and meaning. The pocts require your attention and obfervation more than the profe authors; poetry being more out of the common way than profe compofitions are. Poets have greater liberties allowed them than profe writers, which is called the poetical licence.-Horace fays, that poets and painters have an equal privilege of attempting any thing. Fiction, that is, invention, is faid to be the foul of poetry. For example, the poets give life to feveral inanimate things; that is, to things that have no life; as for inftance, they reprefent the paffions, as Love, Fury, Envy, &c. under human figures; which figures are allegorical; that is, reprefent the qualities and effects of thofe paffions. Thus the poets reprefent Love as a little boy, called Cupid, becaufe love is the paffion of young people chiefly. He is reprefented blind likewife, becaufe Love makes no diftinction, and takes away the judgment. He has a bow and arrows, with which he is fuppofed to wound people, becaufe Love gives pain ; and he has a pair of wings to fly with, becaufe Love is changeable, and apt to fly from one object to another. Fury is likewife reprefented under the figures of three women, called the three furies, Alecto, Megæra, and Tifiphone. They are defcribed, with lighted torches or flambeaux in their hands, becaufe Rage and Fury is for fetting fire to every thing. They are likewife 1 drawn with ferpents hifling about their heads, because I ferpents are poisonous and deftructive animals. Envy. is defcribed as a woman, melancholy, pale, livid, and pining; becaufe envious people are never pleased, but ith always repining at other people's happiness. fuppofed to feed upon ferpents; because envious people only comfort themselves with the misfortunes of others.

She is

With this paflion I hope you will have too generous a mind ever to be infected; but that, on the contrary, you will apply yourself to virtue and learning, in fuch a manner as to become an object of envy yourself.

Adieu !

BEAR BOY,

LETTER XIV.

Defcriptive Poetry....Epitlets..

Friday.

I MENTIONED defcription, or painting, as one of

the fhining marks or characteristics of poetry. The likenefs must be strong and lively, and make us almoft think we fee the thing before our eyes.

I will now give you an excellent piece of painting, or defcription, in English verfe; it is in the tragedy of Phædra and Hippolytus. Phædra was the fecond wife of the famous Thefeus, one of the first kings of Athens; and Hippolytus was his fon by his former wife. Look for the further particulars of their ftory in your dictionary, under the articles Phedra and Hippolitus.

So when bright Venus vielded up her charms,
The bleft Adonis languish'd in her arms.
His idle horn on fragrant myrtles hung;
His arrows fcatter'd, and his bow unfti ung.
Obfcure, in coverts, lie his dreaming hounds,
And bay the fancied boar with feeble founds.
For nobler fports he quits the favage fields,
And all the hero to the lover yields.

I have marked the epithets, that you may the better obferve them. Venus is called bright, upon account of her beauty; Adonis is called bleft, becaufe Venus was in love with him; his horn is faid to be idle, becaufe he then laid it by, and made no ufe of it; the myrtles are called fragrant, because the myrtle is a fweet fmelling tree; moreover, the myrtle is the particular tree facred to Venus ; fcatter d'arrows, because laid by here and there carelessly. The bow unftrung; it was the custom to unftring the bow when they did not ufe it, and it was the ftronger for it afterwards. Dreaming hounds; hounds that are used to hunt often dream they are hunting; as appears by their making the fame noife, only not fo loud, when they are afleep, as they do when they are hunting fome wild beast; therefore, the founds are called feeble. Savage fields fo called from the roughness of field fports, in comparifon with the tendernefs and foftness of love.

;

Adonis was extremely handsome, and a great sports

man; he ufed to employ his whole time in hunting boars and other wild beafts. Venus fell in love with him, and ufed frequently to come down to him; he was at laft killed by a wild boar, to the great grief of Venus. Look for Adonis in your dictionary; for though you have read his story in Ovid's Metamorphofes, I believe that excellent memory of yours wants refreshing. Hence, when a man is extremely handfome, he is called, by metaphor an Adonis.-Adieu!

DEAR BOY,

LETTER XV.

Poetical Defcription.

