will want your presence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great loss Drury-lane will sustain, when Mr. C. is in the milky-way. These celestial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a sort of sortilegi in one sense, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at first in an uncertainty, whereas the setters-up are sure of something. Priests indeed in their character, as they represent God, are sacred; and so are constables, 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 assure you, I honour the good as much as I detest the bad, and I think, that in condemning these, we praise those. The translations from Ovid I have not so good an opinion of as you; because I think, they have little of the main characteristic of this author, a graceful easiness. For let the sense be ever so exactly rendered, unless an author looks like himself, in his air, habit, and manner, 'tis a disguise, and not a translation. But as to the psalm, 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 speak like a Roman.

Your, etc.

LETTER XXV.

FROM MR. CROMWELL.

Dec. 5, 1710.

THE same judgment we made on Rowe's ixth of Lucan will serve for his part of the vith, where I

find this memorable line,

Parque novum fortuna videt concurrere, bellum
Atque virum.

For this he employs six verses among which is this,

As if on knightly terms in lists they ran.

Pray can you trace chivalry up higher than Pharamond? will you allow it an anachronism?-Tickel in his version of the Phoenix from Claudian,

When nature ceases, thou shall still remain,
Nor second chaos bound thy endless train;

Claudian thus,

Et clades te nulla rapit, solusque superstes,
Edomita tellure, manes:

which plainly refers to the deluge of Deucalion, and the conflagration of Phaeton; not to the final dissolution. Your thought of the Priests lottery is very fine you play the wit, and not the critic, upon the errors of your brother.

of

Your observations are all very just: Virgil is eminent for adjusting his diction to his sentiments; and, among the moderns, I find you practise the prosodia your rules. Your r poem shews you to be, what you say of Voiture-with books well bred; the state of the fair, though satirical, is touched with that delicacy and gallantry, that not the court of Augustus, notBut hold, I shall lose what I lately recovered, your opinion of my sincerity: yet I must say, 'tis as faultless as the fair to whom it is addressed, be she never so perfect. The M. G. (who, it seems, had no right notion of you, as you of him) transcribed it by lucubration: From some discourse of yours, he thought your inclination led you to (what the men of fashion call learning) pedantry; but now, he says, he has no less, I assure you, than a veneration for you.

Your, etc.

To a lady with the works of Voiture.

LETTER XXVI.

Dec. 17, 1710.

IT seems that my late mention of Crashaw, and my quotation from him, has moved your curiosity. I therefore send you the whole author, who has held a place among my other books of this nature for some years; in which time having read him twice or thrice, I find him one of those whose works may just deserve reading. I take this poet to have writ like a gentleman, that is, at leisure hours, and more to keep out of idleness, than to establish a reputation; so that nothing regular or just can be expected from him. All that regards design, form, fable, (which is the soul of poetry,) all that concerns exactness, or consent of parts, (which is the body, will probably be wanting; only pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse, (which are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry,) may be found in these verses. This is indeed the case of most other poetical writers of miscellanies; nor can it well be otherwise, since no man can be a true poet, who writes for diversion only. These authors should be considered as versifiers and witty men, rather than as poets; and under this head will only fall the thoughts, the expression, and the numbers. These are only the pleasing part of poetry, which may be judged of at a view, and comprehended all at once. And (to express myself like a painter) their colouring entertains the sight, but the lines and life of the picture are not to be inspected too narrowly.

This author formed himself upon Petrarch, or rather upon Marino. His thoughts, one may observe, in the main, are pretty; but oftentimes far fetched, and too often strained and stiffened to make them appear the greater. For men are never so apt to think a thing

great, as when it is odd or wonderful; and inconsiderate authors would rather be admired than understood. This ambition of surprizing a reader, is the true natural cause of all fustian, or bombast in poetry. To confirm what I have said, you need but look into his first poem of the Weeper, where the 2d, 4th, 6th, 14th, 21st stanzas are as sublimely dull, as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 20th, and 23d stanzas of the same copy, are soft and pleasing: and if these last want any thing, it is an easier and more unaffected expression. The remaining thoughts in that poem might have been spared, being either but repetitions, or very trivial and mean. And by this example in the first, one may guess at all the rest; to be like this, a mixture of tender gentle thoughts and suitable expressions, of forced and inextricable conceits, and of needless fillersup to the rest. From all which it is plain, this author writ fast, and set down what came uppermost. A reader may skim off the froth, and use the clear underneath; but if he goes too deep, will meet with a mouthful of dregs; either the top or bottom of him are good for little, but what he did in his own, natural, middleway, is best.

To speak of his numbers, is a little difficult, they are so various and irregular, and mostly Pindaric; it is evident his heroic verse (the best example of which is his Music's duel) is carelessly made up; but one may imagine from what it now is, that had he taken more care, it had been musical and pleasing enough, not extremely majestic, but sweet and the time considered of his writing, he was (even as uncorrect as he is) none of the worst versificators.

I will just observe, that the best pieces of this author are a Paraphrase on Psal. xxiii. On Lessius, Epitaph on Mr. Ashton, Wishes to his supposed Mistress, and the Dies Ira.

Ι

LETTER XXVII.

December 30, 1710.

I RESUME my old liberty of throwing out myself upon paper to you, and making what thoughts float uppermost in my head, the subject of a letter. They are at present upon laughter, which (for aught I know) may be the cause you might sometimes think me too remiss a friend, when I was most intirely so: for I am never so inclined to mirth as when I am most pleased and most easy, which is in the company of a friend like yourself.

As the fooling and toying with a mistress is a proof of fondness, not disrespect, so is raillery with a friend. I know there are prudes in friendship, who expect distance, awe, and adoration; but I know you are not of them: and I, for my part, am no idol-worshipper, though a Papist. If I were to address Jupiter himself in a heathen way, I fancy I should be apt to take hold of his knee in a familiar manner, if not of his beard like Dionysius; I was just going to say, of his buttons; but I think Jupiter wore none (however I won't be positive to so nice a critic as you, but his robe might be subnected with a fibula). I know some philosophers define laugher, A recommending ourselves to our own favour, by comparison with the weakness of another: but I am sure I very rarely laugh with that view, nor do I believe children have any such consideration in their heads, when they express their pleasure this way: I laugh full as innocently as they, for the most part, and as sillily. There is a difference too betwixt laughing about a thing, and laughing at a thing: one may find the inferior man (to make a kind of casuistical distinction) provoked to folly at the sight or observation of some circumstances of a thing, when the thing itself appears solemn and august