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 ab

sence..

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, &c.

* His wild and gigantic images, and pompous diction, so much resembled the old romances, that he was the favourite poet of the middle ages.

Warton.

LETTER VI.

TO MR. CROMWELL.

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. It is 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

* Jacob Tonson's sixth volume of Poetical Miscellanies, in which Mr. Pope's Pastorals, and some versions of Homer and Chaucer were first printed. Pope.

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 Blackfriars, has been the cause of great ease and singular comfort to all the learned, who never overabounding 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 Oldfox in the Plain-Dealer says) through the ear, with your well-penned 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. Your, &c.

* The first correct poet of France; to whom their language had inestimable obligations. The notes of Menage on the works of Malherbe, abound in many curious critical remarks and digressions. Ronsard had a more vigorous imagination than Malherbe, but not so true a taste and judgment; his style is harsh, and full of barbarisms and foreign idioms. Warton.

I

LETTER VII.

TO MR. CROMWELL.

June 10, 1709.

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 Edipus'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 turns; and Polynices takes * See the first book of Statius, v. 302.

Pope.

+ Bossu did not write a critique upon Statius, but only used him, as he did other poets, occasionally, for an example. So that it is no wonder there should be faults and beauties in Statius which he did not take notice of. Warburton.

It is rather strange that our poet should make no mention of the Phoenissæ of Euripides, if indeed he had ever read that tragedy.

Warton.