fore If you think 'em not worth the trouble of correcting, pray tell me fo freely, and it will fave me a labour; if you think the contrary, you would particularly oblige me by your remarks on the feveral thoughts as they occur. I long tobe nibbling at your verfes, and have not forgot who promis'd me Ovid's elegy Ad Amicam navigantem. Had Ovid been as long compofing it, as you in fending it, the lady might have failed to Gades, and received it at her return. I have really a great itch of criticifin upon me, but want matter here in the country; which I defire you to furnish me with, as I do you in the town,

Sic fervat ftudii fædera quifque fui.

I am obliged to Mr Caryl (whom you tell me, you met at Epfom) for telling you truth, as a man is in thefe days to any one that will tell truth to his advantage; and I think none is more to mine, than what he told you, and I fhould be glad to tell all the world, that I have an extreme affection and esteem for you.

Tecum etenim longos memini confumere foles,
Et tecum primas epulis decerpere notes;
Unum opus et requiem pariter difponimus ambo,
Atque verecunda laxamus feria menfa.

By thefe Epula, as I take it, Perfius meant the Portugal fnuff and burnt Claret, which he took with

his mafter Cornutus; and the verecunda menfa was, without difpute, fome coffee-house table of the ancients. I will only obferve, that these four lines are as elegant and musical as any in Perfius, not excepting thofe fix or feven which Mr Dryden quotes as the only fuch in all that author.I could be heartily glad to repeat the fatisfaction defcrib'd in them, being truly

Your, &c.

LETTER XX.

October 28. 1710.

I

1

Am glad to find by your last letter that you write to me with the freedom of a friend, setting down your thoughts as they occur, and dealing plainly with me in the matter of my own trifles, which, I affure you, I never valued half fo much as I do that fincerity in you which they were the occafion of discovering to me; and which while I am happy in, I may be trufted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry, since I shall do nothing with it, but after asking and following your advice. I value fincerity the more, as I find by fad experience, the practice of it is more dangerous; writers rarely pardoning the executioners of their verfes, even tho' themfelves pronounce fentence upon them. As to Mr Philips's Paftorals, I take the first to be infinitely the beft, and the fecond the worft; the third is for the greatest part a translation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not foreftal your judgment of

the reft, only obferve in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (fpeaking of the musician's playing on the harp)

Now lightly fkimming o'er the strings they pass,
Like winds that gently brush 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 shepherd, as they are here; in the poet's own person they had been (I believe) more proper They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of pastoral he rather seems 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 fame author publish'd in the Tatler No. 12. on the Danish winter: 'Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your peru

fal.

Dr Garth's poem I have not feen, but believe I fhall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's, who swore it was good: for, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, 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 use of fea-terns in Mr Dryden's Virgil; not only because

Helenus was no great prophet in those matters, but because no terms of Art or cant words fuit with the majefty and dignity of tile which epic poetry requires. Cui mens divinior atque os magna foraturum.

The Tarpawlin phrase can please none but fuch gui 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 dextrously.}

Tho' you say you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it; because, though it feems you are refolv'd to 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 moft hearty fervice to Mr Wycherley, though I perceive by his laft to me, I am not to trouble him with my 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 may 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 very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed, to believe no body, VOL. V.

fo

may be a maximn of safety, but not fo much of honefty. There is but one way I know of converfing safely, with all men, that is, not by concealing what we fay or do, but by faying or doing nothing that deferves to be conceal'd, and I can truly boaft this comfort in my affairs with Mr Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealoufy, which is become his nature, and fhall never be his enemy whatsoever he fays of

me.

Your, &c.

I

LETTER XXI.

From Mr CROMWELL.

Nov. 5. 1710.

Find I am obliged to the fight of your love-verfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been called in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions, to exp refs my express esteem.

I have juft read and compared * Mr Rowe's verfion of the ixth of Lucan with very great pleasure, where I find none of thofe abfurdities fo frequent in that of Virgil, except in two places, for the fake of lashing the priests; one where Cato fays-Sortilegis egeant dubii-and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhoisfatidici Sabai-He is fo errant a whig, that he strains even 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,

Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonion's Mifcellanies.