wifheft to speak of games, look not in the defert Sky for a planet hotter than the fun, nor shall we tell of nobler games than thofe of Olympia. He is sometimes too paraphrastical. Pindar beftows upon Hiero an epithet, which, in one word, fignifies delighting in horfes; a word which, in the translation, generates these lines: Hiero's royal brows, whofe care Tends the courfer's noble breed, Pleas'd to train the youthful steed. Pindar fays of Pelops, that he came alone in the dark to the White Sea; and West, Near the billow-beaten fide Of the foam-befilver'd main, which however is lefs exuberant than the former paffage. A work of this kind muft, in a minute ex-' amination, discover many imperfections; but Weft's verfion, fo far as I have confidered it, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities. His Inftitution of the Garter (1742) is written with sufficient knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a procefs of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preferve the reader from wearinefs. His Imitations of Spenfer are very fuccessfully performed, both with refpect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged at once by the excellence of the fentiments, and the artifice of the copy, the mind has two amufements at once. But fuch compofitions are not to be reckoned among the great atchievements of intellects, because their effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reafon or paffion, but to memory, and pre-suppose an accidental and artificial ftate of mind. An Imitation of Spenfer is nothing to a reader, however acute, by whom Spenfer has never been perufed. Works of this kind may deferve praife, as proofs of great industry, and great nicety of obfervation; but the highest praife, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. The nobleft beauties beauties of art are those of which the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of a day. THERE is in the Adventurer a paper of verses given to one of the authors as Mr. Weft's, and fuppofed to have been written by him. It should not be concealed, however, that it is printed with Mr. Jago's name in Dodfley's Collection, and is mentioned as his in a Letter of Shenftone's. Perhaps Weft gave it without naming the author; and Hawkesworth, receiving it from him, thought it his; for his he thought it, as he told me, and as he tells the publick. COLLINS. |