Work I was no stranger to the Original I had also studied Virgil's Design his disposition of it his Manners his judicious management of the Figures the sober retrenchments of his Sense which always leaves somewhat to gratifie our imagination on which it may enlarge at pleasure but above all the Elegance of his Expressions and the harmony of his Numbers For as I have said in a former Dissertation the words are in Poetry what the Colours are in Painting If the Design be good and the Draught be true the Colouring is the first Beauty that strikes the Eye Spencer and Milton are the nearest in English to Virgil and Horace in the Latine and have endeavour'd to form my Stile by imitating their Masters I will farther own to you my Lord that my chief Ambition is to please those Readers who have discernment enough to prefer Virgil before any other Poet in the Latine Tongue Such Spirits as he desir'd to please such wou'd I chuse for my Judges and wou'd stand or fall by them alone Segrais has distinguish'd the Readers of Poetry according to their capacity of judging into three Classes He might have said the same of Writers too if he had pleas'd In the lowest Form he places those whom he calls Les Petits Esprits such things as are our Upper-Gallery Audience in a Play-House who like nothing but the Husk and Rhind of Wit preferr a Quibble a Conceit an Epigram before solid Sense and Elegant Expression These are Mobb-Readers If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament-Men we know already who wou'd carry it But though they make the greatest appearance in the Field and cry the loudest the best on 't is they are but a sort of French Hugonots or Dutch Boors brought over in Herds but not Naturaliz'd who have not Land of two Pounds per Annum in Parnassus and therefore are not priviledg'd to Poll. Their Authors are of the same level fit to represent them on a Mountebank's-Stage or to be Masters of the Ceremonies in a Bear-Garden Yet these are they who have the most Admirers But it often happens to their mortification that as their Readers improve their Stock of Sense as they may by reading better Books and by Conversation with Men of Judgment they soon forsake them And when the Torrent from the Mountains falls no more the swelling Writer is reduc'd into his shallow Bed like the Mançanares at Madrid with scarce water to moisten his own Pebbles There are a middle sort of Readers as we hold there is a middle state of Souls such as have a farther insight than the former yet have not the capacity of judging right for I speak not of those who are brib'd by a Party and know better if they were not corrupted but I mean a Company of warm young Men who are not yet arriv'd so far as to discern the difference betwixt Fustian or ostentatious Sentences and the true sublime These are above liking Martial or Owen's Epigrams but they wou'd certainly set Virgil below Statius or Lucan I need not say their Poets are of the same Paste with their Admirers They affect greatness in all they write but 't is a bladder'd greatness like that of the vain Man whom Seneca describes An ill habit of Body full of Humours and swell'd with Dropsie Even these too desert their Authors as their Judgment ripens The young Gentlemen themselves are commonly miss-led by their Pedagogue at School their Tutor at the University or their Governour in their Travels And many of those three sorts are the most positive Blockheads in the World How many of those flatulent Writers have I known who have sunk in their Reputation after Seven or Eight Editions of their Works for indeed they are Poets only for young Men. They had great success at their first appearance but not being of God as a Wit said formerly they cou'd not stand I have already nam'd two sorts of Judges but Virgil wrote for neither of them and by his Example I am not ambitious of pleasing the lowest or the middle form of Readers He chose to please the most Judicious Souls of the highest Rank and truest Understanding These are few in number but whoever is so happy as to gain their approbation can nover lose it because they never give it blindly Then they have a certain Magnetism in their Judgment which attracts others to their Sense Every day they gain some new Proselyte and in time become the Church For this Reason a well-weigh'd Judicious Poem which at its first appearance gains no more upon the World than to be just receiv'd and rather not blam'd than much applauded insinuates it self by insensible degrees into the liking of the Reader The more he studies it the more it grows upon him every time he takes it up he discovers some new Graces in it And whereas Poems which are produc'd by the vigour of Imagination only have a gloss upon them at the first which Time wears off the Works of Judgment are like the Diamond the more they are polish'd the more lustre they receive Such is the difference betwixt Virgil's Aeneis and Marini's Adone And if I may be