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LETTER XI.

To HORTENSIUS.

Auguft 12, 1742.

IF any thing could tempt me to read the

Latin poem you mention, it would be your recommendation. But fhall I venture to own, that I have no taste for modern compofitions of that kind? There is one objection which always remains with me against them, and which I have never yet found cause to renounce: no true genius, I am perfuaded, would fubmit to write any confiderable poem in a dead language. A poet, who glows with the genuine fire of a warm and lively imagination, will find the copiousness of his own native English scarce fufficient to convey his ideas in all their strength and energy. The most comprehenfive language finks under the weight of great conceptions; and a pregnant imagination difdains to stint the natural growth of her thoughts, to the confined standard of claffical expreffion. An ordinary genius, indeed, may be humbly contented to purfue words thro' indexes and dictionaries,

and

and tamely borrow phrases from Horace and Virgil; but could the elevated invention of Milton, or the brilliant sense of Pope, have ingloriously fubmitted to lower the force and majesty of the most exalted and nervous sentiments, to the fcanty meafure of the Roman dialect? For copiousness is by no means in the number of thofe advantages which attend the Latin language; as many of the antients have both confeffed and lamented. Thus Lucretius and Seneca complain of its deficiency with respect to fubjects of philofophy; as Pliny the younger owns he found it incapable of furnishing him with proper terms, in compofitions of wit and humor. But if the Romans themfelves found their language thus penurious, in its entire and most ample fupplies; how much more contracted muft it be to us, who are only in poffeffion of its broken and fcattered remains?

To fay truth, I have obferved in moft of the modern Latin poems which I have accidentally run over, a remarkable barrenness of sentiment, and have generally found the poet degraded into the parodift. It is ufually the little dealers on Parnaffus, who

who have not a fufficient ftock of genius to launch out into a more enlarged commerce with the Mufes, that hawk about thefe claffical gleanings. The ftyle of thefe performances always puts me in mind of Harlequin's fnuff, which he collected by borrowing a pinch out of every man's box he could meet, and then retailed it to his cuftomers under the pompous title of tabac de mille fleurs. Half a line from Virgil or Lucretius, pieced out with a bit from Horace or Juvenal, is generally the motley mixture which enters into compofitions of this fort. One may apply to thefe jack-daw poets with their stolen feathers, what Martial fays to a contemporary plagiarist:

Stat contra dicitque tibi tua pagina, Fur es:

THIS kind of theft, indeed, every man muft neceffarily commit, who fets up for a poet in a dead language. For to express himfelf with propriety, he must not only be sure that every fingle word which he uses, is authorised by the best writers; but he muft not even venture to throw them out of that particular combination in which he finds them connected: otherwife he fall into the most barbarous folecifms.

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explain

explain my meaning by an inftance from modern language; the French words arene and rive, are both to be met with in their approved authors; and yet if a foreigner, unacquainted with the niceties of that language, should take the liberty of bringing those two words together, as in the following verfe,

Sur la rive du fleuve amafant de l'arene; he would be exposed to the ridicule, not only of the critics, but of the most ordinary mechanic in Paris. For the idiom of the

French tongue will not admit of the expreffion fur la rive du fleuve, but requires the phrafe fur le bord de la riviere; as they never fay amaffer de l'arene, but du fable. The fame obfervation may be extended to all languages, whether living or dead. But as no reasonings from analogy can be of the least force in determining the idiomatic proprieties of any language whatfoever; a modern Latin poet has no other method of being fure to avoid abfurdities of this kind, than to take whole phrases as he finds them formed to his hands. Thus inftead of accommodating his expreffion to his fentiment (if any he fhould have) he must neceffarily bend his fentiment to his expref

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fion, as he is not at liberty to strike out into that boldness of style, and those unexpected combinations of words, which give fuch grace and energy to the thoughts of every true genius. True genius, indeed, is as much discovered by ftyle as by any other diftinction; and every eminent writer, without indulging any unwarranted licences, has a language which he derives from himself, and which is peculiarly and literally his own.

I WOULD recommend therefore to these empty echoes of the antients, which owe their voice to the ruins of Rome, the advice of an old philofopher to an affected orator of his times: Vive moribus præteritis, faid he, loquere verbis præfentibus. Let these poets form their conduct, if they please, by the manners of the antients; but if they would prove their genius, it must be by the language of the moderns. I would not however have you imagine, that I exclude all merit from a qualification of this kind. To be fkilled in the mechanifm of Latin verfe, is a talent, I confefs, extremely worthy of a pedagogue; as it is an exercise of fingular advantage to his pupils. I am, &c.

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