VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU. UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, etc. ONCE (fays an Author, where I need not say) you: Twas a fat Oyster-Live in peace-Adieu. IT will be no unuseful or unpleafing amufement to compare this tranflation with the original : "Un jour, dit un Auteur, n'importe en quel chapitre, Deux voyageurs à jeun rencontrerent une huître, Tous deux la conteftoient, lorfque dans leur chemin, La juftice paffa, la balance à la main. Devant elle à grand bruit ils expliquent la chose. Demande l'huître, l'ouvre, & l'avale à leur yeux, Tenez voilà, dit elle, à chacun une écaille. Des fottifes d'autrui, nous vivons au palais; Meffieurs, l'huître étoit bonne. Adieu, Vivez en paix.' In the fifth, fixth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth verses, Pope is inferior to the original. WARTON. ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOW. HAT IS PRUDERY? WHAT 'Tis a Beldam, Seen with Wit and Beauty seldom. 5 10 VER. II. That rails at dear Lepell] Mifs Lepell was one of the maids of honour to Queen Caroline, and she afterwards was married to Lord Hervey. She and Mifs Mary Bellenden, mentioned in Gay's ballad, and in Pope's letters, were the ornaments of the court, for beauty, engaging manners, and amiable character. I have a MS. letter from her, written at Paris to Lord Melcomb, which fufficiently evinces her fuperior understanding, and might be claffed with the letters of Lady M. W. Montagu. In Gay's ballad she is defignated as, "Youth's youngest daughter, fweet Lepell." He also celebrates her with Mifs Bellenden, in his ballad, intitled, Damon and Cupid : "So well I'm known at Court, None afks where beauty dwells, But readily refort, To Bellenden's or Lepell's." Of Of Mifs Meadows, mentioned in this little jeu d'efprit, I find the following notice in a MS. poem of Lord Melcomb, the celebrated Bubb Dodington: As chafte as "Hervey or Mifs Meadows!" AMONG thefe fmaller poems of our Author, the following couplet was expofed, on a dog's collar, which he gave to the Prince of Wales: "I am his Highnefs's dog at Kew; Pray tell me, Sir, whofe dog are you?" which was taken from Sir William Temple's Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 323. faid to be the answer of Mr. Grantham's Fool to one who asked him whose fool he was. WARTON. OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. USE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends, MUSE, And thou fhalt live, for Buckingham commends. Let Crouds of Critics now my Verse affail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail: This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, NOTES. VER. 2. Buckingham commends,] It would be difficult to add any thing to the finished portrait of this nobleman, given by Mr. Walpole in his Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 118. WARTON. VER. 5 and 6. This more] A very groundlefs complaint! Few authors, during their lives, were more respected and revered than himself by perfons of rank and judges of merit. WARTON. A PROLOGUE BY MR. POPE, To a Play for Mr. DENNIS's Benefit in 1733, when he was old, blind, and in great Diftrefs, a little before his Death. s when that Hero, who in each Campaign, Had brav'd the Goth, and many a Vandal slain, Lay fortune-ftruck, a fpectacle of Woe! Wept by each Friend, forgiv'n by ev'ry Foe; NOTES. 5 Such, VER. 6. But pitied Belifarius, &c.] Nothing could be more happily imagined than this allufion, nor more finely conducted. The continued pleasantry is fo delicately touched, that it took nothing from the self-fatisfaction which the critic who heard it, had in his own merit, or the audience in their charity. In a word, this benevolent irony is profecuted with fo masterly a hand, that the Poet fuppofed, had Dennis himself the wit to fee it, he would have had the ingenuity to approve of it. "This dreaded Sat'rift, Dennis will confefs, Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress." WARBURTON. VER. 7. Was there a Chief, &c.] The fine figure of the Commander in that capital picture of Belifarius at Chifwick, fupplied the Poet with this beautiful idea. WARBURTON. |