allow'd to change the Metaphor I wou'd say that Virgil is like the Fame which he describes Mobilitate viget viresque acquirit eundo Such a sort of Reputation is my aim though in a far inferiour degree according to my Motto in the Title Page Sequiturque Patrem non passibus aequis and therefore I appeal to the Highest Court of Judicature like that of the Peers of which your Lordship is so great an Ornament Without this Ambition which I own of desiring to please the Judices Natos I cou'd never have been able to have done any thing at this Age when the fire of Poetry is commonly extinguish'd in other Men. Yet Virgil has given me the Example of Entellus for my Encouragement When he was well heated the younger Champion cou'd not stand before him And we find the Elder contended not for the Gift but for the Honour Nec dona moror For Dampier has inform'd us in his Voyages that the Air of the Country which produces Gold is never wholsom I had long since consider'd that the way to please the best Judges is not to Translate a Poet literally and Virgil least of any other For his peculiar Beauty lying in his choice of Words I am excluded from it by the narrow compass of our Heroick Verse unless I wou'd make use of Monosyllables only and those clog'd with Consonants which are the dead weight of our Mother-Tongue 'T is possible I confess though it rarely happens that a Verse of Monosyllables may sound harmoniously and some Examples of it I have seen My first Line of the Aeneis is not harsh Arms and the Man I Sing who forc'd by Fate c. But a much better instance may be given from the last Line of Manilius made English by our Learned and Judicious Mr. Creech Nor could the World
his Books of Divination and Virgil probably had put it in Verse a considerable time before the Edition of his Pastorals Nor does he appropriate it to Pollio or his Son but Complementally dates it from his Consulship And therefore some one who had not so kind thoughts of Mr. F. as I would be inclin'd to think him as bad a Catholick as Critick in this place I pass by in respect therefore to some Books he has wrote since a great part of this and shall only touch briefly some of the Rules of this sort of Poem The First is that an air of Piety upon all occasions should be maintain'd in the whole Poem This appears in all the Ancient Greek Writers as Homer c. And Virgil is so exact in the observation of it not only in this Work but in his Aeneis too that a Celebrated French Writer taxes him for permitting Aeneas to do nothing without the assistance of some God But by this it appears at least that Mr. St. Eur. is no Jansenist Mr. F. seems a little defective in this point he brings in a pair of Shepherdesses disputing very warmly whether Victoria none of the fittest Names for a Shepherdess be a Goddess or a Woman Her great condescension and compassion her affability and goodness none of the meanest Attributes of the Divinity pass for convincing Arguments that she could not possibly be a Goddess Les Déesses toûjours fieres méprisantes Ne rassureroiént point les Bergeres tremblantes Par d'obligeans discours des souris gracieux Mais tu l'as veu cette Auguste Personne Qui vient de paroistre en ces lieux Prend soin de rassurer au moment qu'elle étonne Sa bonté descendant sans peine jusqu'à nous In short she has too many Divine Perfections to be a Deity and therefore she is a Mortal which was the thing to be prov'd It is directly contrary to the practice of all ancient Poets as well as to the Rules of decency and Religion to make such odious Comparisons I am much surpriz'd therefore that he should use such an argument as this Cloris as-tu veu des Déesses Avoir un air si facile si doux Was not Aurora and Venus and Luna and I know not how many more of the Heathen Deities too easie of access to Tithonus to Anchises and to Endimion Is there any thing more Sparkish and better humour'd than Venus her accosting her Son in the Desarts of Lybia or than the behaviour of Pallas to Diomedes one of the most perfect and admirable Pieces of all the Iliads where she condescends to rally him so agreeably and notwithstanding her severe Vertue and all the Ensigns of Majesty with which she so terribly adorns her self condescends to ride with him in his Chariot But the Odysses are full of greater instances of condescension than this This brings to mind that Famous passage of Lucan in which he prefers Cato to all the Gods at once Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni Which Brelaeuf has render'd so flatly and which may be thus Paraphras'd Heaven meanly with the Conquerour did comply But Cato rather than submit would die It is an unpardonable presumption in any sort of Religion to complement their Princes at the expence of their Deities But letting that pass this whole Eclogue is but a long Paraphrase of a trite Verse in Virgil and Homer Nec vox Hominem sonat O Dea certe So true is that Remark of the Admirable E. of Roscomon