Batavam; they must not expect auribus Atticis probari, I find by you. (I think I have brought in two phrases of Martial here very dexterously.) Though you fay you did not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it, because, though it seems you are refolv'd to take me for a critick, I would by no means be thought a commentator. And for another reason too, because I have quite forgot both the verse and the application. I hope it will be no offence to give my most hearty fervice to Mr. Wycherley, though I perceive by his last 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 he was my fervant, etc. 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 so very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed to believe nobody, may be a maxim of fafety, but not so 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 shall never be his enemy whatsoever he fays of me. Your, etc. 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 call'd in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions, to exprefs my esteem. I have just 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 Haemorrhois-fatidici Sabaei-He is fo errant a whig, that ke 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, Quodque patet terras inter lunaeque meatus, 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-Sphaericus in this or no? Your, &c. γου LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly us'd with my love-verfes, gave me the firft opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it *Picces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonfon's Mifcellanies. 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 Pastorals, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academicae; only the tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclufion of the Culex. I can't forbear giving you a paffage 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, Jamque manu per fila volat; fimul kos, fimul illos This poem was many years fince imitated by Crashaw, out of whose verses the following are very remarkable : From this to that, from that to this be fiies, I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Rowe's ixth book of Lucan: Indeed, he amplifies too much, as well as Breboeuf, the famous French imitator. If I remember right, he fometimes. takes the whole comment into the text of the version, as particularly in lin. 808. Utque folet pariter totis fe effundere fignis Corycii preffura croci. And in the place you quote, he makes of those two lines in the Latin,, Vidit quanta fub nocte jaceret Noftra dies, rifitque fui ludibria trunci, no less than eight in English. 6 What you obferve, fure, cannot be an Error-Sphaericus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaick, 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 can't but have remarked what a journey Lucan here makes Cato take for the fake of his fine defcriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reason than this; Haec eadem fuadebat hiems, quae clauferat aequor. The winter's effects on the fea, it feems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, etc. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his fpeech to the foldiers: Then he fetches a compass a vaft way round about, to the Nafamones and Jupiter Ammon's temple, purely to ridicule the oracles: and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he fays-fors obtulit, et fortuna viae-either Labienus, or the map, is very much mistaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken firft in his way to Utica), and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who feems to have made Cato speak his own mind, when he tells his army-Ire, fat eft-no matter whither. I am Your, etc. THE LETTER XXIII. From Mr. CROMWELL. Nov. 20, 1710. HE fyftem of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as it is novel) could have no room here: Lucan, with the reft of the Latin poets, feems to follow Plato, whofe order of the fpheres is clear in Cicero De natura Deo-- The blafted Phaeton with blazing hair, } |