this way, that fhe draws from me what fums fhe pleases. Every room in my houfe is furnished with trophies of her eloquence, rich cabinets, piles of china, Japan fcreens, and coftly jars; and if you were to come into my great parlour, you would fancy yourfelf in an India warehouse: befides this, fhe keeps a fquirrel, and I am doubly taxed to pay for the china he breaks. She is feized with periodical fits about the time of the fubfcriptions to a new opera, and is drowned in tears after having feen any woman there in finer clothes than herfelf: these are arts of perfuafion purely feminine, and which a tender heart cannot refift. What I would there⚫fore defire of you, is, to prevail with your friend who has promised to diffect a female tongue, that he would at the fame time give us the anatomy of a female eye, and explain the fprings and fluices which feed it with 'fuch ready fupplies of moisture; and likewife fhew by what means, if poffible, they may be stopped at a reafonable expence: or indeed, fince there is fomething fo moving in the very image of weeping beauty, it would be worthy his art to provide, that thefe eloquent drops may no more be lavished on trifles, or employed as fervants to their wayward wills; but referved for ferious • occafions in life, to adorn generous pity, true penitence, or real forrow. T • I am, &c.' N° 253 Thursday, December 20. Indignor quicquam reprehendi, non quia craffe I lose my patience, and I own it too, THE POPE. HERE is nothing which more denotes a great mind, than the abhorrence of envy and detraction. This paffion reigns more among bad poets, than among any other fet of men. As As there are none more ambitious of fame, than thofe who are converfant in poetry, it is very natural for fuch as have not fucceeded in it to depreciate the works of those who have. For fince they cannot raise themfelves to the reputation of their fellow-writers, they muft endeavour to fink it to their own pitch, if they would still keep themfelves upon a level with them. Indeed The greatest wits that ever were produced in one age, lived together in fo good an understanding, and celebrated one another with fo much generofity, that each of them receives an additional luftre from his contemporaries, and is more famous for having lived with men of fo extraordinary a genius, than if he had himself been the fole wonder of the age. I need not tell my reader, that I here point at the reign of Auguftus, and I believe he will be of my opinion, that neither Virgil nor Horace would have gained fo great a reputation in the world, had they not been the friends and admirers of each other. all the great writers of that age, for whom fingly we have fo great an esteem, ftand up together as vouchers for one another's reputation. But at the fame time that Virgil was celebrated by Gallus, Propertius, Horace, Varius, Tucca and Ovid, we know that Bavius and Mævius were his declared foes and calumniators. In our own country a man feldom fets up for a poet, without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the fcribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topics of detraction, with which he makes his entrance into the world: 'but how much more noble is the fame that is built on candour and ingenuity, according to thofe beautiful lines of Sir John Denham, in his poem on Fletcher's works! "But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's difpraise: "Nor needs thy jufter title the foul guilt I am forry to find that an author, who is very juftly efteened among the best judges, has admitted fome ftrokes of of this nature into a very fine poem; I mean The Art of Criticifm, which was published fome months fince, and is a master-piece in its kind. The obfervations follow one another like thofe in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requifite in a profe author. They are fome of them uncommon, but fuch as the reader muft affent to, when he fees them explained with that elegance and perfpicuity in which they are delivered. As for thofe which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in fo beautiful a light, and illuftrated with fuch apt allufions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, ftill more. convinced of their truth and folidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monfieur Boileau has fo very well. enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that wit and fine writing do not confift fo much in advancing things. that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impoffible for us, who live in the later ages of the world, to make obfervations in criticifm, morality, or in any art or fcience, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us, but to reprefent the common fenfe of mankind in more ftrong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but very few precepts in it, which he may not meet with inAriftotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Auguftan age. His way of expreffing and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly. to admire. For this reafon I think there is nothing in the world fo tiresome as the works of those critics who write in a pofitive dogmatic way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would fee how the best of the Latin critics writ, he may find their manner very beautifully defcribed in the characters of Horace, Petromius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the effay of which I am now fpeaking, Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflexionshas given us the fame kind of fublime, which he observes in the feveral paffages that occafioned them; I cannot but take: take notice, that our English author has after the fame manner exemplified feveral of his precepts in the very precepts themselves. I fhall produce two or three inftances. of his kind. Speaking of the infipid fmoothnefs which fome readers are fo much in love with, he has the following verfes. Thefe equal fyllables alone require, "While expletives their feeble aid do join, The gaping of the vowels in the fecond line, the expletive do in the third, and the ten monofyllables in the fourth, give fuch a beauty to this paffage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet. The reader may observe the following lines in the fame view. "A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong,. "That like a wounded fnake drags its flow length along." And afterwards, 'Tis not enough no harfhnefs gives offence, "The found muft feem an echo to the fense. "Soft is the ftrain when Zephyr gently blows, "And the fmboth ftream in fmoother numbers flows; But when loud furges lafh the founding fhore, "The hoarfe rough verfe fhou'd like the torrent roar. "When Ajax ftrives fome rock's vaft weight to throw, "The line too labours, and the words move flow "Not fo, when swift Camilla fcours the plain, "Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the "main." The beautiful diftich upon Ajax in the foregoing lines, puts me in mind of a defcription in Homer's Odyffey, which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sifyphus is reprefented lifting his ftone up the hill, which is no fooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably defcribed in the numbers of these verses in the four firft it is heaved up by feveral Spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at laft trundles down in a continual line of Dactyls. as Ka Καὶ μὴν Σίσυφον, εἰσεῖδον, κρατέρ ̓ ἄλγε ̓ ἔχοντα, Odyff. 1. 11. "I turn'd my eye, and as I turn'd furvey'd Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone: "The huge round ftone, refulting with a bound, "Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground." РОРЕ, It would be endless to quote verfes out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occafion in a future paper to fhew feveral of them which have escaped the obfervation of others. I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice that we have three poems in cur tongue, which are of the fame nature, and each of them a mafter-piece in its kind; the effay on tranflated verfe, the effay on the art of poetry, and the effay upon criticism. N° 254 Friday, December 21. Σεμνὸς ἔρως ἀρετῆς, ὁ δὲ κυπρίδῳ ἄσχος ὀβέλλει. W HENI confider the falfe impreffions which are received by the generality of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. The first of the following let ters |