if apply'd to the Romans rather I fear than to the English since his own Death one sterling Line Drawn to French Wire would thro' whole pages shine Another Rule is that the Characters should represent that Ancient Innocence and unpractis'd Plainness which was then in the World P. Rapine has gather'd many Instances of this out of Theocritus and Virgil and the Reader can do it as well himself But Mr. F. transgress'd this Rule when he hid himself in the Thicket to listen to the private Discourse of the two Shepherdesses This is not only ill Breeding at Versailles the Arcadian Shepherdesses themselves would have set their Dogs upon one for such an unpardonable piece of Rudeness A Third Rule is That there should be some Ordonnance some Design or little Plot which may deserve the Title of a Pastoral Scene This is every where observ'd by Virgil and particularly remarkable in the first Eclogue the standard of all Pastorals a Beautiful Landscape presents it self to your view a Shepherd with his Flock around him resting securely under a spreading Beech which furnish'd the first Food to our Ancestors Another in quite different Situation of Mind and Circumstances the Sun setting the Hospitality of the more fortunate Shepherd c. And here Mr. F. seems not a little wanting A Fourth Rule and of great importance in this delicate sort of Writing is that there be choice diversity of Subjects that the Eclogues like a Beautiful Prospect should Charm by its Variety Virgil is admirable in this Point and far surpasses Theocritus as he does every where when Judgment and Contrivance have the principal part The Subject of the first Pastoral is hinted above The Second contains the Love of Coridon for Alexis and the seasonable reproach he gives himself that he left his Vines half prun'd which according to the Roman Rituals deriv'd a Curse upon the Fruit that grew upon it whilst he pursu'd an Object undeserving his Passion The Third a sharp Contention of two Shepherds for the Prize of Poetry The Fourth contains the Discourse of a Shepherd Comforting himself in a declining Age that a better was ensuing The Fifth a Lamentation for a Dead Friend the first draught of which is probably more Ancient than any of the Pastorals now extant his Brother being at first intended but he afterwards makes his Court to Augustrus by turning it into an Apothesis of Julius Caesar The Sixth is the Silenus The Seventh another Poetical Dispute first Compos'd at Mantua The Eighth is the Description of a despairing Lover and a Magical Charm He sets the Ninth after all these very modestly because it was particular to himself and here he would have ended that Work if Gallus had not prevail'd upon him to add one more in his Favour Thus Curious was Virgil in diversifying his Subjects But Mr. F. is a great deal too Vniform begin where you please the Subject is still the same We find it true what he says of himself Toûjours toûjours de l'Amour He seems to take Pastorals and Love-Verses for the same thing Has Humaen Nature no other Passion Does not Fear Ambition Avarice Pride a Capricio of Honour and Laziness it self often Triumph over Love But this Passion does all not only in Pastorals but on Modern Tragedies too A Heroe can no more Fight or be Sick or Dye than he can be Born without a Woman But Dramatic's have been compos'd in compliance to the Humour of the Age and the
Translated him but according to the litteral French and Italian Phrases I fear I have traduc'd him 'T is the fault of many a well-meaning Man to be officious in a wrong place and do a prejudice where he had endeavour'd to do a service Virgil wrote his Georgics in the full strength and vigour of his Age when his Judgment was at the height and before his Fancy was declining He had according to our homely Saying his full swing at this Poem beginning it about the Age of Thirty Five and scarce concluding it before he arriv'd at Forty 'T is observ'd both of him and Horace and I believe it will hold in all great Poets that though they wrote before with a certain heat of Genius which inspir'd them yet that heat was not perfectly digested There is requir'd a continuance of warmth to ripen the best and Noblest Fruits Thus Horace in his First and Second Book of Odes was still rising but came not to his Meridian 'till the Third After which his Judgment was an overpoize to his Imagination He grew too cautious to be bold enough for he descended in his Fourth by slow degrees and in his Satires and Epistles was more a Philosopher and a Critick than a Poet. In the beginning of Summer the days are almost at a stand with little variation of length or shortness because at that time the Diurnal Motion of the Sun partakes more of a Right Line than of a Spiral The samè is the method of Nature in the frame of Man He seems at Forty to be fully in his Summer Tropick somewhat before and somewhat after he finds in his Soul but small increases or decays From Fifty to Threescore