Spinge fempre foave, e fempre eguale, A deftra é lungo tratto e quivi e il Guito, Ma la nave, feguendo il manco lito, IN the Sixteenth Canto the incident of Rinaldo's immediate affent to the perfuafions of the two warriors is much too rapid. As it was the hinge upon which the crifis of the poem turned, no art fhould have fpared to render it interefting by many difficulties and folutions. The warriors inducing Rinaldo to liften to the expoftulations of Armida is an article ftill more unfortunate. It was their to hurry him off; his to delay. part The circumftance, in the next book, of the Soldan of Egypt giving the command of his vaft forces to a lieutenant is very ill imagined. It's being conformable to history were no excufe. Had the foldan led them himself, and fought fought himself with Godfrey, and fallen by his hand, more grandeur and more intereft would have accrued to the catastrophe of this immortal poem. Not to mention that a lieutenant was an improper perfonage to be the commander of so many auxiliary kings. THE incidents in the Eighteenth Canto are, as ufual with Taffo, very well ordered. The scenes in the next are an exquifite relief from the repetition of general battles which is so apt to difguft. Erminia's meeting with Tancred is most artfully contrived, and wrought up to no mean fhare of pathos. The adventures of Vafrino have all that intereft which extreme danger, fuch as muft always attend the most dishonourable office of a fpy, never fail to raife. IN the Twentieth and Laft Book Taffo hath drawn from Hiftory the moft grand and interesting catastrophe of any epic poem in the world without exception. The city of Jeru falem is taken, the fepulchre of Chrift freed, in the Eighteenth Book. What then remained? History tells us that, four or five Hh ; days days after the taking the holy city, the vast forces of the fultan of Egypt, amounting to near 100,000 infantry, and 40,000 horse, came to aflail the victors now weakened by repeated conflicts to about 12,000 men if I remember right. Victory however declared in favour of the Chriftians, with a flaughter of the enemy almost unparalleled. What a glorious cataftrophe! A cataftrophe at the fame time abfolutely neceffary to fulfil the event, Taffo hath availed himself of it, as indeed a writer of half his talents must have done. It hath already been remarked that it might have been heightened; but, as it ftands, I do not hesitate to pronounce it the grandeft close that an epic poem can poffibly have, NoT to intrude too much on your patience, the further confideration of this wonderful poem fhall be deferred till a future occafion, LETTER THE LETTER LIII. HE hypocrify you laugh at is very common. Literature hath its hypocrifies as well as religion, That which you mention, in terms of juft derifion, is one of the most frequent, where a man who is fenfible that he hath ftudied a branch of fcience much, and knows the value of his opinions concerning it, yet pretends to submit, with modest deference, to the fentiments of people whofe ignorance he knows to conviction, Can any hypocrify be more grofs? Were it not much more manly to affume that noble confidentia fui, one of the best of the ancient virtues, the parent of many other virtues, but now unknown to us, or unknown as a virtue? Is fincerity, that nobleft attribute of the moral character of man, to be facrificed on the altar of false modesty ? FROM principles of the fame hypocrify we often fee opinions contrary to truth, but which happen to be affirmed by writers of established reputation, affented to in filence by others of equal talents, who know their falfity, but dare not fet their judgment against that of authors of celebrity not from modefty, for that man cannot be found who will confefs the mind of another to be fuperior to his own, but from bafe hypocrify of modefty. Independent of this vice of fimulation, Science would advance in the world with double rapidity. Names, and pretended deference to them, have been the great barriers in every age that have confined knowlege to half its proper bounds. A YET more glaring literary hypocrify is that by which an ignorant man affumes the garb of fcience; as the worst hypocrify in the moral world is that by which a vicious man assumes the mask of religion. In the latter a hypocrite may often be difcovered by pushing his fimulation too far; and in the like manner a literary impoftor is apt, not to display too much learning, for he hath got none; but, to ufe the character of a learned man in the extreme. He shakes his head at the most trivial queftion, and, with many hems and ha's, says it is a difficult point, a very difficult point indeed, |