice of. WARBURTON. tion to one year, it is manifeftly exceeded in the very first two books: The narration begins with Edipus's prayer to the Fury to promote difcord betwixt his fons; afterwards the Poet expressly describes their entering into the agreement of reigning a year by turns*; and Polynices takes his flight from Thebes on his brother's refusal to refign the throne. All this is in the first book; in the next Tydeus is fent ambas fador to Eteocles, and demands his refignation in these terms: Aftriferum velox jam circulus orbem Torfit, et amiffæ redierunt montibus umbræ, But Boffu himself is mistaken in one particular, relating to the commencement of the action; faying, in book ii. cap. 8. that Statius opens with Europa's Rape, whereas the Poet at most only deliberates whether he fhould or not ". Unde jubetis Ire, Deæ gentifne canam primordia diræ, but then exprefsly paffes all this with a longa retro feries-and fays, limes * Warton fays, "It is rather flrange that our Poet should make no mention of the Phæniffe of Euripides." In fact, the extent of Pope's claffical erudition, at the time he wrote thefe Letters, is fufficiently obvious. That was the fame to Boffu's purpofe; which was only to fhew, that there were Epic Poets fo ignorant, or fo negligent of compofition, as not to know where their fubje&t fhould begin. WARBURTON. limes mihi carminis efto Oedipodæ confusa domus. Indeed there are numberlefs particulars blame-worthy in our author, which I have tried to soften in the verfion : dubiamque jugo fragor impulit Oeten In latus, et geminis vix fluctibus obftitit Ifthmus, is most extravagantly hyperbolical: Nor did I ever read a greater piece of tautology, than Vacua cum folus in aula Refpiceres jus omne tuum, cunctofque minores, In the journey of Polynices is fome geographical error: In mediis audit duo litora campis could hardly be; for the Ifthmus of Corinth is full five miles over: And caligantes abrupto fole Mycenas, is not confiftent with what he tells us, in lib. iv. lin. 305. "that thofe of Mycena came not to the "war at this time, because they were then in con "fufion by the divisions of the brothers, Atreus and Thyeftes." Now from the raising the Greek army against Thebes, back to the time of this journey of Polynices, is (according to Statius's own account) three years. Yours, etc. THE LETTER VIII. July 17, 1709. HE morning after I parted from you, I found myself (as I had prophefied) all alone, in an uneasy Stage-coach; a doleful change from that agreeable company I enjoyed the night before! without the leaft hope of entertainment but from my last resource in fuch cafes, a Book. I then began to enter into acquaintance with your Moralifts, and had just received from them fome cold confolation for the inconveniencies of this life, and the uncertainty of human affairs; when I perceived my vehicle to stop, and heard from the fide of it the dreadful news of a fick woman preparing to enter it. "Tis not eafy to guess at my mortification, but being fo well fortified with philofophy, I ftood refigned with a ftoical conftancy to endure the worst of evils, a fick woman. I was indeed a little comforted to find by her voice and dress, that she was young and a gentlewoman; but no fooner was her hood removed, but I faw one of the finest faces I ever beheld, and, to increase my furprize, heard her falute me by my name. I never had more reason to accufe nature for making me fhort-fighted than now, when I could not recollect I had ever seen those fair eyes which knew me fo well, and was utterly at a lofs how to address myself; till |