fhall do nothing with it but after afking and following your advice. 1 value fincerity the more, as I find by fad experience, the practice of it is more dangerous; writers rarely pardoning the exccutioners of their vers fes, even tho' themselves pronounce fentence upon them. As to Mr. Philips's Paftorals, I take the first to be, infinitely the best, and the second the worst; the third is for the greatest part a tranflation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not foreftal your judgment of the reft, only observe in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (peaking of the mufician's playing on the harp)

Now lightly Skimming o'er the strings they pass, Like winds that gently brufh the plying grafs, And melting airs arife at their command; And now, laborious, with a weighty hand, He finks into the cords, with folemn pace, And gives the fwelling tones a manly grace. To which nothing can be objected, but that they are too lofty for paftoral, especially being put into the mouth of a fhepherd, as they are here; in the poet's own perfon they had been (I believe) more proper. They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of paftoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a small copy of the same author pub. lifh'd in the Tatler No. 12. on the Danish winter: Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your perufal.

Dr. Garth's poem I have not seen, but believe I fhall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's,

who fwore it was good: for, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critic's, yet I think one may do it more fafely when they commend, than when they blame.

I agree with you in your cenfure of the ufe of fea terms, in Mr. “Dryden's Virgil: not only because Hele nus was no great prophet in those matters, bur because no terms of Arr or cant words fuit with the majesty and dignity of Ityle which epic poerry requires. — Eui mens divinior atque os magna fonaturum. The Tarpawlin phrafe can please none but fuch qui aurem habent Batavam; they must not expect auribus Atticis probari, I find by you. (I think I have brought in two phrafes of Martial here very dextroufly.)

Tho' you fay you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it because, tho' it feems you are refolv'dno take me for a critic, I would by no means be thought a commentator. And for another reafon too, because I have quite forgot both the verfe and the application

I hope it will be no offence to give my most hear ty fervice to Mr. Wycherley, tho' I perceive by his last to me, I am not to trouble him with any letters, fince he there told me he was going inftantly out of town, and till his return was my fervant, &c. I guess by yours he is yet with you, and beg you to do what you inay with all truth and honour, that is, affure him I have ever borne all the refpect and kindness imaginable to him. I do not know to this hour what it is that has eftranged him from me; but this I know, that he may for the future be more fafely my friend, fince no invitation of his fhall ever more make® me fo free with

him. I could not have thought any man so very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experi ence of a friend. Indeed to believe na body, may be a maxim of safety, but not so much of honesty. There is but one way I know of converfing fafely, with all men, that is, not by concealing what we say or do but by laying or doing nothing that deferves to be con cea'ld, and I can truly boast this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealoufy, which become his nature, and shall never be his enemy whatsoever he fays of me..

Your, &c.

LETTER XXI.

From Mr.

CROMWELL.

Nov. 5, 1710.

Find I and obliged to the fight of your loveverfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been call'd in question, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions to exprefs my elteem.

I have just read and compar'd (a) Mr. Row's verfion of the ixth of Lucan, with very great pleasure, where I find none of those abfurdities fo frequent in that of Virgil, except in two places, for the fake of lafhing the prielts; one where Cato fays - Sortilegis egeant dubii and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois fatidici Sabai-He is fo errant a whig, that he ftrains even

(4) Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonson's Miscellanies. P.

人

beyond his author, in paffion for liberty, and averfion to tyranny; and errs only in amplification. Lucan ix in initio, defcribing the feat of the Semidei manes, fays Quodque patet terras inter lunæqué ineatus, Semidei manes habitant.

Mr. Rowe has this Line,

Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Ray.

Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphæricus in this or no?

Your,

&c.

LETTER XXII.

Nov. 11, 1710.

OU mistake me very much in thinking the

gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good natur'd action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in, that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's pa ftoral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academicæ; only the tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclufion of the Culex. I cant' forbear giving you a pasfage out of the Latin poem I mention, by which you will find the English poet is indebted to it.

Alternat mira arte fides: dum torquet acutas,
Inciditque, graves operofo verbere pulfat.
Iamque manu per fila volat; fimul hos, fimul illos
Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat iu omni.
Mox filet. Illa modis totidem respondet, & artem

Arte refert. Nunc ceu rudis, aut incerta canendi,

Præbet iter liquidem labenti e pectore voci,

Nunc cæfim variat, modulifque canora minutis

Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore.

This poem was many years fince imitated by Crafhaw, out of whofe verfes the following are very remarkable.

From this to that, from that to this he flies,
Feels mufic's pulfe in all its arteries;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads.
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads.

I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Row's ixth book of Lucan: Indeed he amplifies too much, as well as Brebœuf, the fa mous French imitator. If I remember right, he fomer times takes the whole comment into the text of the verfion, as particularly in lin. 808. Utque folet pariter. totis fe effundere fignis Corycii pressura croci. And in the place you quote, he makes of thofe two lines in the Latin,

Vidit quantâ fub nocte jaceret :

Noftra dies, rifitque fui ludibria trunci, no less than eight in English.

A

What you obferve, fure cannot be an Error-Sphæ ricus, strictly speaking, either in 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 look'd down on the rays of the fun, which Pompey might do, even tho' the body of the fun were above him.

You cant but haye remarked what a journey Lucan