Mr. POPE's Answer. July, 20, 1710. j Give you thanks for the Verfion you fent me of Ovid's Elegy. It is very much an image of that author's writing, who has an agreeablenefs that charms without correctnefs, like a mistress whofe faults we fee, but love her with them all. You have very judiciously alter'd his method in fome places, and I can find nothing which I dare infift upon as an error: What. I have written in the margins being meeriy Gueffes at a little improvement, rather than Criticisms. I affure you I do not expect you should fubfcribe to my private notions but when you fhall judge 'em agreeable to reafon and good fenfe. What I have done is not as a Critic, but as, a Friend; I know too well how many qualities are requifite to make up the one, and that I want almost all I can reckon up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, nor I hope capacity, to be the other. Nor fhall I take it at all amifs, that another diffents from my opinion: 'Tis no more than I have often done from my own; and indeed, the more a man advances in understanding, he becomes the more every K day day a critic upon himself, and finds fome thing or other ftill to blame in his former notions and opinions. I cou'd be glad to know if you have tranflated the th Elegy of Lib. 2. Ad amicam navigantem. the 8th of Book 3, or the 11th of Book 3, which are above all others my particular favourites, especially the lait sof thefe. 3 As to the paffage of which you ask my opinion in the fecond Eneid, it is either fo plain as to require no folution; or elfe (which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam wou'd fay, that "Achilles (whom furely you only feign to "be your Father, fince your actions are fo "different from his) did not ufe me thus inhumanly. He blush'd at his murder "of Hector when he faw my forrows for "him; and restored his dead body to me "to be buried." To this the answer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough. "Go then to the fhades, and tell Achilles "how I degenerate from him:"granting the truth of what Priam had faid of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judicioufly paffes in filence, the circumstance of Achilles's felling for mony the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in fome meafure lefs'ning the character of Achilles's gene generofity and piety, which is the very -point of which Priam endeavours in this bplace to convince his Son, and to reproach dhim with the want of. But the truth of this circumstance is no way to be question'd, being exprefly taken from Homer, who re-prefents Achilles weeping for Priam, yet treceiving the gold, Iliad 24: For when he gives the body, he ufes thefe words, « O my friend Patroclus! forgive me that I quit the corps of him who kill'd thee; I have great gifts in ranfom for it, which 15 I will beftow upon thy funeral.” to u L Aug. 3, 1710. Ooking among fome French Rhymes, I was agreeably furpriz'd to find in the Rondeau of Pour le moins your * Apoticaire and Lavement, which I took for your own; so much is your Mufe of Intelligence with the Wits of all languages. You have refin'd upon Voiture, whofe Ou Vous Sçavez is much inferior to your I In Voiture's Poems. K 2 You You know where -- You do not only pay your club with your author (as our friend fays) but the whole reckoning; who can form fuch pretty lines from fo trivial a hint. For my * Elegy; 'tis confefs'd, that the Topography of Sulmo in the Latin makes but an awkward figure in the Verfion. Your couplet of the Dog-Star is very fine, but may be too fublime in this place. I laugh'd heartily at your note upon Paradife; for to make Ovid talk of the Garden of Eden, is certainly moft abfurd: But Xenophon in his Oeconomicks, fpeaking of a garden finely planted and watered (as is here defcribed) calls it Paradifos: 'Tis an interpolation indeed, and ferves for a gradation to the Caleftial Orb; which expreffes in fome fort the Sidus Caftoris in parte Cali-- How Trees can enjoy, let the naturalifts determine; but the Poets make 'em fenfitive, lovers, bachelors, and married. Virgil in his Geor gicks Lib. 2. Horace Ode 15. Lib. 2. Platanus cælebs evincet ulmos. Epod. 2. Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine Altas maritat populos. Your Critique is a very Dolce-piccante; for after the many faults you justly * find, you fmooth your rigour: but an obliging thing is owing (you think) to one 1 * Ovid's Amorum, 7, 2. El. 16. Pars me Sulmo, &c. who who fo much efteems and admires you, and who fhall ever be Your, &c. You August 21, 1710. Hoc OUR Letters are a perfect charity to a man in retirement, utterly forgotten of all his Friends but you; for fince Mr. Wycherley left London, I have not heard a word from him; tho' juft before, and once fince, I writ to him, and tho' I know my felf guilty of no offence but of doing fincerely juft what he bid me. mihi libertas, hoc pia lingua dedit! But the greateft injury he does me is the keeping me in ignorance of his welfare, which I am always very follicitous for, and very uneafy in the fear of any Indifpofition that may befal him. In what I fent you fome time ago, you have not verfe enough to be fevere upon, in revenge for my laft criticifm: In one point I muft perfift, that is to fay, my diflike of your Paradife, in which I take no pleasure; I know very well that in Greek 'tis not only us'd by Xenophon, but Correcting his Verfes. See the Letters in 1706, and the following Years, of Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Pope. is |