can be of that opinion; and fo I conclude, that we know nothing of the matter. But, Sir, I ask your pardon for all this buffoonery, which I could not address to any one so well as to you, fince I have found by experience, you most eafily forgive my impertinencies. 'Tis only to fhow you that I am mindful of you at all times, that I write at all times; and as nothing I can fay can be worth your reading, so I may as well throw out what comes uppermoft, as ftudy to be dull. I am, &c. A LETTER XV. From Mr. CROMWELL. July 15, 1710. T last I have prevail'd over a lazy humour to transcribe this elegy: I have changed the fituation of fome of the Latin verses, and made fome interpolations, but I hope they are not abfurd, and foreign to my author's sense. and manner; but they are refer'd to your cenfure, as a debt; whom I efteem no lefs a critic than a poet: I expect to be treated with the fame rigour as I have practis'd to Mr. Dryden and you. Hanc veniam petimufque damufque viciffim. I defire the favour of your opinion, why Priam, in his speech to Pyrrhus in the second Eneid, fays this to him, At non ille, fatum quo te mentiris, Achilles. He would intimate (I fancy by Pyrrhus's answer) only his degeneracy: but then these following lines of the verfion (I suppose from Homer's history) seem abfurd in the mouth of Priam, viz. He chear'd my forrows, and for fums of gold I am Your, &c. LETTER XVI. you July 20, 1710. thanks for the verfion you fent me I Give of Ovid's elegy. It is very much an image of that author's writing, who has an agreeablenefs that charms us without correctnefs, like a mistress, whose faults we fee, but love her with them all. You have very judiciously alter'd his method in fome places, and I can find nothing which I dare infift upon as an error: what I have written in the margins being merely gueffes gueffes at a little improvement, rather than criticisms. I affure you I do not expect you should subscribe to my private notions but when you shall judge them agreeable to reason and good fenfe. What I have done is not as a critic, but as a friend; I know too well how many qualities are requifite to make the one, and that I want almost all I can reckon up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, nor, I hope, capacity to be the other. Nor shall I take it at all amifs, that another diffents from my opinion: "Tis no more than I have often done from my own; and indeed, the more a man advances in understanding, he becomes the more every day a critic upon himself, and finds fomething or other still to blame in his former notions and opinions. I could be glad to know if you have translated the 11th elegy of lib. ii. Ad amicam navigantem. The 8th of book iii, or the 11th of book iii, which are above all others my particular favourites, especially the laft of these. As to the paffage of which you ask my opinion in the second Eneid, it is either fo plain as to require no folution; or else (which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam would say, that "Achilles (whom furely you only feign to be your father, fince your actions are fo different from his) did 1 3 not "not use me thus inhumanly. He blush'd at "his murder of Hector, when he saw my for"rows for him; and restored his dead body to <c me to be buried." To this the answer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough, "Ga "then to the fhades, and tell Achilles how I degenerate from him :" granting the truth of what Priam had faid of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judiciously paffes in filence, the circumstance of Achilles's felling for money the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in fome measure leffening the character of Achilles's generofity and piety, which is the very point of which Priam endeavours in this place to convince his fon, and to reproach him with the want of. But the truth of this circumstance is no way to be queftion'd, being exprefly taken from Homer, who represents Achilles weeping for Priam, yet receiving the gold, Iliad xxiv. For when he gives the body, he uses these words, "O my friend Patro"clus! forgive me that I quit the corpse of "him who kill'd thee; I have great gifts in "ranfom for it, which I will beftow upon thy. funeral.' I am, &c. LETTER LETTER XVII. From Mr. CROMWELL. a Aug. 5, 1710. OOKING among fome French rhymes, I was agreeably furpriz'd to find in the Rondeau of Pour le moins----your Apoticaire and Lavement, which I took for your own; so much is your Muse of intelligence with the wits of all languages. You have refin'd upon Voiture, whofe Où vous favez is much inferior to your know where---You do not only pay your club with your author (as our friend fays) but the whole reckoning; who can form fuch pretty lines from fo trivial a hint. You For my Elegy; 'tis confefs'd, that the topography of Sulmo in the Latin makes but an awkward figure in the verfion. Your couplet of the dog-star is very fine, but may be too fublime in this place. I laugh'd heartily at your note upon Paradife; for to make Ovid talk of the garden of Eden, is certainly most absurd; but Xenophon in his Oeconomics, speaking of a garden finely planted and watered (as is here defcribed) calls it Paradifos: 'Tis an interpolation indeed, and ferves for a gradation to the a In Voiture's Poems, P. • Ovid's Amorum, 1. ii. el. xvi. Pars me Sulmo, &c. P. |