the Ballance generally holds even in our colder Clymates For he loses not much in Fancy and Judgment which is the effect of Observation still increases His succeeding years afford him little more than the stubble of his own Harvest Yet if his Constitution be healthful his Mind may still retain a decent vigour and the Gleanings of that Ephraim in Comparison with others will surpass the Vintage of Abiezer I have call'd this somewhere by a bold Metaphor a green Old Age but Virgil has given me his Authority for the Figure Jam Senior sed Cruda Deo viridisque Senectus Amongst those few who enjoy the advantage of a latter Spring your Lordship is a rare Example Who being now arriv'd at your great Clymacterique yet give no proof of the least decay in your Excellent Judgment and comprehension of all things which are within the compass of Humane Vnderstanding Your Conversation is as easie as it is instructive and I cou'd never observe the least vanity or the least assuming in any thing you said but a natural unaffected Modesty full of good sense and well digested A clearness of Notion express'd in ready and unstudied words No Man has complain'd or ever can that you have discours'd too long on any Subject for you leave us in an eagerness of Learning more pleas'd with what we hear but not satisfy'd because you will not speak so much as we cou'd wish I dare not excuse your Lordship from this fault for though 't is none in you 't is one to all who have the happiness of being known to you I must confess the Criticks make it one of Virgil's Beauties that having said what he thought convenient he always left somewhat for the imagination of his Readers to supply That they might gratifie their fancies by finding more in what he had written than at first they cou'd and think they had added to his thought when it was all there before-hand and he only sav'd himself the expence of words However it was I never went from your Lordship but with a longing to return or without a hearty Curse to him who invented Ceremonies in the World and put me on the necâ—ssity of withdrawing when it was my interest as well as my desire to have given you a much longer trouble I cannot imagine if your Lordship will give me leave to speak my thoughts but you have had a more than ordinary vigour in your Youth For too much of heat is requir'd at first that there may not too little be left at last A Prodigal Fire is only capable of large remains And yours my Lord still burns the clearer in declining The Blaze is not so fierce as at the first but the Smoak is wholly vanish'd and your Friends who stand about you are not only sensible of a chearful warmth but are kept at an awful distance by its force In my small Observations of Mankind I have ever sound that such as are not rather too full of Spirit when they are young degenerate to dullness in their Age. Sobriety in our riper years is the effect of a well-concocted warmth but where the Principles are only Phlegm what can be expected from the waterish Matter but an insipid Manhood and a stupid old Infancy Discretion in Leading-strings and a confirm'd ignorance on Crutches Virgil in his Third Georgic when he describes a Colt who promises a Courser for the Race or for the Field of Battel shews him the first to pass the Bridge which trembles under him and to stem the torrent of the flood His beginnings must be in rashness a Noble Fault But Time and Experience will correct that Errour and tame it into a deliberate and well-weigh'd Courage which knows both to be cautious and to dare as occasion offers Your Lordship is a Man of Honour not only so unstain'd but so unquestion'd that you are the living Standard of that Heroick Vertue so truly such that if I wou'd flatter you I cou'd not It takes not from you that you were born with Principles of Generosity and Probity But it adds to you that you have cultivated Nature and made those Principles the Rule and Measure of all your Actions The World knows this without my telling Yet Poets have a right of Recording it to all Posterity Dignum Laude Virum Musa vetat Mori Epaminondas Lucullus and the two first Caesars were not esteem'd the worse Commanders for having made Philosophy and the Liberal Arts their Study Cicero might have been their Equal but that he wanted Courage To have both these Vertues and to have improv'd them both with a softness of Manners and a sweetness of Conversation few of our Nobility can fill that Character One there is and so conspicuous by his own light that he needs not Digito monstrari dicier Hic est To be Nobly Born and of an Ancient Family is in the extreams of Fortune either good or bad for Virtue and Descent are no Inheritance A long Series of Ancestours shews the Native with great advantage at the first but if he any way degenerate from his Line the least Spot is visible on Ermine But to preserve this whiteness in its Original Purity you my Lord have like that Ermine forsaken the common Track of Business which is not always clean You
