LETTERS

TO AND FROM

W. WALSH, ESQ.

From the Year 1705 to 1707.

I

LETTER I.

MR. WALSH TO MR. WYCHERLEY.

b

April 20, 1705. RETURN you the papers you favoured me with, and had fent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you laft night myself. I have read them over feveral times with great fatisfaction. The Preface is very judicious and very learned; and the verfes very tender and easy. The Author feems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken

⚫ Of Abberley in Worcestershire, Gentleman of the Horfe in Queen Anne's reign, Author of feveral beautiful pieces in Prose and Verfe, and in the opinion of Mr. Dryden (in his poftfcript to Virgil) the best critic of our nation in his time.

Mr. Pope's Paftorals.

POPE.

POPE.

taken very freely from the ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to fay, that Virgil had written nothing fo good at his age. I fhall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my houfe, I fhall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this Letter. I am, Sir, etc.

LETTER II.

MR. WALSH TO MR. POPE.

June 24, 17c6.

I RECEIVED the favour of your letter *, and fhall

be very glad of the continuance of a correspondence, by which I am like to be fo great a gainer. I hope when I have the happiness of seeing you again

in

• Sixteen.

POPE.

* Walsh, though a feeble and flimfey poet, yet from these Letters, and from the Effay on Paftoral, which he gave to Dryden, appears to have been a man of some taste and literature, but of narrow ideas in Poetry. He feems to be the first of our critics, that attended much to the Italian poets. We ought to efteem him for his early praife and encouragement of Pope, which perhaps contributed to determine Pope to devote himself to the study of Poetry. The best of Walsh's poetry is a Parody on the Fourth

Eclogue

in London, not only to read over the verfes I have now of yours, but more that you have written fince; for I make no doubt but any one who writes fo well, must write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the best; I believe the contrary is rather true. I mentioned fomewhat to you in London of a Pastoral Comedy, which I fhould be glad to hear you had thought upon fince. I find Menage, in his obfervations upon Taffo's Aminta, reckons up fourscore pastoral plays in Italian: And in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many paftoral and pifcatory plays, which, I fuppofe, Menage reckons together. I find alfo by Menage, that Taffo is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before him which he himself had never seen, nor indeed have. I. But as the Aminta, Paftor Fido* and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelii are the three best, so, I think, there is no difpute but Aminta is the best of the three: Not but that the difcourfes in Paftor Fido are more entertaining and copious in feveral people's opinion,

Eclogue of Virgil, in which Tories, Nonjurors, and Jacobites, are vigorously attacked and ridiculed; and an Imitation of the Juftum & tenacem of Horace, B. 3. Ode 3. in which a speech of King William, from stanza the 4th to the 13th, is given with much energy and force. Some of Addifon's belt verfes are alfo a tranflation of this very Ode; and it is remarkable that Oldmixon relates it was ke that defired Mr. Addison to give a translation of this Ode; certainly one of his moft fpirited compofitions. WARTON.

It is furprifing that Walfh fhould make no mention of that exquifite Paftoral Comedy, The Faithful Shepherdefs, of Beaumont and Fletcher; nor of the Conus of Milton, who in truth has borrowed much from Fletcher. WARTON.

opinion, though not fo proper for paftoral; and the fable of Bonarelli more surprising. I do not remember many in other languages *, that have written in this kind with fuccefs. Racan's Bergeries are much inferior to his lyric poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the defign of pastoral plays, to be taken from the Cyclops of Euripides. I am fure there is nothing of this kind in English worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourfelf. You fee I write to you without fort of constraint or method, as things any come into my head, and therefore use the fame freedom with me, who am, etc.

* Walsh's not mentioning the moft poetical pieces of the kind, Beaumont and Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdefs," and the exquifite Comus, fhews how little the genuine fpirit of Poetry was, at the time this was written, understood.

Pope had not an eye for rural beauty, and for those natural pictu refque accompaniments which are effential to the Paftoral Drama. I do not mean, that he had not a taste of rural embellishment-that is a different thing. There are ten thousand appearances in the lights. and shades of Nature, which it requires an habitual converfe with rural fcenery to delineate accurately; and without thefe, the Paftoral Drama would lofe its diftinguishing and moft beautiful features. I fhould clafs under this genus of Poetry, though not strictly pastoral, the Philoctetes of Sophocles ; and how interesting are the different views which the landfcape prefents, as accompanying the dramatic part? From the beginning; where the dwelling of the miferable exile among the rocks is fet before us, to the last fcene, where he bids adieu to his folitary cave, the nymphs, or fairy beings, of the vallies, Νυνφαι λειμωνιάδες,-all is in the meft exquifite vein of the rural and romantic Drama....

But, perhaps, our own Shakespear, in his " As you like it," has exhibited the moft interefting fpecimen of the Drama connected with Paftoral Scenery.

LETTER III.

TO MR. WALSH.

*

Windfor Foreft, July 2, 1706.

I CANNOT omit the first opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing those papers of mine. You have no lefs right to correct me, than the fame hand that raised a tree has to prune it. I am convinced, as well as you, that one may correct too much; for in poetry as in painting, a man may lay colours one upon another till they ftiffen and deaden the piece. Befides, to bestow heightening on every part is monftrous: Some parts ought to be lower than the rest; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, feem all on a level: 'Tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grafs, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undistinguished. I believe too that fometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first squeezing of the grapes makes the finest and richest wine.

I have

* Warton fays, "It is impoffible not to admire the good taste and found judgment of our Author, fo well expreffed in fuch early youth." This is certainly a very juft compliment, which Pope deferved; not so much on account of the novelty of his remarks, as the good fenfe and judgment, and acquaintance with criticism, which they evince.