Congreve is your familiar acquaintance; you may judge of Wycherley by him: they have the fame manly way of thinking and writing, the fame candour, modefty, humanity, and integrity of manners: it is impoffible not to love them for their own fakes, abstracted from the merit of their works.

In fhort, Sir, I'll have you judge for yourfelf: I am not fatisfied with this imperfect fketch name your day, and I will bring you together; I shall have both your thanks. Let it be at my lodging. I can give you no Falernum that has out-lived twenty confulfhips, but I can promise you a bottle of good old Claret that has feen two reigns: Horatian wit will not be wanting when you two meet. He fhall bring with him, if you will, a young poet, newly inspired, in the neighbourhood of CoopersHill, whom he and Walsh have taken under their wing; his name is Pope: he is not above feventeen or eighteen years of age, and promifes miracles. If he goes on as he has begun, in the pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his ftrength,

ftrength, we may hope to fee English poetry vie with the Roman, and this Swan of Windfor fing as fweetly as the Mantuan. I expect your answer.

Dear Harry, Adieu, &c.

ESSAY

ESSAY UPON UNNATURAL FLIGHTS IN POETRY.

AS when fome image of a charming face,
In living paint, an artist tries to trace,
He carefully confults each beauteous line,
Adjusting to his object his design;

We praise the piece, and give the painter fame,
But as the just resemblance speaks the dame.
Poets are limners of another kind,

To copy out ideas in the mind;

Words are the paint by which their thoughts are shown,

And Nature fits the object to be drawn ;
The written picture we applaud or blame
But as the due proportions are the fame
Who driven with ungovernable fire,
Or, void of art, beyond these bounds afpire,
Gigantic forms and monftrous births alone

Produce, which Nature, fhock'd, difdains to own.
By true reflection I would fee my

face:

Why brings the fool a magnifying-glass?

❝ (1) But

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(1) But Poetry in fiction takes delight, "And, mounting in bold figures out of fight, "Leaves truth behind in her audacious flight: "Fables and metaphors that always lie, "And rafh hyperboles that foar fo high, "And every ornament of verse must die.” Mistake me not; no figures I exclude, And but forbid intemperance, not food. Who would with care fome happy fiction frame, So mimics truth, it looks the very fame; Not rais'd to force, or feign'd in Nature's fcorn, But meant to grace, illuftrate, and adorn. Important truths ftill let your fables hold, And moral myfteries with art unfold. Ladies and beaux to please is all the task, But the fharp critic will instruction ask.

(1) The poetic world is nothing but fiction; Parnaffus, Pegafus, and the Mufes, pure imagination and chimera: but being however a system univerfally agreed on, all that has or may be contrived or invented upon this foundation according to Nature fhall be reputed as truth; but whatsoever fhall diminish from, or exceed, the just proportions of Nature shall be rejected as falfe, and pass for extravagance, as dwarfs and giants for monsters.

(2) As veils transparent cover, but not hide, Such metaphors appear when right apply'd; When thro' the phrase we plainly see the sense, Truth, where the meaning's obvious, will dispense;

The reader what in reafon 's due believes;
Nor can we call that falfe which not deceives.
(3) Hyperboles, fo daring and fo bold,
Difdaining bounds, are yet by rules control'd:

Above

(2) When Homer, mentioning Achilles, terms him a Lion, this is a metaphor, and the meaning is obvious and true, though the literal sense be false, the poet intending thereby to give his reader fome idea of the strength and fortitude of his hero. Had he said that wolf, or that bear, this had been false, by presenting an image not conformable to the nature and character of a hero, &c.

(3) Hyperboles are of divers forts, and the manner of introducing them is different: some are, as it were, naturalized and established by a customary way of expreffion; as when we fay fuch a one is as swift as the wind, whiter than fnow, or the like. Homer, fpeaking of Nereus, calls him beauty it felf; Martial of Zoilus, lewdnefs itfelf. Such hyperboles lie indeed, but deceive us not; and therefore Seneca terms them lies that readily conduct our imagination to truths, and have an intelligible fignification, though the expreffion be ftrained beyond

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