the Colouring laid on and the whole Piece finish'd we must expect it from a greater Master's hand Virgil has drawn out the Rules for Tillage and Planting into Two Books which Hesiod has dispatcht in half a one but has so rais'd the natural rudeness and simplicity of his Subject with such a significancy of Expression such a Pomp of Verse such variety of Transitions and such a solemn Air in his Reflections that if we look on both Poets together we see in one the plainness of a down-right Country-Man and in the other something of a Rustick Majesty like that of a Roman Dictator at the Plow-Tail He delivers the meanest of his Precepts with a kind of Grandeur he breaks the Clods and tosses the Dung about with an air of gracefulness His Prognostications of the Weather are taken out of Aratus where we may see how judiciously he has pickt out those that are most proper for his Husbandman's Observation how he has enforc'd the Expression and heighten'd the Images which he found in the Original The Second Book has more wit in it and a greater boldness in its Metaphors than any of the rest The Poet with a great Beauty applies Oblivion Ignorance Wonder Desire and the like to his Trees The last Georgic has indeed as many Metaphors but not so daring as this for Humane Thoughts and Passions may be more naturally ascrib'd to a Bee than to an Inanimate Plant. He who reads over the Pleasures of a Country Life as they are describ'd by Virgil in the latter end of this Book can scarce be of Virgil's Mind in preferring even the Life of a Philosopher to it We may I think read the Poet's Clime in his Description for he seems to have been in a sweat at the Writing of it O Quis me gelidis sub Montibus Haemi Sistat ingenti ramorum protegat umbr â And is every where mentioning among his chief Pleasures the coolness of his Shades and Rivers Vales and Grottos which a more Northern Poet wou'd have omitted for the description of a Sunny Hill and Fire-side The Third Georgic seems to be the most labour'd of 'em all there is a wonderful Vigour and Spirit in the description of the Horse and Chariot-Race The force of Love is represented in Noble Instances and very Sublime Expressions The Scythian Winter-piece appears so very cold and bleak to the Eye that a Man can scarce look on it without shivering The Murrain at the end has all the expressiveness that words can give It was here that the Poet strain'd hard to out-do Lucretius in the description of his Plague and if the Reader wou'd see what success he had he may find it at large in Scaliger But Virgil seems no where so well pleas'd as when he is got among his Bees in the Fourth Georgic And Ennobles the Actions of so trivial a Creature with Metaphors drawn from the most important Concerns of Mankind His Verses are not in a greater noise and hurry in the Battels of Aeneas and Turnus than in the Engagement of two Swarms And as in his Aeneis he compares the Labours of his Trojans to those of Bees and Pismires here he compares the Labours of the Bees to those of the Cyclops In short the last Georgic was a good Prelude to the Aeneis and very well shew'd what the Poet could do in the description of what was really great by his describing the Mock-grandeur of an Insect with so good a grace There is more pleasantness in the little Platform of a Garden which he gives us about the middle of this Book than in all the spacious Walks and Water-works of Rapin's The Speech of Proteus at the end can never be enough admir'd and was indeed very fit to conclude so Divine a Work After this particular account of the Beauties in the Georgics I shou'd in the next place endeavour to point out its imperfections if it has any But tho' I think there are some few parts in it that are not so Beautiful as the rest I shall not presume to name them as rather suspecting my own Judgment than I can believe a fault to be in that Poem which lay so long under Virgil's Correction and had his last hand put to it The first Georgic was probably Burlesqu'd in the Author's Life-time for we still find in the Scholiasts a Verse that ridicules part of a Line Translated from Hesiod Nudus Ara sere Nudus And we may easily guess at the Judgment of this extraordinary Critick whoever he was from his Censuring this particular Precept We may be sure Virgil wou'd not have Translated it from Hesiod had he not discover'd some Beauty in it and indeed the Beauty of it is what I have before observ'd to be frequently met with in Virgil the delivering the Precept so indirectly and singling out the particular circumstance of Sowing and Plowing naked to suggest to us that these Employments are proper only in the hot Season of the Year I shall not here compare the Stile of the Georgics with that of Lucretius which the Reader may see already done in the Preface to the Second Volume of Miscellany Poems but shall conclude this Poem to be the most Compleat Elaborate and