ces, for the fake of lashing the Priests ; one where Cato says --Sortilegis egeant dubii - and one in the Simile of the Hemorhois - fatidici Sabai-He is so errant a Whig, that he strains even bce yond his

Author, in passion for Liberty, and aver-
sion to Tyranny ; and, erss only in amplifica-
tion. Lucan in initio gni, describing the seat of
the Semidei manes, says,
Quodque patet terras inter Lunæque meatus,

Semidei manes habitant-
Mr Rowe has this Line,

Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Ray.
Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphericus
in this or no ?

Your's, &c.

YOU

Nov. II, 1710.
U mistake me very much in thinking the

freedom you kindly us’d with my Love, verses, gave me the first opinion of your fincerity: I assure you it only did what every good-natur'd action of your's has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The Fable of the Nightingale in Philips's Pastoral, is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin Poem on the fame subject, in his Prolufiones Academicæ ; only the Tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclusion of the Culex. I can't forbear giving you a passage 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
Inciditque graves oferoso verbere pulfat--
Jamque manú per fila-volat ; fimul hos, fimul illos
Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni. -
Mox filet. Illa medis totidem refpondit, & arteri
05

Arte

Arte refert; nunc ceu rudis, aut incerta canendi,
Præbet iter liquidum labenti e pectore veci,
Nunc cælim variat, modulifque canora minutis
Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore.

This Poem was many years since imitated by Crashaw, out of whole Verses the following are very remarkable.

From this to that, from that to this, he flies,
Feels Music's Pulse in all it's Arteries ;
Caught in a Net which there Apollo spreads,
His Fingers struggle with the vocal Threads.

I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr Rowe's gth book of Lucan: Indeed he amplifies too much, as well as Brebeuf, the famous French Imitator. If I remember right, he sometimes takes the whole Comment into the Text of the Version, as particularly in line 808. Utque folet pariter totis se effundere fignis Corycii pressură croci — And in the place you quote, be makes of those two lines in the Latin

Vidit quanta sub nocte jaceret

Noftra dies, rifitque fui ludibria trunci. no less than eight in English.

What you observe sure cannot be an Error Sphericus, strictly speaking, either according to their Ptolomaic, or our Copernican System ; Tycho Brahe himself will be on the Translator's side. For Mr Rowe here says no more, than that he look'd down on the Rays of the Sun, which Pompey might do, even tho' the Body of the Sun were above him.

You can't but have remark'd what a journey Lucan here makes Cate take for the fake of his fine Defcriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reafon than this : Hac eadem fua debat Hyems quæ slauferat aquer.

The ·

I am,

The Winter's effects on the Sea, it seems were more to be dreaded than all the Serpents, Whirlwinds, Sands, &c. by Land, which immediately after he paints out in his Speech to the Soldiers : 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 says

--fors obtulit, & fortuna vie- 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 feems to have made Cato speak his own mind, when he tells his Army-- Ire fat eft no matter whither."

Your, &c.
Mr C..... to Mr POPE.

Nou. 20, 1710. THE System of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as

it is novel) cou'd have no room here: Lucan, with the rest of the Latin Poets, seems to follow Plato ; whose order of the Spheres is clear in Ciferi, De Natura Deorum, De fomnio Scipionis, and in Macrobius. The Seat of the Semi dei manes, is Pla.. tonic 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; so that I fancy Rowe mistook the Situation, and I can't be reconcil'd to, Look down on the Sun'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, cou'd licence his Invectives against Priests ? But I suppose you think them (with Helena) undeserving of your Protection. I agree with you in Lucan's Errors, and the Cause of 'em, his PoeticDescriptions ; for the Romans then knew the Coast

of Africa from Cyrene (to the South-east of which
lies Ammon toward Egypi) to Leptis and Utica : But
pray remember how your Homer nodded while U-
lysses slept, and waking knew not where he was, in
the short Pallage from Corcyra to Ithaca. I like
Trapp's Verfions for their justness; his Pfalm is ex-
cellent, the Prodigies in the first Georgic judicious
(whence I conclude that 'tis eafier to turn Virgil
justly in 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 blasted Phaëton with blazing Hair,
Shot gliding thro the vast Abyss of Air,
And tumbled beadlong, like a falling Star.

Your, &c.

1

I am,

TO

Mr. POPE's Answer.

Nov. 24, 1710.
O make ufe of that freedom and familiarity of

Style which we have taken up in our Corre-
spondence, and which is more properly Talking up-
on Paper than Writing ; I will tell you without any
Preface, that I never took Tycho Brahe for one of the
Antients, or in the least an Acquaintance of Lucan's;
nay, 'tis a merey, on this occafion, that I do not
give you an account of his Life and Conversation
as how he liv'd fome years like an inchanted Knight
in a certain Ifand, with a tale of a King of Den-
marl's Mistress that Mall be nameless. But I
have compaflion on you, and wou'd not for the
World you fhou'd stay any longer among the Genii,
and Semidzi Manes, you know where; for if once
you get fo near the Moon, Sapho will want your
preface in the Clouds and inferior Regions; not

to mention the great loss Drury-lane will fustain, when Mr C-is in the Milky-Way. These coelestial Thoughts'put me in mind of the Priests. you mention, who are a fort of Sortilegi in one sense,,because in their Lottery there are more Blanks than Prizes; the Adventurers being at best in an Uncertainty, whereas the Setters-up are fure of fomething. Priests indeed in their Character, as they represent God, are facred; and so are Constables as they represent the King, but you will own a great many of 'em are very odd Fellows, and the devil a bit of likeness in ’em. Yet I can assure you, I honour the good as much as I detest the bad, and I think, that in condemning these, we praise those. 'I am so far from esteeming e'en the worst unworthy of my protection, that I have defended their Character (in Congreue's and Vanbrugh's Plays) ev'n against their own Brethren. And so much for Priests in general; now for Trapp, in particular, whose Translations from Ovid I have not so good an opinion of as you ; not (I will assure you) from any sort of prejudice to him as a Priest, but because I think he has little of che main Characteristic of his Author, a graceful Eafiness. For let the Sense be ever so exactly render'd, unless an Author looks like himself, in his Air, Ha t, Manner, 'tis a Disguise and not a Translation. But as to the Psalm, I think David is much more beholden to. him than Ovid; and as he treated the Roman like a Jew, so he has made the Jew speak like a Roo.

Your, &c.

man,

Mr C..... to Mr POPE.

Decemb. 5, 1710. THE fame Judgment we made on Rowe's 9th

of Lucan will ferve for his part of the 6th, where I find this memorable line,

Parq;