This was pretty well, one would think, already; but he goes on: Quasque procul terras obliquo sydere tangit 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 poet, if I did not hope you would take the same freedom with, and revenge it upon his translator. I shall be extremely glad if the reading this can be any amusement to you, the rather because I had the dissatisfaction to hear you have been confined to your chamber by an illness, which, I fear, was as troublesome a companion as I have sometimes been in the same place; where, if ever you found any pleasure in my company, it must surely have been that which most men take in observing the faults and follies of another; a pleasure, which, you see, I take care to give you even in my absence. If you will oblige me at your leisure with the confirmation of your recovery, under your own hand, it will be extremely grateful to me, for next to the pleasure of seeing my friends, is that I take in hearing from them; and in this particular I am beyond all acknowledgments obliged to our friend Mr. Wycherley. I know I need no apology to you for speaking of him, whose example as I am proud of following in all things, so in nothing more than in professing myself, like him, Your, etc. LETTER VI. March 7, 1709. YOU had long before this time been troubled with a letter from me, but that I deferred it till I could send you either the Miscellany, or my continuation of the version of Statius. The first I imagined you might have had before now, but since the contrary has happened, you may draw this moral from it, That authors in general are more ready to write nonsense, than booksellers are to publish it. I had I 'know not what extraordinary flux of rhyme upon me for three days together, in which time all the verses you see added, have been written; which I tell you that you may more freely be severe upon them. 'Tis a mercy I do not assault you with a number of original Sonnets and Epigrams, which our modern bards put forth in the Spring-time, in as great abundance, as trees do blossoms, a very few whereof ever come to be fruit, and please no longer than just in their birth. They make no less haste to bring their flowers of wit to the press, than gardeners to bring their other flowers to the market, which if they can't get off their hands in the morning, are sure to die before night. Thus the same reason that furnishes Covent-garden with those nosegays you so delight in, supplies the Muses Mercury and British Apollo (not to say Jacob's Miscellanies) with verses. And it is the happiness of this age that the modern invention of printing poems for pence a-piece, has brought the nosegays of Parnassus to bear the same price; whereby the public-spirited Mr. Henry Hills of Black-friars has been the cause of great ease and singular comfort * Jacob Tonson's sixth volume of Poetical Miscellanies, in which Mr. Pope's Pastorals, and some versions of Homer and Chaucer were first printed. to all the learned, who never over-abounding in transitory coin, should not be discontented (methinks) even though poems were distributed gratis about the streets, like Bunyan's sermons and other pious treatises, usually published in a like volume and character. The time now drawing nigh, when you use with Sappho to cross the water in an evening to Springgarden, I hope you will have a fair opportunity of ravishing her:I mean only (as Ôldfox in the Plain-Dealer says) through the ear, with your wellpenned verses. I wish you all the pleasures which the season and the nymph can afford; the best company, the best coffee, and the best news you can desire; and what more to wish you than this, I do not know; unless it be a great deal of patience to read and examine the verses I send you: I promise you in return a great deal of deference to your judgment, and an extraordinary obedience to your sentiments for the future (to which, you know, I have been sometimes a little refractory). If you will please to begin where you left off last, and mark the margins, as you have done in the pages immediately before, (which you will find corrected to your sense since your last perusal,) you will extremely oblige me, and improve my translation. Besides those places which may deviate from the sense of the author, it would be very kind in you to observe any deficiencies in the diction or numbers. The hiatus in particular I would avoid as much as possible, to which you are certainly in the right to be a professed enemy; though, I confess, I could not think it possible at all times to be avoided by any writer, till I found by reading Malherbe lately, that there is scarce any throughout his poems. I thought your observation true enough to be passed into a rule, but not a rule without exceptions, nor that ever it had been reduced to practice: But this example of one of the most correct and best of their poets has undeceived me, and confirms your opinion very strongly, and much more than Mr. Dryden's authority, who, though he made it a rule, seldom observed it. LETTER VII. Your, etc. June 10, 1709. I HAVE received part of the version of Statius, and return you my thanks for your remarks, which I think to be just, except where you cry out (like one in Horace's Art of Poetry) pulchre, bene, recte! There I have some fears you are often, if not always, in the wrong. One of your objections, namely on that passage, The rest revolving years shall ripen into fate, may be well-grounded, in relation to its not being the exact sense of the words Certo reliqua ordine ducam. But the duration of the action of Statius's poem may as well be excepted against, as many things besides in him; (which I wonder Bossu has not observed;) for instead of confining his narration to one year, it is manifestly exceeded in the very first two books: The narration begins with dipus's prayer to the Fury to promote discord betwixt his sons; afterwards the poet expressly describes their entering into the agreement of reigning a year by turn and Polynices takes his flight from Thebes on his brother's refusal to resign the throne. All this is in the first book; in the next Tydeus is sent ambassador to Eteocles, and demands his resignation in these terms: Astriferum velox jam circulus orbem Torsit, et amissæ redierunt montibus umbræ, f See the first book of Statius, v. 302. But Bossu himself is mistaken in one particular, relating to the commencement of the action; saying, in book ii. cap. 8. that Statius opens with Europa's rape, whereas at most the poet only deliberates whether he should or not. Unde jubetis Ire, Deæ gentisne canam primordia diræ, but then expressly passes all this with a longa retro series-and says, limes mihi carminis esto Oedipodæ confusa domus. Indeed there are numberless particulars blame-worthy in our author, which I have tried to soften in the version: dubiamque jugo fragor impulet Oeten In latus, et geminis vix fluctibus obstitit Isthmus, is most extravagantly hyperbolical: Nor did I ever read a greater piece of tautology, than Vacua cum solus in aula Respiceres jus omne tuum, cunctosque minores, In the journey of Polynices is some geographical error: In mediis audit duo litora campis could hardly be; for the Isthmus of Corinth is full five miles over: And caligantes abrupto sole Mycenas, is not consistent with what he tells us, in lib. iv. lin. 305. "that those of Mycenae came not to the "war at this time, because they were then in con"fusion by the divisions of the brothers, Atreus and "Thyestes." Now from the raising the Greek army against Thebes, back to the time of this journey of Polynices, is (according to Statius' own account), three years. Yours, etc.. |