"notice that our English author has after the fame "manner exemplified several of the precepts in the 66 very precepts themselves." He then produces fome inftances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with faying, that "there are three poems in "our tongue of the fame nature, and each a master"piece in its kind! The Effay on Tranflated Verse; "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 Den"ham: The author of it is obfcure, is ambiguous, is "affected, is temerarious, is barbarous."

But the author of the Dispensaryt,

Dr. GARTH,

in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: "Those who have seen these two excel"lent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windfor Forest, "the one written by Sir John Denham, the other by "Mr. Pope, will shew a great deal of candor if they approve of this."

Of the Epistle of ELOISA, we are told by the obscure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That because "Prior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest tastes,

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

❝ our

❝our author writ his Eloise in opposition to it; but for"got innocence and virtue: If you take away her "tender thoughts, and her fierce defires, all the rest "is of no value." In which, methinks, his judgment refembleth 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

himfelf, 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, cele. brated by numerous pens, yet shall it fuffice to mention the indefatigable

Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE, Kt.

Who (though otherwise a severe cenfurer of our author) yet styleth this a " laudable translation w." That ready writer

u Alma, Cant. 2.

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

Mr.

Mr. OLDMIXON,

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

Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD

thus extols it, “The spirit of Homer breathes all "through this translation.-I am in doubt, whether I "should most admire the juftness 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 raised and flung "with ease a weighty ftone, that two common men "could not lift from the ground; just so, one fingle "perfon has performed in this tranflation, what I once "defpaired to have feen done by the force of feveral "masterly hands." Indeed the fame gentleman appears to have changed his fentiment in his Effay on the Art of finking 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 "descend into Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, "how the devil he got there) and pretend to do him "into English, so his verfion denote his neglect of the "manner how." Strange Variation! We are told in

MIST'S JOURNAL, June 8.

"That this tranflation of the Illiad was not in all re"fpects conformable to the fine tafte of his friend Mr. "Addison; infomuch that he employed a younger Muse,

* Cenfor, vol. ii. n. 33.

"in an undertaking of this kind, which he supervised "himself." Whether Mr. Addison did find it conformable to his taste, or not, best appears from his own testimony the year following its publication, in these words: Mr. ADDISON, FREEHOLDER, No. 40.

"When I confider myself as a British freeholder, I "am in a particular manner pleased with the labours "of those who have improved our language with the "tranflations of old Greek and Latin authors.-We "have already most of their Historians in our own "tongue, and, what is more for the honour of our "language, it has been taught to exprefs with elegance "the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illi"terate among our own countrymen may learn to judge "from Dryden's Virgil of the most perfect Epic per"formance. And thofe parts of Homer which have "been published already by Mr. Pope, give us reason "to think that the Iliad will appear in English with "as little difadvantage to that immortal poem."

As to the reft, there is a flight mistake, for this younger Muse was an elder : nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by Mr. Addison to tranflate it after him, fince he faith himself that he did it before y. Contrariwife, that Mr. Addison engaged our author in this work appeareth by declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad, printed fome time before his death, and by his own letters of October 26, and

y Vid. pref. to Mr. Tickell's translation of the first book of the Iliad, 4to.

November

November 2, 1713, where he declares it is his opinion that no other perfon was equal to it.

Next comes his Shakespeare on the stage: "Let him (quoth one, whom I take to be

Mr. THEOBALD, Mift's Journal, June 8, 1728.) "publish fuch an author as he has least studied, and "forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. "In this project let him lend the bookfeller his name

(for a competent fum of money) to promote the cre"dit of an exorbitant fubfcription." Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the Propofal below quoted, and on what follows (fome months after the former affertion) in the fame Journalist of June 8, "The bookfeller propofed the book by fubfcription,

❝ and raised some thoufand of pounds for the fame: I "believe the gentleman did not share in the profits of "this extravagant fubfcription."

"After the Iliad, he undertook (faith

MIST'S JOURNAL, June 8, 1728.)

"the fequel of that work, the Odyffey; and having fecured the fuccefs by a numerous fubfcription, he "employed fome underlings to perform what, accord"ing to his proposals, fhould come from his own "hands." To which heavy charge we can in truth oppofe nothing but the words of

Mr. POPE'S PROPOSAL for the ODYSSEY, (printed by J. Watts, Jan. 10, 1724.)

"I take this occafion to declare that the fubfcription "for Shakespeare belongs wholly to Mr. Tonfon: And

"that