certainty, 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 represent the King; but you will own a great many of them are very odd fellows, and the devil of any likeness in them. Yet I can affure you, I honour the good as much as I deteft the bad, and I think, that in condemning these, we praise those. The tranflations from Ovid I have not fo good an opinion of as you; because I think they have little of the main characteristic of this author, a graceful eafiness. For let the sense be ever so exactly rendered, unless an author looks like himself, in his air, habit, and manner, 'tis a difguife, and not tranflation. But as to the Pfalm, I think David is much more beholden to the tranflator than Ovid; and as he treated the Roman like a Jew, so he has made the Jew speak like a Roman. LETTER XXV. FROM MR. CROMWELL. Your, etc. Dec. 5, 1710. THE fame judgment we made on Rowe's ixth of Lucan will serve for his part of the vith, where I find this memorable line, Parque Parque novum Fortuna videt concurrere, bellum For this he employs fix verfes, among which is this, As if on Knightly terms in lifts they ran. Pray can you trace chivalry up higher than Pharamond? will you allow it an anachronism ?-Tickel in his verfion of the Phoenix from Claudian, When nature ceases, thou fhalt still remain, Claudian thus, Et clades te nulla rapit, folufque fuperftes, which plainly refers to the deluge of Deucalion, and the conflagration of Phaëton; not to the final diffolution. Your thought of the Priests lottery is very fine you play the wit, and not the critic, upon the errors of your brother. Your obfervations are all very juft: Virgil is eminent for adjusting his diction to his fentiments; and, among the moderns, I find you practise the Profodia of your rules. Your poem fhews you to be, what * you Nothing furely can be fo totally abhorrent from all the ideas of antiquity as chivalry, the rise and genius of which is no where fo amply and accurately inveftigated as by that curious antiquary M. De la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, in a Memoir first published in the 20th volume of the Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Lettres, and afterwards enlarged and publifhed in two volumes at Paris, 1759. WARTON. t To a Lady, with the Works of Voiture. POPE. you fay of Voiture-with books well bred: the state of the fair, though fatirical, is touched with that delicacy and gallantry, that not the court of Auguftus, not-But hold, I fhall lose what I lately recovered, your opinion of my fincerity: yet I muft fay, 'tis as faultlefs as the fair to whom it is addreffed, be fhe never fo perfect. The M. G. (who, it feems, had no right notion of you, as you of him) transcribed it by lucubration From fome difcourfe of yours, he thought your inclination led you to (what the men of fashion call learning) pedantry; but now, he fays, he has no lefs, I affure you, than a veneration for you. Your, etc. LETTER XXVI. December 17, 1710. T IT seems that my late mention of Crafhaw, and my quotation from him, has moved your curiofity. I therefore send you the whole Author, who has held a place among my other books of this nature for fome years; in which time having read him twice or thrice, I find him one of thofe whofe works may just deserve reading. I take this poet to have writ like a gentleman *, that is, at leisure hours, and more to keep out of idleness, than to establish a reputation; so that nothing regular or * Like a gentleman! he might have faid as well that Dante wrote like a gentleman! or just can be expected from him. All that regards design, form, fable, (which is the foul of poetry,) all that concerns exactnefs, or confent of parts, (which is the body,) will probably be wanting; only pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expreffions, and fomething of a neat cast of verse, (which are properly the drefs, gems, or loofe ornaments of poetry,) may be found in thefe verfes. This is indeed the case of most other poetical writers of miscellanies; nor can it well be otherwise, fince no man can be a true poet, who writes for diverfion only. These authors fhould be confidered as verfifiers and witty men, rather than as poets; and under this head will only fall the thoughts, the expreffion, and the numbers. These are only the pleasing part of poetry, which may be judged of at a view, and comprehended all at once. And (to exprefs myself like a painter) their colouring entertains the fight, but the lines and life of the picture are not to be infpected too narrowly. This Author formed himfelf upon Petrarch, or rather upon Marino*. His thoughts, one may obferve, * Crafhaw was fo fond of Marino, a writer of fine imagination but little judgment, as to tranflate the whole first book of his Strage de gli Innocenti (published 1633), which Marino himself preferred to his Il Adone, and to which Milton was indebted for many hints, which, however, he greatly improved. See particularly Stanza 7, and feveral fucceeding Stanzas in Crafhaw, p. 35, for a defcription of Satan. Milton, in his Manfus, celebrates the Adonis: the Strage was not then publifhed. It was firft printed in France, and Chapelain prefixed a learned preface to it. There was a tranflation of all the four books of the Slaughter of the Innocents, published 1675, by T. R. and dedicated to the Duchefs of York. L. 4 WARTON. ferve, in the main, are pretty; but oftentimes far fetched, and too often strained and stiffened to make them appear the greater. For men are never fo apt to think a thing great, as when it is odd or wonder. ful; and inconfiderate authors would rather be admired than understood. This ambition of furprizing a reader, is the true natural cause of all fuftian, or bombaft in poetry. To confirm what I have faid, you need but look into his first poem of the Weeper, where the 2d, 4th, 6th, 14th, 21st stanzas are as fublimely dull, as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 20th, and 23d stanzas of the fame copy, are soft and pleas ing and if these last want any thing, it is an eafier and more unaffected expreffion. The remaining thoughts in that poem might have been spared, being either but repetitions, or very trivial and mean. by this example in the first, one may guess at all the reft; to be like this, a mixture of tender gentle thoughts and fuitable expreffions, of forced and inextricable conceits, and of needlefs fillers-up to the reft. From all which it is plain, this author writ fast, and fet down what came uppermoft. A reader may fkim off the froth, and use the clear underneath; but if he goes too deep, will meet with a mouthful of dregs; either the top or bottom of him are good for little, but what he did in his own, natural, middleway, is beft. And To fpeak of his numbers, is a little difficult, they are fo various and irregular, and moftly Pindaric ; it is evident his heroic verfe (the best example of |