at Mantua, but rectify'd the Fault in his riper Years. This appears by the Culex, which is as long as five of his Paftorals put together. The greater Part of those he finish'd, have lefs than an Hundred Verses, and but two of them exceed that Number. But the Silenus, which he seems to have defign'd for his Master-piece, in which he introduces a God finging, and he too full of Inspiration, (which is intended by that Ebriety, which Mr. F. fo unreasonably ridicules) tho' it go thro' fo vaft a Field of Matter, and comprises the Mythology of near Two thousand Years, confifts but of Fifty Lines ; fo that its Brevity is no lefs admirable, than the subject Matter; the noble Fashion of handling it, and the Deity speaking. Virgil keeps up his Characters in this refpect too, with the strictest Decency. For Poetry and Paftime was not the Bufinefs of Mens Lives in thofe Days, but only their seasonable Recreation after neceffary Labours. And therefore the length of fome of the modern Italian and English Compofitions, is against the Rules of this kind of Poefy.

I fhall add fomething very briefly, touching the Verfification of Paftorals, tho' it be a mortifying Confideration to the Moderns. Heroic Verfe, as it is commonly call'd, was us'd by the Greeks in this fort of Poem, as very ancient and natural: Lyrics, Iambics, &c. being invented afterwards: But there is fo great a difference in the Numbers, of which it may be compounded, that it may pass rather for a Genus, than Species of Verse. Whofoever shall compare the Numbers of the three following Verfes, will quickly be fenfible of the Truth of this Obfervation.

Tityre, tu patula recubans fub tegmine fagi. The first of the Georgics,

Quid faciat lætas fegetes, quo fydere terram, and of the Eneis,

Arma, virumque cano, Troja qui Primus ab oris,

The

1. The Sound of the Verfes, is almoft as different as the Subjects. But the Greek Writers of Paftorals, ufually limited themselves to the Example of the firft; which Virgil found. fo exceeding difficult, that he quitted it and left the Honour of that part to Theocritus. It is indeed probable, that what we improperly call Rhyme, is the moft ancient fort of Poetry; and learned Men have given good Arguments for it; and therefore a French Hiftorian commits a grofs Miftake, when he attributes that Invention to a King of Gaul, as an English Gentleman does, when he makes a Roman Emperor the Inventor of it. But the Greeks, who understood fully the Force and Power of Numbers, foon grew weary of this childish fort of Verfe, as the younger Voffius justly calls it, and therefore those rhyming Hexameters, which Plutarch obferves in Homer himself, seem to be the Remains of a barbarous Age. Virgil had them in fuch Abhorrence, that he would rather make a falfe Syntax, than what we call a Rhyme. Such a Verse as this,

Vir precor Uxori, frater fuccurre Sorori,

was paffable in Ovid, but the nicer Ears in Auguftus his Court could not pardon Virgil for

At Regina pyra.

So that the principal Ornament of Modern Poetry, was accounted Deformity by the Latins and Greeks; it was they who invented the different Terminations of Words, thofe happy Compofitions, thofe fhort Monofyllables, thofe Tranfpofitions for the elegance of the Sound and Senfe, which are wanting fo much in modern Languages. The French sometimes crowd together ten or twelve Monofyllables, into one disjointed Verfe; they may underftand the nature of, but cannot imitate, thofe wonderful Spondees of Pythagoras, by which he could fuddenly pacify a Man that was in a violent tranfport of Anger; nor those swift Numbers of the Priests of Cybele, which had the force to enrage the most fedate and phlegmatic VOL. II. Tempers.

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Tempers. Nor can any Modern put into his own Language the Energy of that fingle Poem of Catullus,

Super alta vectus Atys, &c.

