original from the ancient Gauls to the modern French but this is erroneous; the words there not being ranged according to the laws of the Rondeau, as laid down by Clement Marot. If you will fay, that the fong of the foldiers might be only the rude beginning of this kind of poem, and so consequently imperfect, neither Heinfius nor I can be of that opinion; and fo I conclude, that we know nothing of the matter. But, Sir, I ask your pardon for all this buffoonery, which I could not address to any one fo well as to you, fince I have found by experience, you most eafily forgive my impertinencies. 'Tis only to fhow you that I am mindful of you at all times, that I write at all times; and as nothing I can fay can be worth your reading, fo I may as well throw out what comes uppermoft, as ftudy to be dull. I am, etc. AT LETTER XV. FROM MR. CROMWELL. July 15, 1710. T laft I have prevailed over a lazy humour to transcribe this elegy: I have changed the situation of fome of the Latin verfes, and made fome interpolations, but I hope they are not abfurd, and foreign to my author's sense and manner: but they are referred to your cenfure, as a debt; whom I esteem no less a critic than a poet: I expect to be treated with the fame rigour as I have practifed to Mr. Dryden and you. Hanc veniam petimufque damusque vicissim. I defire the favour of your opinion, why Priam, in his fpeech to Pyrrhus in the second Æneid, fays this to him, At non ille, fatum quo te mentiris, Achilles. He would intimate (I fancy by Pyrrhus's anfwer) only his degeneracy: but then thefe following lines of the verfion (I fuppofe from Homer's history) feem abfurd in the mouth of Priam, viz. He chear'd my forrows, and for fums of gold Your, etc. LETTER XVI. July 20, 1710. I GIVE you thanks for the verfion you sent me of Ovid's elegy. It is very much an image of that author's writing, who has an agreeableness that charms us without correctnefs, like a mistress, whose faults we fee, but love her with them all. You have very judiciously altered his method in fome places, and I can find nothing which I dare infift upon as an error: what I have written in the margins being merely gueffes at a little improvement, rather than criticisms. I affure you I do not expect you should fubfcribe to my private notions, but when you fhall judge them agreeable to reafon and good fense. What I have done is not as a critic, but as a friend; I know too well how many qualities are requifite to make the one, and that I want almost all I can reckon up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, nor, I hope, capacity, to be the other. Nor fhall I take it at all amifs, that another diffents from my opinion: 'tis no more than I have often done from my own; and indeed, the more a man advances in underftanding, he becomes the more every day a critic upon himself, and finds fomething or other still to blame in his former notions and opinions. I could be glad to know if you have tranflated the 11th elegy of lib. ii. Ad amicam navigantem. The 8th of book iii. or the 11th of book iii. which are above all others my particular favourites, efpecially the last of these. As to the paffage of which you ask my opinion in the second Æneid, it is either fo plain as to require no folution; or elfe (which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam would fay, that Achilles (whom furely you only feign to be your "father, fince your actions are fo different from his) "did not use me thus inhumanly. He blufhed at "his murder of Hector, when he faw my forrows "for him; and reftored his dead body to me to be buried." To this the anfwer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough. "Go then to the fhades, and "tell Achilles how I degenerate from him :" granting the truth of what Priam had faid of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judiciously paffes in filence, the circumstance of Achilles's felling for money the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in fome measure leffening the character of Achilles's generofity and piety, which is the very point of which Priam endea * yours * This behaviour of Achilles could not escape an acute critic, but one too fond of carping at the ancients. "Forgive me, (fays Achilles,) my dear Patroclus, for restoring the body of Hector to his father; car (on s'attend qu'il va dire) je n'ai pû refifter aux larmes de ce pere infortune; mais non: for he has brought me a great ranfom. Such paffages prove that true heroifm was never fo little known, as in the times called heroic." Marmontel. Poetique, t. ii. p. 197. The plain answer is, that Achilles speaks and behaves fuitably to the manners, ideas, and fentiments of his age. WARTON vours in this place to convince his fon, and to reproach him with the want of. But the truth of this circumftance is no way to be queftioned, being exprefsly taken from Homer, who represents Achilles weeping for Priam, yet receiving the gold, Iliad xxiv. For when he gives the body, he uses these words: "O my friend Patroclus! forgive me that I quit the "corpfe of him who killed thee; I have great gifts ❝in ransom for it, which I will beftow upon thy "funeral." LETTER XVII. FROM MR. CROMWELL. I am, etc. Aug. 5, 1710. L OOKING among fome French rhymes *, I was agreeably furprized to find in the Rondeau of Pour le moins-your Apoticaire and Lavemant, which I took for your own; so much is your Mufe of intelligence with the wits of all languages. You have refined upon Voiture †, whofe Où vous favez is much inferior to your You know where.-You do not only * Pope was willing Cromwell fhould take "for his own," that which he knew belonged to another! • In Voiture's Poems. POPE. ९ +. In which paffage there is as little decency as gallantry. WARTON. |