་ well; who has done one thing worthy of eternal memory; wrote two lines in his life that are not nonsense! So you have the advantage of being entertained with all the beauty of the boxes, without being troubled with any of the dulness of the stage. You are so good a critic, that it is the greatest happiness of the modern poets that you do not hear their works; and next, that you are not so arrant a critic, as to damn them (like the rest) without hearing. But now I talk of those critics, I have good news to tell you concerning myself, for which I expect you should congratulate with me. It is that, beyond all my expectations, and far above my demerits, I have been most mercifully reprieved by the sovereign power of Jacob Tonson, from being brought forth to public punishment; and respited from time to time from the hands of those barbarous executioners of the Muses, whom I was just now speaking of.* It often happens, that guilty poets, like other guilty. criminals, when once they are known and proclaimed, deliver themselves into the hands of justice, only to prevent others from doing it more to their disadvantage, and not out of any ambition to spread their fame, by being executed in the face of the world, which is a fame but of short continuance. mitive Church, and other important subjects; but who disgraced himself by maintaining a paradox on the Natural Mortality of the Soul, which was ably confuted by several divines. Warton. * Tonson had made proposals to Pope to publish his Pastorals in a volume of Miscellanies, to which Pope assented. That poet were a happy man who could but obtain a grant to preserve his for ninety-nine years; for those names very rarely last so many days, which are planted either in Jacob Tonson's or the Ordinary of Newgate's Miscellanies. I have an hundred things to say to you, which shall be deferred till I have the happiness of seeing you in town, for the season now draws on, that invites every body thither. Some of them I had communicated to you by letters before this, if I had not been uncertain where you passed your time the last season. So much fine weather, I doubt not, has given you all the pleasure you could desire from the country, and your own thoughts the best company in it. But nothing could allure Mr. Wycherley to our forest; he continued (as you told me long since he would) an obstinate lover of the town, in spite of friendship and fair weather. Therefore henceforward, to all those considerable qualities I know you possessed of, I shall add that of Prophecy. But I still believe Mr. Wycherley's intentions were good, and am satisfied that he promises nothing, but with a real design to perform it: how much soever his other excellent qualities are above my imitation, his sincerity, I hope, is not; and it is with the utmost that I am, Sir, &c. I LETTER V. TO MR. CROMWELL. Jan. 22, 1708-9. HAD sent you the inclosed papers* before this time, but that I intended to have brought them myself, and afterwards could find no opportunity of sending them without suspicion of their miscarrying; not that they are of the least value, but for fear somebody might be foolish enough to imagine them so, and inquisitive enough to discover those faults which I (by your help) would correct. I therefore beg the favour of you to let them go no farther than your chamber, and to be very free of your remarks in the margins, not only in regard to the accuracy, but to the fidelity of the translation; which I have not had time to compare with its original. And I desire you to be the more severe, as it is much more criminal for me to make another speak nonsense, than to do it in my own proper person. For your better help in comparing, it may be fit to tell you, that this is not an entire version of the first book. There is an omission from the 168th line-Jam murmura serpunt Plebis Agenorea-to the 312th-Interea patriis olim vagus exul ab oris-(between these two Statius *This was a translation of the first book of Statius, done when the author was but fourteen years old, as appears by an advertisement before the first edition of it, in a miscellany published by B. Lintot, 8vo. 1711. Pope. + These he since translated, and they are extant in the printed version. Pope. has a description of the council of the gods, and a speech of Jupiter; which contain a peculiar beauty and majesty, and were left out for no other reason, but because the consequence of this machine appears not till the second book). The translation goes on from thence to the words Hic vero ambobus rabiem fortuna cruentam, where there is an odd account of a battle at fisty-cuffs between the two Princes on a very slight occasion, and at a time when, one would think, the fatigue of their journey, in so tempestuous a night, might have rendered them very unfit for such a scuffle. This I had actually translated, but was very ill satisfied with it, even in my own words, to which an author cannot but be partial enough of conscience; it was therefore omitted in this copy, which goes on above eighty lines farther, at the words-Hic primum lustrare oculis, &c.-to the end of the book. You will find, I doubt not, that Statius* was none of the discreetest poets, though he was the best versifier next Virgil. In the very beginning he unluckily betrays his ignorance in the rules of poetry (which Horace had already taught the Romans) when he asks his Muse where to begin his * Statius is one instance among a thousand, that a man may possess genius and imagination, and at the same time want taste and judgment. Claudian is a far better writer, though his verses have more monotony than the numbers of Statius. It is remarkable that Gray's first attempt in English verse, was a translation of a passage in Statius, 1736. See Memoirs, p. 9. 4to. A translation of Statius, by several hands, was intended to be published. Harte translated the sixth book, and Pitt the third. Warton. Thebaid, and seems to doubt whether it should not be ab ovo Ledæo. When he comes to the scene of his Poem, and the prize in dispute between the brothers, he gives us a very mean opinion of it-Pugna est de paupere regnoVery different from the conduct of his master Virgil, who at the entrance of his poem informs his reader of the greatness of its subjects-Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem. (Bossu on Epic Poetry.) There are innumerable little faults in him, among which I cannot but take notice of one in this book, where, speaking of the implacable hatred of the brothers, he says, The whole world would be too small a prize to repay so much impiety. Quid si peteretur crimine tanto Limes uterque poli, quem Sol emissus Eoo Cardine, quem portâ vergens prospectat Iberâ? This was pretty well, one would think, already; but he goes on: Quasque procul terras obliquo sidere tangit Avius, aut Borea gelidas, madidive tepentes After all this, what could a poet think of but heaven itself for the prize? But what follows is astonishing : Quid si Tyriæ Phrygiæve sub unum I do not remember to have met with so great a fall in any ancient author whatsoever. I should not have insisted so much on the faults of this |