finisht Piece of all Antiquity The Aeneis indeed is of a Nobler kind but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind The Aeneid has a greater variety of Beauties in it but those of the Georgic are more exquisite In short the Georgic has all the perfection that can be expected in a Poem written by the greatest Poet in the Flower of his Age when his Invention was ready his Imagination warm his Judgment settled and all his Faculties in their full Vigour and Maturity Virgil's Georgics The First Book of the Georgics The Argument The Poet in the beginning of this Book propounds the general Design of each Georgic And after a solemn Invocation of all the Gods who are any way related to his Subject he addresses himself in particular to Augustus whom he complements with Divinity and after strikes into his Business He shews the different kinds of Tillage proper to different Soils traces out the Original of Agriculture gives a Catalogue of the Husbandman's Tools specifies the Employments pecultar to each Season describes the changes of the Weather with the Signs in Heaven and Earth that fore-bode them Instances many of the Prodigies that happen'd near the time of Julius Caesar 's Death And shuts up all with a Supplication to the Gods for the Safety of Augustus and the Prefervation of Rome To S r Thomas Trevor of the Inner Temple Knight His Majestys Attorny Generall Geor 1 L. 1 WHat makes a plenteous Harvest when to turn The fruitful Soil and when to sowe the Corn The Care of Sheep of Oxen and of Kine And how to raise on Elms the teeming Vine The Birth and Genius of the frugal Bee I sing Mecaenas and I sing to thee Ye Deities who Fields and Plains protect Who rule
propos'd to imitation not his Pride and Disobedience to his General nor his brutal Cruelty to his dead Enemy nor the selling his Body to his Father We abhor these Actions while we read them and what we abhor we never imitate The Poet only shews them like Rocks or Quick-Sands to be shun'd By this Example the Criticks have concluded that it is not necessary the Manners of the Heroe should be virtuous They are Poetically good if they are of a Piece Though where a Character of perfect Virtue is set before us 't is more lovely for there the whole Heroe is to be imitated This is the Aeneas of our Author this is that Idea of perfection in an Epick Poem which Painters and Statuaries have only in their minds and which no hands are able to express These are the Beauties of a God in a Humane Body When the Picture of Achilles is drawn in Tragedy he is taken with those Warts and Moles and hard Features by those who represent him on the Stage or he is no more Achilles for his Creatour Homer has so describ'd him Yet even thus he appears a perfect Heroe though an imperfect Character of Vertue Horace Paints him after Homer and delivers him to be Copied on the Stage with all those imperfections Therefore they are either not faults in a Heroick Poem or faults common to the Drama After all on the whole merits of the Cause it must be acknowledg'd that the Epick Poem is more for the Manners and Tragedy for the Passions The Passions as I have said are violent and acute Distempers require Medicines of a strong and speedy operation Ill habits of the Mind are like Chronical Diseases to be corrected by degrees and Cur'd by Alteratives wherein though Purges are sometimes necessary yet Diet good Air and moderate Exercise have the greatest part The Matter being thus stated it will appear that both sorts of Poetry are of use for their proper ends The Stage is more active the Epick Poem works at greater leisure yet is active too when need requires For Dialogue is imitated by the Drama from the more active parts of it One puts off a Fit like the Quinquina and relieves us only for a time the other roots out the Distemper and gives a healthful habit The Sun enlightens and chears us dispels Fogs and warms the ground with his daily Beams but the Corn is sow'd increases is ripen'd and is reap'd for use in process of time and in its proper Season I proceed from the greatness of the Action to the Dignity of the Actours I mean to the Persons employ'd in both Poems There likewise Tragedy will be seen to borrow from the Epopee and that which borrows is always of less Dignity because it has not of its own A Subject 't is true may lend to his Soveraign but the act of borrowing makes the King inferiour because he wants and the Subject supplies And suppose the Persons of the Drama wholly Fabulous or of the Poet's Invention yet Heroick Poetry gave him the Examples of that Invention because it was first and Homer the common Father of the Stage I know not of any one advantage which Tragedy can boast above Heroick Poetry but that it is represented to the view as well as read and instructs in the Closet as well as on the Theatre This is an uncontended Excellence and a chief Branch of its Prerogative yet I may be allow'd to say without partiality