28. O friend! may each domeftic blifs be thine! With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, THESE exquifite lines give us a very interesting picture of the exemplary filial piety of our author. There is a penfive and pathetic sweetness in the very flow of them. The that has been wearied and oppreft by the harsh and auftere colouring of fome of the preceding paffages, turns away with pleasure from these afperities, and repofes with complacency on the foft tints of do eye * See a letter to Mr. Richardfon, defiring him to come to Twickenham, and take a sketch of his mother, juft after The was dead, June 20, 1733. "It would afford, fays he, the fineft image of a faint expired, that ever painting drew." Vol. viii. p. 233. + V. 406. For which also another truly great poet was remarkable. See Memoirs of Mr. Gray's Life, paffim. το mestic tenderness. We are naturally gratified to fee great men defcending from their heights, into the familiar offices of common life; and the fenfation is the more pleafing to us, because admiration is turned into affection. In the very entertaining memoirs of the life of Racine (published by his fon) we find no✶ paffage more amufing and interesting, than where that great poet fends an excufe to Mon. the Duke, who had carnestly invited him to dine at the Hotel de Conde, because he had promised to partake of a great fish that his children had got for him, and he could not think of disappointing them. MELANCTHON appeared in an amiable light, when he was feen, one day, holding a book in one hand, and attentively reading, Memoires fur la Vie de Jean Racine, p. 182, printed 1747 by the author of the didactic poems on Religion and Grace, of Reflections on Poetry, of Two Epifiles on Man, and fome excellent Sacred Odes, particularly one from Ifaiah, c. xiv. and and with the other rocking the cradle of his infant child. And we read with more fatis faction, - παιδος ορέξατο φαιδιμος Εκτωρο Αψ δ' ὁ παῖς προς κολπον ευζώνοιο τιθηνης than we do, Τρις μεν ορεξαν των· το δε τέτρατον εκετο τικμως Αιγας 4. • Iliad vi. v. 467. + Iliad xiii. v. zo. SECT. SEC T. XII. Of the Satires and Epiftles of Horace imitated, of the Satires of Donne verfified, and of the Epilogue to the Satires. W HEN I had a fever one winter in town (faid POPE to Mr. SPENCE) that confined me to my room "for five or fix days, Lord BOLINGBROKE came to see me, happened to take up a "Horace that lay on the table, and in turning it over, dipt on the firft fatire of the "fecond book. He obferved, how well that "would fuit my cafe, if I were to imitate "it in English. After he was gone, I read "it over, tranflated it in a morning or two, " and fent it to press in a week or fortnight "after. And this was the occafion of my imitating fome other of the Satires and "Epiftles. To how casual a beginning (adds "SPENCE) are we obliged, for the most delightful things in our language! When "I was faying to him, that he had already "imitated near a third part of Horace's fa" tires and epiftles, and how much it was to "be wished that he would go on with them; "he could not believe that he had gone near "fo far; but upon computing it, it appeared "to be above a third. He feemed on this not "difinclined to carry it farther; but his last "illness was then growing upon him, and "robbed us of him, and of all hopes of that kind, in a few months **. No part of our author's works have been more admired than thefe imitations. The aptness of the allufions, and the happiness of many of the parallels, give a pleasure that is always no small one to the mind of a reader, the pleasure of comparison. He that has the • Tranfcribed from Spence's Anecdotes, 1754 VOL. II. X x leaft |