"I should be very glad to have the benefit of the discovery P."

He is followed (as in fame, fo in judgment) by the modeft and fimple-minded

Mr. LEONARD WELSTED.

Who, out of great respect to our Poet, not naming him, doth yet glance at his Effay, together with the Duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Dryden, and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth 9: "As to the numerous treatifes, effays, arts, &c. "both in verse and profe, that have been written by the moderns on this ground-work, they do but

hackney the fame thoughts over again, making "them ftill more trite. Moft of their pieces are "nothing but a pert, infipid heap of common-place. "Horace has, even in his Art of Poetry, thrown "out feveral things which plainly fhew, he thought an Art of Poetry was of no use, even while he was writing one."

To all which great authorities, we can only oppofe that of

Mr. ADDISON.

"The Art of Criticism (faith he), which was "published fome months fince, 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 re

P Effay on Criticism in profe, octavo, 1728, by the author of the Critical Hiftory of England. 9 Preface to his Poems, p. 18. 53. Spectator, N° 253.

quifite in a profe writer. They are fome of them "uncommon, but fuch as the reader muft affent to, "when he fees them explained with that ease and perfpicuity in which they are delivered. As for "thofe which are the most known and the most re❝ceived, they are placed in fo beautiful a light, and "illustrated with fuch 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 Mon"fieur Boileau has fo well enlarged upon in the pre"face to his works: that wit and fine writing doth "not confift so much in advancing things that are 66 new, as in giving things that are known an agree"able turn. It is impoffible for us, who live in the "latter ages of the world, to make obfervations in "criticism, morality, or any art or science, which "have not been touched upon by others; we have "little elfe left us, but to reprefent the common "fense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, 66 or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines "Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few pre

cepts in it which he may not meet with in Arif"totle, 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.

Longinus, in his Reflections, has given us the "fame kind of fublime, which he obferves in the

66

"feveral paffages that occafioned them: I cannot "but take notice that our English author has after "the fame manner exemplified several of the precepts in the very precepts themselves." He then produces fome inftances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with faying, that "there 66 are three poems in our tongue of the fame na"ture, and each a master-piece in its kind! The "Effay on Tranflated Verfe; the Effay on the Art "of Poetry; and the Effay on Criticifm."

Of WINDSOR FOREST, pofitive is the judgment of the affirmative

Mr. JOHN DENNIS,

"That it is a wretched rhapfody, impudently writ "in emulation of the Cooper's Hill of Sir John "Denham: the author of it is obfcure, is ambigu"" ous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous." But the author of the Difpenfaryt,

Dr. GARTH,

in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: "Those who have feen thefe "two excellent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Wind"for Foreft, the one written by Sir John Denham, "the other by Mr. Pope, will fhew a great deal of "candor if they approve of this."

Of the Epistle to ELOISA, we are told by the obfcure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That be"caufe Prior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest

• Letter to B. B. at the end of the Remarks on Pope's Homer, 1717. t Printed 1728, p. 12.

"taftes, our Author writ his Eloifa in oppofition "to it; but forgot innocence and virtue: if you "take away her tender thoughts, and her fierce "defires, all the reft is of no value." In which, methinks, his judgment resembleth that of a French taylor on a villa and gardens by the Thames: "All "this is very fine; but take away the river, and it is good for nothing."

But very contrary hereunto was the opinion of
Mr. PRIOR

himself, faying in his Alma",

O Abelard! ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler Poet's fong:

Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd,
With kind concern and skill has weav'd
A filken web; and ne'er fhall fade

Its colours: gently has he laid

The mantle o'er thy fad distress,

And Venus fhall the texture blefs, &c.

Come we now to his tranflation of the ILIAD, celebrated by numerous pens, yet shall it fuffice to mention the indefatigable

Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE, Kt.

Who (though otherwise a fevere cenfurer of our Author) yet styleth this a " laudable translation w."

Alma, Cant. 2.

w In his Effays, vol. 1. printed for E. Curll.

That ready writer

Mr. OLDMIXON,

in his forementioned Effay, frequently commends the fame. And the painful

66

Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD

thus extols it," The spirit of Homer breathes all through this tranflation.-I am in doubt, whether "I should most admire the juftnefs to the original, or "the force and beauty of the language, or the founding variety of the numbers: but when I find "all these meet, it puts me in mind of what the poet fays of one of his heroes, That he alone "raifed and flung with ease a weighty ftone, that

two common men could not lift from the ground;

juft fo, one fingle perfon has performed in this "translation, what I once defpaired to have feen "done by the force of several masterly hands.” Indeed the fame gentleman appears to have changed his fentiments in his Effay on the Art of Sinking in Reputation (printed in Mift's Journal, March 30, 1728), where he fays thus: "In order to fink in reputation, let him take it into his head to defcend "into Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, how "the devil he got there), and pretend to do him "into English, fo his verfion denote his neglect of the manner how." Strange variation! We are told in MIST'S JOURNAL, June 8.

"That this translation of the Iliad was not in all refpects conformable to the fine taste of his friend

* Cenfor, vol. ii. n. 33.