Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphæricus in this or no? Your, &c. LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. mistake me very much in thinking the Yfreedom you kindly us'd with my love-verfes, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it 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 paftoral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academice; 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, This poem was many years fince imitated by Crafhaw, out of whofe verses the following are very remarkable. From this to that, from that to this he flies, I I have I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Row'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. What you obferve, fure, cannot be an Error-Sphæ ricus, ftrictly speaking, either Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; Tycho Brahe himself will be on the tranflator's fide. For Mr. Row 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; Hæc eadem fuadebat hiems, quæ clauferat æquor. The winter's effects on the fea, it seems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, &c. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his fpeech to the foldiers: Then he fetches a compass a vast 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, & fortuna via- either Labienus or the map, is very much mistaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken first in his way to Utica) and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who seems to have made Cato fpeak his Your, &c. TH LETTER XXIII. From Mr. CROMWELL. Nov. 20, 1710. HE fyftem of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as as it is novel) could have no room here: Lucan with the rest of the Latin poets, feems to follow Plato; whose order of the fpheres is clear in Cicero, De natura Deorum, De fomnio Scipionis, and in Macrobius. The feat of the Semidei manes is Platonic too, for Apuleius De deo Socratis affigns the fame to the Genii, viz. the region of the Air for their intercourse with gods and men; fo that, I fancy, Row mistook the situation, and I can't be reconcil'd to, Look down on the fun's rays. I am glad you agree with me about the latitude he takes; and with you had told me, if the fortilegi, and fatidici, could license his invective againft priefts; but, I fuppose, you think them (with Helena) undeserving of your protection. I agree with you in Lucan's errors, and the cause of them, his poetic defcriptions: for the Romans then knew the coaft of Africa from Cyrene (to the south-east of which lies Ammon toward Egypt) to Leptis and Utica: but, pray, remember how your Homer nodded while Ulyffes flept, and waking knew not where he was, in the fhort paffage from Corcyra to Ithaca I like Trapp's verfions for their juftnefs; his Pfalm is excellent, the prodigies in the firft Georgic judicious (whence I conclude that 'tis cafier to turn Virgil justly in VOL. VII. blank H 1 blank verse, than rhyme.) The eclogue of Gallus, and fable of Phaeton pretty well; but he is very faulty in his numbers; the fate of Phaeton might run thus, The blafted Phaeton with blazing hair I am } Your, &c. LETTER XXIV. Nov. 24, 1710. O make use of that freedom and familiarity of T ftyle, which we have taken up in our cor refpondence, and which is more properly talking upon paper, than writing; I will tell you without any preface, that I never took Tycho Brahe for one of the ancients, or in the leaft an acquaintance of Lucan's; nay, 'tis a mercy on this occafion that I do not give you an account of his life and converfation; as how he liv'd fome years like an inchanted knight in a certain ifland,with a tale of a King of Denmark's mistress that shall be nameless-But I have compaffion on you, and would not for the world you fhould stay any longer among the Genii and Semidei Manes, you know where; for if once you get fo near the moon, Sappho will want your prefence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great lofs Drury-lane will fuftain, when Mr. Cis in the milky way. These celeftial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a fort of Sortilegi in one fenfe, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at best in an uncertainty, whereas the fettersup are fure of fomething. Priests indeed in their character, character, as they reprefent God, are facred; and fo are Conftables as they represent the King; but you will own a great many of them are very odd fellows, and the devil of any likeness in them. Yet I can affure you, I honour the good as much as I deteft the bad, and I think, that in condemning these, we praise those. The tranflations from Ovid I have not fo good an opinion of as you; because I think they have little of the main characteristic of this author, a graceful eafinefs. For let the fenfe be ever fo exactly render'd, unless an author looks like himself, in his air, habit, and manner, 'tis a difguife, and not a tranflation. But as to the Pfalm, I think David is much more beholden to the translator than Ovid; and as he treated the Roman like a Jew, so he has made the Jew fpeak like a Roman. Your, &c. LETTER XXV. From Mr. CROMWEL L. Dec. 5, 1710. HE fame judgment we made on Row's ixth of I find this memorable line, Parque novum Fortuna videt concurrere, bellum For this he employs fix verses, among which is this, As if on Knightly terms in lifts they ran. Pray can you trace chivalry up higher than Pharamond? will you allow it an anachronifm?-Tickel in his verfion of the Phænix from Claudian, |