and thinks there are more good things in it than I do.-The same. Friar John's character is maintained throughout with a great deal of spirit. His concealed characters are touched only in part and by fits: as, for example, though the king's mistress be meant in such a particular related of Garagantua's mare, the very next thing perhaps that is said of the mare will not at all agree with the mistress. -The same. "I can't think how Denochares would have carried his proposal to Alexander the Great into execution.” For my part I have long since had an idea how that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welsh mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination. The figure must be in a reclining posture; because of the hollowing that would * Of turning Mount Athos into a statue of that prince. otherwise be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude, unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eyebrows, and a wood for the hair. The natural green turf should be left, wherever it would be necessary to represent the ground he reclines on. It should be contrived so that the true point of view should be at a considerable distance. When you were near it, it should still have the appearance of a rough mountain; but at the proper distance such a rising should be the leg, and such another an arm. It would be best, if there was a river, or rather a lake at the bottom of it, for the rivulet that runs through his other hand to tumble down the hill, and discharge itself into it.-The same. The lights and shades in gardening are managed by disposing the thick grove work, the thin, and the openings in a proper manner, of which the eye generally is the properest judge.—The same. Those clumps of trees are like the groups in pictures.-The same. You may distance things by darkening them, and by narrowing the plantation more and more towards the end, in the same manner as they do in painting, and as it is executed in the little cypress walk to that obelisk.-The same. There are several passages in Hobbes's translation of Homer, which if they had been writ on purpose to ridicule that poet, would have done very well.- The same : [who gave several instances of it, and particularly in the very first lines, the Ichor, and the two tumblers at a feast.] It was just after, in looking on the Pope at Lord Burlington's, at Chiswick, which he called "the best portrait in the world," that he spoke so highly of Carlo Marat.The same. ["I really think him as good a painter as any of them,". -were his words.] The best time for telling a friend of any fault he has is while you are commending him, that it may have the more influence upon him. And this I take to be the true meaning of the character which Persius gives Horace*.-The same. 1739. "I wonder how Horace could say such coarse obscene things in so polite an age, or how such an age could allow of it." 'Tis really a wonder, though 'twas the same with us in Charles, the Second's time, or rather worse. However it was not above five or six years, even in that witty reign, that it passed for wit, as the saying wicked things does among some now. I wish there were not too great remains of the former still, even among people of the first fashion; but the prevailing notion of genteelness consisting in freedom and ease, has led many to a total neglect of decency either in their words or behaviour: true politeness consists in the being easy one-self, and making every body about one as easy as we can. But the mistaking brutality for freedom, for which many of our young people * Omne vafer vitium ridentè Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludet. of quality in particular have made themselves so remarkable of late, has just the contrary effect; for that leads them to the taking of liberties which often make others uneasy, and always ought to make the aggressors themselves so.-The same. 'Tis difficult to find out any fault in Virgil's Eclogues or Georgics. He could not bear to have any appear in his Æneid, and therefore ordered it to be burnt.-The same. Virgil is very sparing in his commendation of other poets, and scarce ever does it, unless he is forced. He hints at Theocritus, because he has taken so much from him, and his subject led to it, and does the same by Hesiod† for the same reasons. He never speaks a single word of Homer, and indeed could not do it, where some would have had him, because of the anachronism.-The same. * Prima Syracusio, &c. Ecl. vi. 2. + Ascræumque cano, &c. Geo. ii. 176. They blame him for not mentioning Homer instead of Musæus, Æneid, vi. 667; without considering |