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their prisoner; whom they brought before the walls, and exposed to his father's sight, threatening to put him to death if he did not immediately give up the

town.

The father tells them, if he had a hundred sons he would rather see them all perish than do an ill action, or betray his country. But (says he) if you take a pleasure in destroying the innocent, you may do it if you please: behold a sword for your purpose.' Upon which he threw his sword from the wall, returned to his palace, and was able, at such a juncture, to sit down to the repast which was prepared for him. He was soon raised by the shouts of the enemy and the cries of the besieged. Upon returning again to the walls, he saw his son lying in the pangs of death: but far from betraying any weakness at such a spectacle, he upbraids his friends for their sorrow, and returns to finish his repast.

Upon the recital of this story, which is exquisitely drawn up in Lucan's spirit and language, the whole assembly declared their opinion of Lucan in a confused murmur. The poem was praised or censured according to the prejudices which every one had conceived in favour or disadvantage of the author. These were so very great, that some had placed him in their opinions above the highest, and others beneath the lowest, of the Latin poets. Most of them however agreed that Lucan's genius was wonderfully great, but at the same time too haughty and headstrong to be governed by art; and that his style was, like his genius, learned, bold and lively, but withal too tragical and blustering; in a word, that he chose rather a great than a just reputation: to which they added, that he was the first of the Latin poets who deviated from the purity of the Roman language.

The

The representative of Lucretius told the assembly, that they should soon be sensible of the difference between a poet who was a native of Rome, and a stranger who had been adopted into it: after which he entered upon his subject, which I find exhibited to my hand in a speculation of one of my prede

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Strada, in the person of Lucretius, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain load-stone, which had such a virtue in it, that if it touched two several nee. dles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty let ters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves qunctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his friend, he directed his needle. to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend, in

the

the mean while, saw his own syinpathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at: by this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

The whole audience were pleased with the artifice of the poet who represented Lucretius, observing very well how he had laid asleep their attention to the simplicity of his style in some verses, and to the want of harmony in others, by fixing their minds to the novelty of his subject, and to the experiment which he related. Without such an artifice they were of opinion that nothing would have sounded more harsh than Lucretius's diction and numbers. But it was plain that the more learned part of the assembly were quite of another mind. These allowed that it was peculiar to Lucretius, above all other poets, to be always doing or teaching something that no other style was so proper to teach in, or gave a greater pleasure to those who had a true relish for the Roman tongue. They added further, that if Lucretius had not been embarrassed with the difficulty of his matter, and a little led away by an affectation of antiquity, there could not have been any thing more perfect than his poem.

Claudian succeeded Lucretius, having chosen for his subject the famous contest between the Nightingale and the Lutanist, which every one is acquainted with, especially since Mr. Philips has so finely improved that hint in one of his Pastorals.

He had no sooner finished but the assembly rung with acclamations made in his praise. His first beauty, which every one owned, was the great clearness and perspicuity

VOL. III.

U

perspicuity which appeared in the plan of his poem. Others were wonderfully charmed with the smoothness of his verse, and the flowing of his numbers, in which there were none of those elisions and cuttings-off so frequent in the works of other poets. There were several however of a more refined judgment, who ridieuled that in fasion of foreign phrases with which he had corrupted the Latin tongue, and spoke with contempt of the equability of his numbers, that cloyed and satiated the car for want of variety: to which they likewise added a frequent and unscasonable affectation of appearing sonorous and sublime.

FROM STRADA'S PROLUSIONS.

PAPER III. No. 122.

THAT I may get out of debt with the public as fast as I can, I shall here give them the remaining part of Strada's criticism on the Latin heroic poets. My readers may see the whole work in the three papers numbered 115, 119, 122. Those who are acquainted with the authors themselves cannot but be pleased to see them so justly represented; and as for those who have never perused the originals, they may form

judgment of them from such accurate and entertaining copies. The whole piece will show at least how a man of genius (and none else should call himself a critic) can make the driest art a pleasing amuse

ment.

The Sequel of Strada's Prolusion.

The poet who personated Ovid gives an account of the chryso-magnet, or the loadstone, which attracts

gold,

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gold, after the same manner as the common loadstone attracts iron. The author, that he might express Ovid's way of thinking, derives this virtue to the chryso-magnet from a poetical metamorphosis.

As I was sitting by a well, says he, when I was a boy, my ring dropped into it, when immediately my father fastening a certain stone to the end of a line let it down into the well. It no sooner touched the surface of the water, but the ring leaped up from the bottom, and clung to it in such a manner that he drew it out like a fish. My father, seeing me wonder at the experiment, gave me the following account of it:When Deucalion and Pyrrha went about the world to repair mankind by throwing stones over their heads, the men who rose from them differed in their inclinations according to the places on which the stones fell. Those which fell in the fields became ploughmen and shepherds. Those which fell into the water produced sailors and fishermen. Those that fell among the woods and forests gave birth to huntsmen. Among the rest there were several that fell upon mountains that had mines of gold and silver in them. This last race of men immediately betook themselves to the search of these precious metals; but Nature, being displeased to see herself ransacked, withdrew these her treasures towards the centre of the earth. The avarice of man however persisted in its former pursuits, and ransacked her inmost bowels in quest of the riches which they contained. Nature, seeing herself thus plundered by a swarm of iners, was so highly incensed, that she shook the whole place with an earthquake, and buried the men under their own works. The Stygian flames, which lay in the neighbourhood

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