Latin is but a corrupt Dialect of Greek; and the French, Spanish, and Italian, a corruption of Latin; and therefore a Man might as well go about to perfuade me that Vinegar is a nobler Liquor than Wine, as that the modern Compofitions can be as graceful and harmonious as the Latin itself. The Greek Tongue very naturally falls into Iambicks, and therefore the diligent Reader may find fix or seven and twenty of them in thofe accurat Orations of Ifocrates. The Latin as naturally falls into Heroic; and therefore the beginning of Livy's Hiftory is half an Hexameter, and that of Tacitus an entire one.

The Roman Hiftorian defcribing the glorious effort of a Colonel to break thro' a Brigade of the Enemies, just after the defeat at Canna, falls, unknowingly, into a Verse not unworthy Virgil himself.

Hæc ubi dicta dedit, ftringit gladium, cuneoque
Facto per medios, &c.

Ours and the French can at best but fall into Blank Verfe, which is a fault in Profe. The Misfortune indeed is common to us both, but we deferve more compaffion, because we are not vain of our Barbarities. As Age brings Men back into the state and infirmities of Childhood, upon the fall of their Empire, the Romans doted into Rhime, as appears fufficiently by the Hymns of the Latin Church; and yet a great deal of the French Poetry does hardly deferve that poor Title. I fhall give an Inftance out of a Poem which had the good luck to gain the Prize in 1635, for the Subject deferv'd a nobler Pen.

Tous les jours ce grand Roy des autres Roys l'exemple, S'ouvre un nouveau chemin au faifte de ton temple, &c.

The judicious Malherbe exploded this fort of Verfe near eighty Years ago. Nor can I forbear wondering at that Paffage of a famous Academician, in which he, moft compaffionately, excufes the Ancients for their not being fo exact in their Compofitions, as the Modern French, because they wanted a Dictionary, of which the French are at laft happily provided. If Demofthenes and Cicero had been fo lucky as to have had a Dictionary, and fuch a Patron as Cardinal Richelieu, perhaps they might have afpir'd to the Honour of Balzac's Legacy of Ten Pounds, Le prix de l'Eloquence.

On the contrary, I dare affert that there are hardly ten Lines in either of thofe great Orators, or even in the Catalogue of Homer's Ships, which is not more harmonious, more truly rythmical, than most of the French or English Sonnets; and therefore they lose, at leaft, one half of their native Beauty by Tranflation.

I cannot but add one Remark on this occafion, that the French Verfe is oftentimes not fo much as Rhime, in the lowest Sense; for the childish Repetition of the fame Note cannot be call'd Mufick; fuch Inftances are infinite, as in the forecited Poem.

'Epris
Mepris

Trophée

Orphée

caché ; cherché.

Mr. Boileau himself has a great deal of this povoTavía, not by his own neglect, but purely by the faultiness and poverty of the French Tongue. Mr. F. at laft goes into the exceffive Paradoxes of Mr. Perault, and boasts of the vaft number of their excellent Songs, preferring them to the Greek and Latin. But an ancient Writer of as good Credit has affur'd us, that feven Lives would hardly fuffice to read over the Greek Odes; but a few Weeks would be fufficient, if a Man were fo very idle as to read over all the French. In the mean time, I fhould be very glad to fee a Catalogue of but Fifty of theirs with Exact Propriety of Word and Thought;

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Efay of Poetry.

notwith

notwithstanding all the high Encomiums and mutual Gratulations which they give one another; (for I am far from cenfuring the whole of that illuftrious Society, to which the Learned World is much oblig'd) after all thofe golden Dreams at the L'Ouvre, that their Pieces will be as much valu'd ten or twelve Ages hence, as the ancient Greek or Roman, I can no more get it into my Head, that they will laft fo long, than I could believe the learned Dr. H. K. [of the Royal Society,] if he fhould pretend to fhew me a Butterfly that had liv'd a thousand Winters.

When Mr. F. wrote his Eclogues, he was fo far from equalling Virgil or Theocritus, that he had fome Pains to take before he could understand in what the principal Beauty and Graces of their Writings do confift.

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