IOHANNI DRYDENO,

CVI POESIS ANGLICANA

VIM SVAM AC VENERES DEBET; ET SI QVA IN POSTERVM AVGEBITVR LAVDE, EST ADHVC DEBIT VRA:

HONORIS ERGO P. &c.

To fhew you that I am as much in earnest in the affair, as you yourself, fomething I will fend you too of this kind in English. If your defign holds of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above-may not lines like these be grav'd just under the name?

This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's afhes just,
Here fix'd his Name, and there his lawrel'd Buft.
What else the Mufe in Marble might express,
Is known already; Praife would make him less.

Or thus

More needs not; where acknowledg'd Merits reign, Praife is impertinent; and Cenfure vain.

This you'll take as a proof of my zeal at least, tho' it be none of my talent in Poetry. When have read it over, I'll forgive you if you you fhould not once in your life-time again think of it.

And now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales. Ill as I have been, almost ever fince they came to hand,

hand, I have read as much of them, as ever shall read while I live. Indeed they do not please my taste: they are writ with fo romantic an air, and, allowing for the difference of eastern manners, are yet, upon any fuppofition that can be made, of fo wild and abfurd a contrivance (at least to my northern understanding) that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience, in perusing them. They are to me like the odd paintings on Indian fcreens, which at first glance may surprize and please a little: but, when you fix your eye intently upon them, they appear so extravagant, difproportion'd, and monftrous, that they give a judicious eye pain, and make him feek for relief from fome other object.

fo

They may furnish the mind with fome new images: but I think the purchase is made at too great an expence: for to read those two volumes through, liking them as little as I do, would be a terrible penance, and to read them with pleasure would be dangerous on the other fide, because of the infection. I will never believe, that you have any keen relish of them, till I find you write worse than you do, which I dare fay, I never fhall. Croife is, the pretended

a Not the pretended Author, but the real tranflator,

Who that Petit de la author of thema, I

cannot of an Arabic MS in the French King's library. What he has

i

cannot tell: but obferving how full they are in the descriptions of drefs, furniture, &c. I can

ferently from good and bad. The contrivance he has invented of tying them toge

given in ten fmall Volumes, is not more than the tenth part of the Original. The Eastern people have been al-ther is conducted with fo ways famous for this fort of ftrange a blunder, that after Tales: in which much fine fuch an inftance of the want morality is often conveyed; of common sense one can wonnot indeed in a story always der at no absurdity we find representing real life and in them. The tales are fupmanners, but what the caft- pofed to be told to one of the ern fuperftitions have made Kings of Perfia of the Dypafs for fuch amongst the nafty of the Saffanides, an people. Their great genius ancient race before Mahomet, for this kind of writing ap- and yet the scene of fome of pears from what the Tran- them is laid in the Court of flator has here given us- Harown Alrafchid the 26th But the policy of fome of Chalif, and the 5th of the the latter princes of the Eaft Race of the Abafides. Thefe, greatly hurt the elegance and where the scene is so laid, are ufe of the compofition, by amongst the beft; and, infetting all men upon com- deed, it is no wonder: Al pofing in this way, to fur- rafchid was one of the most nish matter for their coffee- magnificent of the Chalifs, houses and places of refort; and the greatest encourager which were enjoined to en- of Letters; fo that it was tertain their customers with natural for men of Genius in a rehearsal of thefe works, in after times, to do this hoorder to divert them from nour to his memory.—But politics, and matters of ftate. the Bishop talks of Petit de The Collection in queftion la Croife. M. Galland was is fo strange a medley of fenfe the tranflator of the Arabian and nonfenfe, that one would tales. The name of the other be tempted to think it the is to the collection, called the compilation of fome coffee- Perfian tales, of which I man, who gathered indif- have nothing to fay.

not

not help thinking them the product of fome Woman's imagination: and, believe me, I would do any thing but break with you, rather than be bound to read them over with attention.

I am forry that I was so true a prophet in respect of the S. Sea, forry, I mean, as far as your lofs is concern'd: for in the general I ever was and still am of opinion, that had that project taken root and flourish'd, it would by degrees have overturn'd our constitution. Three or four hundred millions was fuch a weight, that whichfoever way it had leaned, must have born down all before it-But of the dead we must speak gently; and therefore, as Mr. Dryden says fomewhere, Peace be to its Manes!

in

your

Let me add one reflection, to make you eafy ill luck. Had you got all that you have lost beyond what you ventur'd, confider that your fuperfluous gains would have fprung from the ruin of feveral families that now want neceffaries! a thought, under which a good and good-natured man that grew rich by fuch means, could not, I perfuade myself, be perfectly eafy. Adieu, and believe me, ever,

Your, &c.

LET

LETTER VII.

From the Bishop of ROCHESTER.

You

March 26, 1721.

OU are not yourself gladder you are well than I am; especially fince I can please myself with the thought that when you had loft your health elsewhere, you recovered it here. May thefe lodgings never treat you worse, nor you at any time have lefs reafon to be fond of them!

I thank you for the fight of your a Verses, and with the freedom of an honest, tho' perhaps injudicious friend must tell you, that tho' I could like fome of them, if they were any body's elfe but yours, yet as they are yours and to be own'd as fuch I can fcarce like any of them. Not but that the four first lines are good, efpe cially the second couplet; and might, if followed by four others as good, give reputation to a writer of a less established fame: but from you I expect fomething of a more perfect kind, and which the oftener it is read, the more it will be admired. When you barely exceed other writers, you fall much beneath yourself: 'tis your misfortune now to write without a ri

a

* Epitaph on Mr. Harcourt. P.
H

VOLI VIII.

val,