As there are none more ambitious of fame, than thofe who are converfant in poetry, it is very natural for fuch as have not fucceeded in it to depreciate the works of those who have. For fince they cannot raise themfelves to the reputation of their fellow-writers, they muft endeavour to fink it to their own pitch, if they would still keep themfelves upon a level with them.

The greatest wits that ever were produced in one age, lived together in fo good an understanding, and celebrated one another with fo much generofity, that each of them receives an additional luftre from his contemporaries, and is more famous for having lived with men of fo extraordinary a genius, than if he had himself been the fole wonder of the age. I need not tell my reader, that I here point at the reign of Auguftus, and I believe he will be of my opinion, that neither Virgil nor Horace would have gained fo great a reputation in the world, had they not been the friends and admirers of each other. Indeed all the great writers of that age, for whom fingly we have fo great an esteem, ftand up together as vouchers for one another's reputation. But at the fame time that Virgil was celebrated by Gallus, Propertius, Horace, Varius, Tucca and Ovid, we know that Bavius and Mævius were his declared foes and calumniators.

In our own country a man feldom fets up for a poet, without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the fcribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topicks of de traction with which he makes his entrance into the world: But how much more noble is the fame that is built on candour and ingenuity, according to those beautiful lines. of sir John Denham, in his poem on Fletcher's works!

But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raife
Trophies to thee from other mens difpraise:
Nor is thy fame on leffer ruins built,
Nor needs thy jufter title the foul guilt

Of Eastern Kings, who, to fecure their reign,
Must have their brothers, fons, and kindred flain.

I am forry to find that an author, who is very juftly effeemed among the beft judges, has admitted fome ftrokes

of

of this nature into a very fine poem; I mean The Art of Criticism, which was published some months fince, and is a mafter-piece in its kind. The obfervations follow one another like thofe in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requifite in a profe author. They are fome of them uncommon, but fuch as the reader muft affent to, when he fees them explained with that elegance and perfpicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in fo beautiful a light, and illuftrated with such apt allufions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, ftill more convinced of their truth and folidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monfieur Boileau has fo very well enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that wit and fine writing do not confift so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impoffible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make obfevations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little elfe left

us,

but to reprefent the common fenfe of mankind in more ftrong, more beautiful. or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but very few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Ariftotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Auguftan age. His way of expreffing and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

For this reafon I think there is nothing in the world fo tiresome as the works of those criticks who write in a pofitive dogmatick way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would fee how the best of the Latin criticks writ, he may find their manner very beautifully described in the characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the effay of which I am now speaking.

Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflexions has given us the fame kind of fublime, which he observes in the feveral paffages that occafioned them; I cannot but

take

take notice, that our English Author has after the fame manner exemplified feveral of his precepts in the very precepts themfelves. I fhall produce two or three inftances of this kind. Speaking of the infipid smoothnefs which fome readers are so much in love with, he has the following verses.

Thefe Equal Syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire,
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive do in the third, and the ten monofyllables in the fourth, give fuch a beauty to this paffage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet.

The reader may obferve the following lines in the fame view.

A needlefs Alexandrine ends the fong,

That like a wounded snake drags its flow length along.
And afterwards,

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,

The found muft feem an echo to the fenfe, Soft is the ftrain when Zephyr gently blows, And the fmooth ftream in fmoother numbers flows; But when loud furges lafh the founding fhore, The hoarfe rough verfe fbou'd like the torrent rore. When Ajax ftrives fome rocks vaft weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move flow; Not fo, when fwift Camilla fcours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. The beautiful diftich upon Ajax in the foregoing lines puts me in mind of a defcription in Homer's odyffey, which none of the criticks have taken notice of. It is where Sifyphus is represented lifting his ftone up the hill, which is no fooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the ftone is admirably described in the numbers of thefe verfes; as in the four firft it is heaved up by feveral Spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at last trundle's down in a continual line of Dactyls.

Καὶ μὴν Σίσυφον εἰσείδον, κρατέρ ἄλγε' ἔχονία,
Λάαν βατάζονία πελώριον αμφοτέρηση.
Ἤτοι ὁ μὲν σκηριπλόμενα χερσίν τε ποσίν τε,
Λᾶαν ἄνω ὤθισκε ποτὶ λόφον, ἀλλ' ὅτι μέλλοι
*Ακριν ὑπερβαλέειν, τότ' ἀποτρέψασκε Κραταιίς,
Αὖτις ἔπειτα πίδονδε κυλίνδετο λάας αναιδής.

Odyff. L. 11.

I turn'd my eye, and as I turn'd furvey'd
A mournful vifion! the Sifyphian shade :
With many a weary step, and many a grone,
Up the high hill he heaves a hugh round ftone :
The huge round ftone, refulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and fmokes along the
ground.

РОРЕ.

It would be endlefs to quote verses out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occafion in a future paper to fhew feveral of them which have escaped the observation of others.

I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the fame nature, and each of them a mafter-piece in its kind; the Effay on tranflated verfe, the Effay on the art of poetry, and the Effay upon criticiím. C

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Friday, December 21.

N° 254

Σεμνὸς ἔρως ἀρετῆς, ὁ δὲ κυπρίδων ἄχος ὀφίλλει..

On love of virtue reverence attends,
But fenfual pleasure in our ruin ends..

W

HENI confider the falfe impreffions which are received by the generality of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. The first of the following let

teras

ters may best represent the faults I would now point at, and the answer to it the temper of mind in a contrafy character.

My dear Harriot,

I'

F thou art fhe, but oh how fallen, how changed, what an apoftate! how loft to all that is gay and agreea⚫ble! To be married I find is to be buried alive; I can⚫ not conceive it more difmal to be fhut up in a vault to ⚫ converse with the fhades of my ancestors, than to be car"ried down to an old manor-houfe in the country, and "confined to the converfation of a fober hufband and an aukward chamber-maid. For variety I fuppofe you may entertain yourself with madam in her grogram gown, the fpoufe of your parish vicar, who has by this time I am fure well furnished you with receipts for making falves and poffets, diftilling cordial waters, making fyrups, and applying poultices.

Bleft folitude! I wish thee joy, my dear, of thy loved retirement, which indeed you would perfuade me is very agreeable, and different enough from what I have here deferibed: But, child, I am afraid thy brains are a little • difcorded with romances and novels: After fix months marriage to hear thee talk of love, and paint the country fcenes fo foftly, is a little extravagant; one would think you lived the lives of Sylvan deities, or roved among the walks of Paradife, like the firft happy pair. But pray thee leave thefe whimfies, and come to town in order "to live and talk like other mortals. However, as I am extremely interested in your reputation, I would willing⚫ly give you a little good advice at your firft appearance under the character of a married woman: It is a little infolence in me perhaps, to advise a matron; but I am fo afraid you will make fo filly a figure as a fond wife, that I cannot help warning you not to appear in any publick places with your husband, and never to fanter about St James's Park together: If you prefume to enter the ring at Hide-Park together, you are ruined for ever; nor muft you take the leaft notice of one another at the play-house or opera, unless you would be laughed at for a very loving couple moft happily paired in the yoke of wedlock. I would recommend the example of an

" ac