here in the country; which I defire you to furnish me with, as I do you in the town, Sic fervat ftudii fœdera quifque fui. I am obliged to Mr. Caryl (whom, you tell me, you met at Epsom) for telling you truth, as a man is in these days to any one that will tell truth to his advantage; and I think none is more to mine, than what he told you, and I fhould be glad to tell all the world, that I have an extreme affection and efteem for you. Tecum etenim longos memini confumere foles, - By thefe Epula, as I take it, Perfius meant the Portugal fnuff and burnt Claret, which he took with his mafter Cornutus; and the verecunda menfa was, without difpute, fome coffee-house table of the ancients. I will only obferve, that these four lines are as elegant and mufical as any in Perfius, not excepting those fix or seven which Mr. Dryden quotes as the only fuch in all that author.-I could be heartily glad to repeat the fatisfaction defcrib'd in them, being truly Your, &c. I LETTER XX. October 28, 1710. AM glad to find by your last letter that you write to me with the freedom of a friend, fetting down your thoughts as they occur, and dealing plainly with me in the matter of my own trifles, which, I affure you, I never valued half fo much as I do that fincerity in you which they were the occafion of dif covering covering to me; and which while I am happy in, I may be trufted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry; fince I fhall do nothing with it but after afking 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 verfes, even tho' themselves pronounce sentence upon them. As to Mr. Philips's Paftorals, I take the firft to be infinitely the best, and the fecond the worft; the third is for the greatest part a translation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not foreftal your judgment of the rest, only observe in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (fpeaking of the mufician's playing on the harp) Now lightly fkimming o'er the ftrings they pass, To which nothing can be objected, but that they are too lofty for paftoral, efpecially being put into the mouth of a fhepherd, as they are here; in the poet's own perfon they had been (I believe) more proper. They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of paftoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a fmall copy of the fame author publifh'd 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, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, yet I think one may do it more more fafely when they commend, than when they blame. I agree with you in your cenfure of the ufe of fea-terms in Mr. Dryden's Virgil; not only because Helenus was no great prophet in those matters, but because no terms of art or cant words fuit with the majefty and dignity of ftyle which epic poetry requires.- Cui mens divinior atque os magna fonaturum. The Tarpawlin phrafe can please none but fuch qui aurem habent Batavam; they must not expect auribus Atticis probari, I find by you. ([ think I have brought in two phrases of Martial here very dextroufiy.) Tho' you fay you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will 'not explain it; becaufe, tho' it feems you are refolv'd 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 verfe and the application. I hope it will be no offence to give my moft hearty fervice to Mr. Wycherley, tho' 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, &c. I guefs 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, finçe no invitation of his fhall ever more make me fo free with him. I could not have thought any man fo very cautious and fufpicicus, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed to believe no body, may be a maxim of fafety, but not fo much of honefty. 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 deferves to be conceal'd, and I can truly boaft this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealousy, which is become his nature, and fhall never be his enemy whatsoever he fays of me. Your, &c. I LETTER XXI. From Mr. CROMWELL. Nov. 5, 1710. Find I am obliged to the fight of your love-verfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been call'd in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions to express my esteem. I have just read and compar'd * Mr. Row's verfion of the ixth of Lucan, with very great pleasure, where I find none of thofe abfurdities fo frequent in that of Virgil, except in two places, for the fake of lafhing the priests; one where Cato fays Sortilegis egeant dubii- and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois-fatidici Sabai-He is fo errant a whig, that he ftrains even beyond his author, in paffion for liberty, and averfion to tyranny; and errs only in amplification. Lucan ix in initio, defcribing the feat of the Semidei manes, says, Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus, Mr. Row has this Line, Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Ray. *Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonfon's Mifcellanies. P. Pray Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphæricus in this or no? Your, &c. LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. mistake me very much in thinking the Yfreedom you kindly us'd with my love-verfes, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natur'd action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's paftoral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academice'; only the tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclufion of the Culex. I can't forbear giving you 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, This poem was many years fince imitated by Crafhaw, out of whofe verfes the following are very remarkable. From this to that, from that to this be flies, I I have |