Saturday,

YOUR laft tranflations were very well done, and I

believe you begin to apply yourself more. This you may depend upon, that the more you apply, the eaficr you will find your learning, and the fooner you will have done with it. But, as I have often told you before, it is not the words only that you fhould mind, 'but the fenfe and beauties of the authors you read; which will furnish you with matter, and teach you to think juftly upon fubjects. For example, if you were to fay in poetry that it was morning, you would not barely fay it was morning, that would not be 1 poetical; but you would reprefent the morning under fome image, or by defcription; as thus,

Lo from the rofy caft, her purple doors
The Morn unfolds, adoin'd with blushing flowers.
The loffend itars draw off and difappear,
Whole bright battalions, laftly. Lucifer

Brings up, and quits his ftation in the rear.

Obferve, that the day always rifes in the caft; and t: therefore it is faid, from the rofy caft; rofy is the epithet to eaft, becaufe the break of day, or the Aurora, y is of a reddish rofy colour. Obferve too, that Lucifer is the name of that ftar that difappears laft in the mornying; for the aftronomers have given names to most of the ftars. The three laft lines, which have the fame rhymes are called a triplet, which is always marked as I have marked it. Here is another way of faying that it is morning, as Virgil expreffes it :

And now Aurora, harbinger of day,
Rofe from the faffron bed were Tithon lay,

And fprinkled o'er the world with new born light:
The fun now fhining, all things brought to fight.

Look in your dictionary for the articles Aurora and Tithonus, where you will find their ftory. Tithon was the husband of Aurora. Aurora, in poetical language, means the break of day, or the first part of the morning. Harbinger (by the way) means forerunner, or a perfon who is fent before hand, by another, upon a journey, to prepare things for him. The king has feveral harbingers, that go before him upon the road, to prepare his lodging, and get every thing ready. So Aurora, or the morning, is called, by a metaphor, the harbinger of day, because it foreruns the day.

I expect very good verfes, of your making, by that time you are ten years old; and then you fhall be called Pota Decennis, which will be a very uncommon, and, confequently, a very glorious tiele.

DEAR BOY,

*

LETTER XVI.

Adieu !

Oftracifm of the Athenians.... Reading.

Bath, October the 14th.

For

SINCE I have recommended to you to think upon fubjects, and to confider things in their various lights and circumstances, I am perfuaded you have made fuch a progrefs, that I fhall fometimes defire your opinion, upon difficult points, in order to form my own. inftance, though I have, in general, a great veneration for the manners and customs of the ancients, yet I am in fome doubt whether the oftracifm of the Athenians was either juft or prudent; and fhould be glad to be determined by your opinion. You know very well, that the oftracifm was the method of banifhing those whofe diftinguished virtue made them popular, and confequently (as the Athenians thought) dangerous to the public liberty. And, if fix hundred citizens of Athens gave in the name of any one Athenian, written

* A poet of ten years old.

upon an oyster fhell (whence it is called oftracifm) that man was banished Athens for ten years. On one hand, it is certain, that a free people cannot be too careful or jealous of their liberty; and it is certain too, that the love and applause of mankind will always attend a man of eminent and diftinguifhed virtue; confequently, they are more likely to give up their liberties to fuch a one than to another of lefs merit. But then, on the other hand, it seems extraordinary to difcourage virtue upon any account, &ince it is only by virtue that any fociety can flourish, and be confiderable. There are many more arguments, on each fide of this question, which will naturally occur to you; and, when you have confidered them well, I defire you will write me your opinion, whether the oftracifm was a right or wrong thing; and your reafons for being of that opinion. Let nobody help you, but give me exactly your own sentiments, and your own reasons, whatever they

are.

I hope Mr. Pelnote makes you read Rollin with great care and attention, and recapitulate to him whatever you have read that day; I hope, too, that he makes you read aloud, diftinctly, and obferve the ftops. Defire your mamma to tell him fo from me; and the fame to Mr. Martin; for it is a fhame not to read per1fectly well.

DTAR BOY,

T

LETTER XVII.

Study of Languages....Latin Radicals.

HE shortest and beft way of learning a language is to know the roots of it; that is, thofe original, primiy tive words, of which many other words are made, by adding a letter, or a prepofition to them, or by fome fuch mal variation, which makes fome difference in the fenfe; thus, you will obferve, that the prepofitions, a, ab, abs, e, ex, fro, præ, per, inter, circum, fuper, trans, and many others, when added to the primitive verb or