thus in the preface to his Miscella

nies:

"It was my lord Rofcommon's Effay "on tranflated Verfe," fays Dryden, "which made me uneafy, till I tried "whether or no I was capable of fol "lowing his rules, and of reducing the "fpeculation into practice. For many "a fair precept in poetry is like a "feeming demonftration in mathema"ticks, very specious in the diagram, "but failing in the mechanick opera"tion. I think I have generally ob"ferved his inftructions: I am fure my "reason is fufficiently convinced both of "their truth and usefulness; which, in "other words, is to confefs no less a

"leaft in fome places, made examples

"to his rules."

This declaration of Dryden will, I am afraid, be found little more than one of those curfory civilities which one author pays to another; for when the sum of lord Rofcommon's precepts is collected, it will not be easy to discover how they can qualify their reader for a better performance of translation than might have been attained by his own reflections.

He that can abstract his mind from the elegance of the poetry, and confine it to the sense of the precepts, will find no other direction than that the author fhould be fuitable to the translator's genius; that he fhould be fuch as may deferve

C 2

deserve a tranflation; that he who intends to tranflate him fhould endeavour to understand him; that perfpicuity fhould be ftudied, and unusual and uncouth names fparingly inferted; and that the ftile of the original fhould be copied in its elevation and depreffion. Thefe are the rules that are celebrated as fo definite and important, and for the delivery of which to mankind fo much honour has been paid. Roscommon has indeed deferved his praises, had they been given with difcernment, and beftowed not on the rules themfelves, but the art with which they are introduced, and the decorations with which they are adorned.

The

The Effay, though generally excellent, is not without its faults. The ftory of the Quack, borrowed from Boileau, was not worth the importation: he has confounded the British and Saxon mythology:

I grant that from fome moffy idol oak, In double rhymes, our Thor and Woden spoke.

The oak, as I think Gildon has obferved, belonged to the British druids, and Thor and Woden were Saxon deities. Of the double rhymes, which he fo liberally fuppofes, he certainly had no knowledge.

His interpofition of a long paragraph of blank verses is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets might as well have

introduced a series of iambicks among

their heroicks.

His next work is the translation of the Art of Poetry; which has received, in my opinion, not lefs praise than it deferves. Blank verfe, left merely to its numbers, has little operation either on the ear or mind: it can hardly fupport itself without bold figures and ftriking images. A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is fo near to profe, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.

Having difentangled himself from the difficultics of rhyme, he may juftly be expected to give the fenfe of Horace with great exactnefs, and to fupprefs no fubtilty of fentiment for the difficulty

of