Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Mean though I am, not wholly fo,

Since quicken'd by thy Breath; Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go,

Through this day's Life or Death!

This day, be Bread and Peace my
All elfe beneath the Sun,

Lot:

45

Thou know'ft if best bestow'd or not,

And let Thy Will be done.

[blocks in formation]

VER. 39. That Mercy] It has been faid that our Poet, in this Prayer, chofe the Lord's Prayer for his model; but there is no resemblance but in this paffage, and in the last flanza but one.

M. Le Franc de Pompignan, a celebrated avocat at Montauban, anthor of Dido a tragedy, was feverely cenfured in France for tranflating this Universal Prayer, as a piece of Deism; which, having been printed in London, in 4to. by Vaillant, was conveyed to the Chancellor Agueffau, who immediately fent a strong reprimand to M. Le Franc, and he vindicated his orthodoxy in a laboured letter to that learned Chancellor. Voltaire reproached Le Franc with making this tranflation. His brother, Bishop of Puy au Velei, has called Locke an atheist. WARTON.

WARTON feems to have violated his own principles of estimating tne character of genuine poetry, when he praises fo highly the poetry of this Hymn. The two laft ftanzas are fublime; but I fear, if we were to examine the greater part by the Horatian rule, which Warton recommends, that is, altering the rhyme and measure, we should not find the "disjecti membra Poeta."

This Prayer was tranflated into Latin by J. Sayer.

MORAL ESSAYS,

IN FOUR EPISTLES

TO SEVERAL PERSONS.

Eft brevitate opus, ut currat fententia, neu se
Impediat verbis laffis onerantibus aures:
Et fermone opus eft modo trifti, fæpe jocofo,
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetæ
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas confultò.

HOR.

« AnteriorContinuar »