IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

BOOK I., EPISTLE VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.

"THE colloquial and burlesque style and measure of Swift here adopted did not suit the genius and manner of our author, who frequently falls back, as was natural, from the familiar into his own more laboured, high, and pompous manner. See particularly line 125, and also 189:

Tell how the moon beams, &c.

And this difference of style is more striking and perceivable, from the circumstance of their being immediately subjoined to the lighter and less ornamental verses of Swift.

"The four epistles which Mr. Pitt translated; namely, the 19th, 4th, 10th, and 18th of the first book, and which are inserted in the 43rd volume of the Works of English Poets, if they were carefully and candidly inspected, will be found really equal to any of Pope's Imitations, and are executed with a dignified familiarity and ease, in the very manner of Horace.

"After all that has been said of Horace by so many critics, ancient and modern, perhaps no words can describe him so exactly and justly as the following of Tully, spoken on another subject (Lib. 1, de Oratore) 'Accedit lepos quidam, facetiæque, et eruditio libero digna, celeritasque et brevitas respondendi et lacessendi, subtili venustate et urbanitate conjuncta.' WARTON.

"Dr. Warton observes, 'That the colloquial and burlesque style and measure of Swift, here adopted, did not suit the genius and manner of our Author, who frequently falls back, as was natural, from the familiar into his own more laboured, high, and pompous manner.'

"The observation is so far just, that Pope certainly does not display, in his Imitations of Horace, the ease and familiarity of Swift; but this does not detract from their merit any farther than as professed Imitations of Swift. Neither, are the least like Horace. Dr. Warton's description of Horace's character, as a writer of Epistles and Satires (for it does not at all apply to him in his lyric capacity), is, from Cicero de Oratore, lib. i., appropriate and accurate."BOWLES.

Swift's Imitation first appears in the Miscellanies of 1727. Pope's completion of this Imitation, and his Imitation of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book, were first published in the 8vo edition of his works, printed for Dodsley and Cooper in 1738.

Warton's remarks are just. The octosyllabic metre, which suited Swift's colloquial style, was too facile for Pope's pointed and polished composition. But the Imitations are for this very reason interesting, from the characteristic contrast they afford between the manners of the two poets.

IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

BOOK I., EPISTLE VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.

'Tis true, my Lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at Court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores :
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,

And W and H * *both in town!

"The dog-days are no more the case."

'Tis true, but winter comes apace :
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies together.

My Lord, your favours well I know;
"Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,

Just as a Scotchman does his plums.

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