Vidit quanta fub nocte jaceret no less than eight in English. What you obferve, fure, cannot be an Error-Sphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; Tycho Brahe himself will be on the tranflator's fide. For Mr. Rowe here fays no more, than that he looked down on the rays of the fun, which Pompey might do, even though the body of the fun were above him, You can't but have remarked what a journey Lucan here makes Cato take for the fake of his fine descriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reafon than this; Hæc eadem fuadebat hiems, quæ clauferat æquor. The winter's effects on the fea, it seems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, etc. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his fpeech to the foldiers: then he fetches a compafs a vaft way round about, to the Nafamones and Jupiter Ammon's temple *, purely to ridicule the oracles: * The fituation of this celebrated temple, fo long unknown, has at last been discovered, under the aufpices of the African Society. From the peculiar circumftance of the warm and cold fpring, (i. e. cold in the day, and warm at night,) which is described by Herodotus and Curtius; from the trees, and magnificent ruins, near the spot where the "fons folis," and "Templum Ammonis,” are marked in the ancient maps, there appears little doubt, but that this celebrated temple was fituated (according to the conjectures of Horneman) in the Oafis of Siwah, amid the defert, north-weft of Cairo. oracles and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he fays-fors obtulit, et fortuna viaeither Labienus, or the map, is very much mistaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken first in his way to Utica) and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who feems to have made Cato fpeak his own mind, when he tells his army-Ire fat eft-no matter whither. I am Your, etc. LETTER XXIII. FROM MR. CROMWELL. Nov. 20, 1710. THE fyftem of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as it is novel) could have no room here: Lucan, with the rest of the Latin poets, feems to follow Plato; whofe order of the fpheres is clear in Cicero, De natura Deorum, De fomnio Scipionis, and in Macrobius. The feat of the Semidei manes is Platonic too, for Apuleius De deo Socratis affigns the fame to the Genii, viz. the region of the. Air for their intercourfe with gods and men; fo that, I fancy, Rowe mistook the fituation, and I can't be reconciled to Look down on the fun's rays. I am glad you agree with me about the latitude he takes; and wifh you had told me, if the fortilegi, and fatidici, could licenfe his invective VOL. VII. L against against priests; but, I suppose, you think them (with The blafted Phaeton with blazing hair, } *Of all the parts of Trapp's tranflation of Virgil, that of his Georgics is most blameable and profaic. The Author of the Prelections loft himself much in this tranflation of Virgil; yet many of his notes fhew that he understood and felt his author: and his Prelections may be read with advantage by young scholars. His Latin tranflation of Milton was a woful performance. WARTON. The diftich on Trapp is well known: LETTER XXIV. Nov. 24, 1710. то you make use of that freedom and familiarity of style, which we have taken up in our correspondence, and which is more properly talking upon paper, than writing; I will tell without any preface, That I never took Tycho Brahe for one of the ancients, or in the leaft an acquaintance of Lucan's; nay, 'tis a mercy on this occafion that I do not give you an account of his life and converfation; as how he lived fome years like an inchanted knight in a certain island, with a tale of a King of Denmark's miftress that shall be nameless-But I have compaffion on you, and would not for the world you should stay any longer among the Genii and Semidei Manes, you know where; for if once you get fo near the moon, Sappho will want your prefence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great lofs Drury. lane will fuftain, when Mr. C is in the milkyway. These celeftial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a fort of fortilegi in one sense, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at firft in an uncertainty, * Mrs. Thomas, of whom the reader will fee a more particular account in the Appendix to this Volume. certainty, whereas the fetters-up are fure of fomething. Priefts indeed in their character, as they reprefent 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 thefe, 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 fenfe be ever fo 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, fo he has made the Jew fpeak 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 ferve for his part of the vith, where I find this memorable line, |