the circumftantial part and pomp of life to thofe, who have a health vigorous enough to enjoy all the miftreffes of their defires. I thank God, there is nothing out of myself which I would be at the trouble of feeking, except a friend; a happiness I once hop'd to have poffefs'd in Mr. Wycherley; but -Quantum mutatus ab illo !-I have for fome years been employ'd much like children that build houses with cards, endeavouring very bufily and eagerly to raife a friendship, which the first breath of any illnatur'd by-ftander could puff away.-But I will trouble you no farther with writing, nor myself with thinking, of this subject.

I was mightily pleas'd to perceive by your quotation from Voiture, that you had track'd me fo far as France. You fee 'tis with weak heads as with weak ftomachs, they immediately throw out what they received laft; and what they read, floats upon the furface of the mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating. This, I think, however can't be faid of the love-verses I laft troubled you with, where all (I am afraid) is fo puerile and fo like the author, that no body will fufpect any thing to be borrow'd. Yet you (as a friend, entertaining a better opinion of them) it feems, fearch'd in Waller, but fearch'd in vain. Your judgment of them is (I think) very right, for it was my own opinion before. 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 to be nibling 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 fail'd to Gades, and receiv'd it at her return. I have really a great itch of criticism upon me, but want matter here

here in the country; which I defire you to furnish me with, as I do you in the town,

Sic fervat ftudii foedera 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 these 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 noctes;
Unum opus & requiem pariter difponimus ambo,
Atque verecunda laxamus feria menfa.

By thefe Epula, as I take it, Perfius meant the Portugal snuff and burnt Claret, which he took with his master Cornutus; and the verecunda menfa was, without difpute, fome coffee-house table of the ancients.-I will only observe, that these four lines are as elegant and mufical 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 satisfaction describ'd in them, being truly

Your, &c.

I

LETTER XX.

October 28, 1710.

AM glad to find by your last letter that you write

to me with the freedom of a friend, fetting 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 dif

covering

covering to me; and which while I am happy in, I may be trufted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry fince I fhall 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 verses, even tho' themfelves pronounce sentence upon them.-As to Mr. Philips's Paftorals, I take the firft to be infinitely the best, and the fecond the worft; the third is for the greateft 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 ftrings they pass,
Like winds that gently brush the plying grass,
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 fuelling tones a manly grace,

To which nothing can be objected, but that they are too lofty for pastoral, especially being put into the mouth of a fhepherd, 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 paftoral he rather feems to imitate. In the whole, I agree with the Tatler, that we have no better Eclogues in our language. There is a fmall copy of the fame author publish'd in the Tatler N° 12. on the Danish winter: 'Tis poetical painting, and I recommend it to your perufal.

Dr. Garth's poem I have not feen, but believe I fhall be of that critic's opinion you mention at Will's, who fwore it was good: for, tho' I am very cautious of fwearing after critics, yet I think one may do it

more

more fafely when they commend, than when they blame.

I agree with yoti in your cenfure of the ufe of fea-terms in Mr. Dryden's Virgil; not only becaufe Helenus was no great prophet in thofe matters, but because no terms of art or cant words fuit with the majesty and dignity of style which epic poetry requires. Cui mens divinior atque os magna fonaturum.The Tarpawlin phrafe can please none but fuch qui 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 fay you d'd not rightly take my meaning in the verfe I quoted from Juvenal, yet I will not explain it; becaufe, tho' it seems 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 verse and the application.

I hope it will be no offence to give my most hearty fervice to Mr. Wycherley, tho' I perceive by his laft to me, I am not to trouble him with my letters, fince he there told me he was going instantly out of town, and till his return was my fervant, &c. I ́ guefs 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 respect and kindnefs 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 fo very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed to believe no body, may be a maxim of fafety, but not so much of honesty. There is but one way I know of converfing fafely, 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 boast this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealousy, 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 call'd in question, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions to express my efteem.

I have just read and compar❜d * Mr. Row'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 lafhing the priests; one where Cato fays- Sortilegis egeant dubii-and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois-fatidici 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,

Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus,
Semidei manes habitant.

Mr. Row has this Line,

Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Rays

*Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonson's Miscella nies.

P.

Pray