moft per I hope it will be no offence to give my hearty service to Mr. Wycherley, tho' I ceive by his laft to me, I am not to trouble him with my letters, fince he there told me he was going inftantly out of town, and till his return was my fervant, &c. I guess by yours he is yet with you, and beg you to do what you may with all truth and honour, that is, affure him I have ever borne all the respect and kindness imaginable to him. I do not know to this hour what it is that has eftranged him from me; but this I know, that he may for the future be more fafely my friend, fince no invitation of his fhall ever more make me so free with him. I could not have thought any man so very cautious and fufpicious, as not to credit his own experience of a friend. Indeed to believe no body, may be a maxim of safety, but not fo much of honefty. There is but one way I know of converfing fafely, with all men, that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by faying or doing nothing that deferves to be conceal'd, and I can truly boast this comfort in my affairs with Mr. Wycherley. But I pardon his Jealoufy, which is become his nature, and shall never be his enemy whatsoever he says of me. Your, &c. VOL. VII. K LET I LETTER XXI. From Mr. CROMWELL. Nov. 5, 1710. Find I am obliged to the fight of your love verfes, for your opinion of my fincerity; which had never been call'd in queftion, if you had not forced me, upon fo many other occafions, to exprefs my esteem. I have just read and compared a Mr. Rowe's verfion of the ixth of Lucan, with very great pleasure, where I find none of thofe abfurdities fo frequent in that of Virgil, except in two places, for the fake of lafhing the priests; one where Cato fays-Sortilegis egeant dubii—and one in the fimile of the Hæmorrhois-fatidici Sabai-He is fo arrant a whig, that he ftrains even beyond his author, in paffion for liberty, and averfion to tyranny; and errs only in amplification. Lucan ix in initio, defcribing the feat of the Semidei manes, fays, Quodque patet terras inter lunæque meatus, Mr. Rowe has this Line, Then looking down on the Sun's feeble Ray. 2 Pieces printed in the 6th vol. of Tonfon's Miscellanies, P. Pray Pray your opinion, if there be an Error-Sphæ ricus in this or no? Your, &c. LETTER XXII. Nov. 11, 1710. YOU OU mistake me very much in thinking the freedom you kindly us'd with my love-verses, gave me the firft opinion of your fincerity: I affure you it only did what every good-natur'd action of yours has done fince, confirm'd me more in that opinion. The fable of the nightingale in Philips's Paftorals is taken from Famianus Strada's Latin poem on the fame fubject, in his Prolufiones Academica; only the tomb he erects at the end, is added from Virgil's conclufion of the Culex. I can't forbear giving a paffage out of the Latin I menpoem tion, by which will find the English poet is indebted to it. you Alternat mira arte fides: dum torquet acutas, Præbet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voci, This poem was many years fince imitated by Crashaw, out of whose verses the following are very remarkable. From this to that, from that to this be flies, I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Rowe's ixth book of Lucan: Indeed he amplifies too much, as well as Brebœuf, the famous French imitator. If I remember right, he fometimes takes the whole comment into the text of the version, as particularly in lin. 808. Utque folet pariter totis fe effundere fignis Corycii preffura croci.—And in the place you quote, he makes of those two lines. in the Latin, Vidit quanta fub nocte jaceret Noftra dies, rifitque fui ludibria trunci, no less than eight in English. What you obferve, fure, cannot be an ErrorSphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; Tycho Brahe himself will be on the tranflator's fide. For For Mr. Rowe here fays no more, than that he looked down on the rays of the fun, which Pompey might do, even tho' the body of the fun were above him. You can't but have remarked what a journey Lucan here makes Cato take for the fake of his fine defcriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reafon than this; Hac eadem fuadebat hiems, quæ clauferat æquor, The winter's effects on the fea, it seems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, &c. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his speech to the foldiers: Then he fetches a compafs a vaft way round about, to the Nafamones and Jupiter Ammon's temple, purely to ridicule the oracles: and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he fays-fors obtulit, & fortuna via either Labienus, or the map, is very much miftaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken first in his way to Utica) and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who seems to have made Cato fpeak his own mind, when he tells his army-Ire fat efl-no matter whither. I am |