that herein the Actors share the Poet's praise Your Lordship knows some Modern Tragedies which are beautiful on the Stage and yet I am confident you wou'd not read them Tryphon the Stationer complains they are seldom ask'd for in his Shop The Poet who Flourish'd in the Scene is damn'd in the Ruelle nay more he is not esteem'd a good Poet by those who see and hear his Extravagancies with delight They are a sort of stately Fustian and lofty Childishness Nothing but Nature can give a sincere pleasure where that is not imitated 't is Grotesque Painting the fine Woman ends in a Fishes Tail I might also add that many things which not only please but are real Beauties in the reading wou'd appear absurd upon the Stage and those not only the Speciosa Miracula as Horace calls them of Transformations of Scylla Antiphates and the Lestrigons which cannot be represented even in Opera's but the prowess of Achilles or Aeneas wou'd appear ridiculous in our Dwarf-Heroes of the Theatre We can believe they routed Armies in Homer or in Virgil but ne Hercules contraduos in the Drama I forbear to instance in many things which the Stage cannot or ought not to represent For I have said already more than I intended on this Subject and shou'd fear it might be turn'd against me that I plead for the pre-eminence of Epick Poetry because I have taken some pains in translating Virgil if this were the first time that I had deliver'd my Opinion in this Dispute But I have more than once already maintain'd the Rights of my two Masters against their Rivals of the Scene even while I wrote Tragedies my self and had no thoughts of this present Undertaking I submit my Opinion to your Judgment who are better qualified than any Man I know to decide this Controversie You come my Lord instructed in the Cause and needed not that I shou'd open it Your Essay of Poetry which was publish'd without a Name and of which I was not honour'd with the Confidence I read over and over with much delight and as much instruction and without flattering you or making my self more Moral than I am not without some Envy I was loath to be inform'd how an Epick Poem shou'd be written or how a Tragedy shou'd be contriv'd and manag'd in better Verse and with more judgment than I cou'd teach others A Native of Parnassus and bred up in the Studies of its Fundamental Laws may receive new Lights from his Contemporaries but 't is a grudging kind of praise which he gives his Benefactors He is more oblig'd than he is willing to acknowledge there is a tincture of Malice in his Commendations For where I own I am taught I confess my want of Knowledge A Judge upon the Bench may out of good Nature or at least interest encourage the Pleadings of a puny Councellor but he does not willingly commend his Brother Serjeant at the Bar especially when he controuls his Law and exposes that ignorance which is made Sacred by his Place I gave the unknown Author his due Commendation I must consess but who can answer for me and for the rest of the Poets who heard me read the Poem whether we shou'd not have been better pleas'd to have seen our own Names at the bottom of the Title Page perhaps we commended it the more that we might seem to be above the Censure We are naturally displeas'd with an unknown Critick as the Ladies are with a Lampooner because we are bitten in the dark and
my departure For Deiphobus being a Ghost can hardly be said to be of their Number Perhaps the Poet means by explebo numerum absolvam sententiam As if Deiphobus reply'd to the Sibil who was angry at his long Visit I will only take my last leave of Aeneas my Kinsman and my Friend with one hearty good-wish for his Health and Well-fare and then leave you to prosecute your Voyage That Wish is express'd in the words immediately following I Decus I nostrum c. Which contain a direct Answer to what the Sibill said before When she upbraided their long Discourse Nos flendo ducimus horas This Conjecture is new and therefore left to the discretion of the Reader L. 981. Know first that Heav'n and Earth's compacted Frame And flowing Waters and the Starry Flame And both the radiant Lights c. Principio Coelum terras composque liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque Astra c. Here the Sun is not express'd but the Moon only though a less and also a less radiant Light Perhaps the Copies of Virgil are all false and that instead of Titaniaque Astra he writ Titanaque Astra and according to those words I have made my Translation 'T is most certain that the Sun ought not to be omitted for he is frequently call'd the Life and Soul of all the World And nothing bids so fair for a visible Divinity to those who know no better than that glorious Luminary The Platonists call God the Archetypall Sun and the Sun the visible Deity the inward vital Spirit in the Center of the Universe or that Body to which that Spirit is united and by which-it exerts it self most powerfully Now it was the receiv'd Hypothesis amongst the Pythagoreans that the Sun was scituate in the Center of the World Plato had it from them and was himself of the same Opinion as appears by a passage in the Timaeus From which Noble Dialogue is this part of Virgil's Poem taken L. 1157. Great Cato there for gravity renown'd c. Quis te Magne Cato c. There is no Question but Virgil here means Cato Major or the Censor But the Name of Cato being also mention'd in the Eighth Aeneid I doubt whether he means the same Man in both places I have said in the Preface that our Poet was of Republican Principles and have given this for one Reason of my Opinion that he prais'd Cato in that Line Secretisque piis his dantem jura Catonem And accordingly plac'd him in the Elysian Fields Montaign thinks this was Cato the Vtican the great Enemy of Arbitrary Power and a profess'd Foe to Julius Caesar Ruaeus wou'd perswade us that Virgil meant the Censor But why shou'd the Poet name Cato twice if he intended the same person Our Author is too frugal of his Words and Sense to commit Tautologies in either His Memory was not likely to betray him into such an Errour Nevertheless I continue in the same Opinion concerning the Principles of our Poet. He declares them sufficiently in this Book Where he praises the first Brutus for expelling the Tarquins giving Liberty to Rome and putting to Death his own Children who conspir'd to restore Tyranny He calls him only an unhappy Man for being forc'd to that severe Action Infelix utcunque ferent ea facta Minores Vincet amor Patriae laudumque immensa Cupido Let the Reader weigh these two Verses and he must be convinc'd that I am in the right And that I have not much injur'd my Master in my Translation of them Line 1140. Embrace again my Sons be Foes no more Nor stain your Country with her Childrens gore And thou the first lay down thy lawless claim Thou of my Blood who bear'st the Julian Name This Note which is out of its proper place I deferr'd on purpose to place it here Because it discovers the Principles of our Poet more plainly than any of the rest Tuque prior tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo Projice tela manu Sanguis meus Anchises here speaks to Julius Caesar And commands him first to lay down Arms which is a plain condemnation of his Cause Yet observe our Poet 's incomparable Address For though he shews himself sufficiently to be a Common-wealth's-man yet in respect to Augustus who was his Patron he uses the Authority of a Parent in the Person of Anchises who had more right to lay this Injunction on Caesar than on Pompey because the latter was not of his Blood Thus our Author cautiously veils his own opinion and takes Sanctuary under Anchises as if that Ghost wou'd have laid the same Command on Pompey also had he been lineally descended from him What cou'd be more judiciously contriv'd when this was the Aeneid which he chose to read before his Master Line 1222. A new Marcellus shall arise in thee In Virgil thus Tu Marcellus eris How unpoetically and baldly had this been translated Thou shalt Marcellus be Yet some of my Friends were of Opinion that I mistook the Sense of Virgil in my Translation The French Interpreter observes nothing on this place but that it appears by it the Mourning of Octavia was yet fresh for the loss of her Son Marcellus whom she had by her first Husband And who dyed in the Year aburbe conditâ 731. And collects from thence that Virgil reading this Aeneid before her in the same Year had just finish'd it That from this time to that of the Poet's Death was little more than four Years So that supposing him to have written the whole Aeneis in eleven Years the first six Books must have taken up seven of those Years On which Account the six last must of necessity be less correct Now for the false judgment of my Friends there is but this little to be said for them the words of Virgil in the Verse preceding are these Siqua fata aspera rumpas As if the Poet had meant if you break through your hard Destiny so as to be born you shall be call'd Marcellus But this cannot be the Sense for though Marcellus was born yet he broke not through those hard Decrees which doom'd him to so immature a death Much less can Virgil mean you shall be the same Marcellus by the Transmigration of his Soul For according to the System of our Author a Thousand Years must be first elaps'd before the Soul can return into a Humane Body but the first Marcellus was slain in the second Punick War And how many hundred Years were yet wanting to the accomplishing his penance may with ease be gather'd by computing the time betwixt Scipio and Augustus By which 't is plain that Virgil cannot mean the same Marcellus but one of his Descendants whom I call a new Marcellus who so much resembled his Ancestor perhaps in his Features and his Person but certainly in his Military Vertues that Virgil cries out quantum instar in ipso est which I have translated How like the former