I cannot forbear quoting, as it acquaints us with the writers who were popular in the time of Chaucer. The jocofe old woman fays, that her husband frequently read to her out of a volume that contained,

Valerius whole and of Saint Jerome part;
Chryfippus, and Tertullian, Ovid's art,

Solomon's proverbs, Eloifa's loves;

With many more than fure the church approves

POPE has omitted a ftroke of humour; for in the original, the naturally mistakes the rank and age of St. Jerome: the lines must be transcribed.

Yclepid Valerie and Theophraft,

At which boke he lough alwey full fast;
And eke there was a clerk fometime in Rome,
A cardinal, that hightin St. Jerome,
That made a boke agenft Jovinian,
In which boke there was eke Tertullian,
Chryfippus, Trotula, and Helowis,

That was an Abbess not ferr fro Paris.

Vol. II,

*

Ver, 359.

L

And

And eke the Parables of Solomon,

Ovid' is art, and bokis many a one *.

In the library which Charles V. founded in France about the year thirteen hundred and feventy fix, among many books of devotion, aftrology, chemistry and romance, there was not one copy of Tully to be found, and no Latin poet but Ovid, Lucan and Boethius; fome French translations of Livy, Valerius Maximus, and St. Auftin's City of God. He placed these in one of the towers of the old Louvre, which was called the tower of the library. This was the foundation of the prefent magnificent royal library at Paris.

The tale to which this is the Prologue, has been verfified by Dryden; and is fuppofed to have been of Chaucer's own contrivance : as is also the elegant VISION of the flower and the leaf, which has received new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is

• Ver. 671.

to

to his fables, though wrote in his old age *, that Dryden will owe his immortality, and among them, particularly, to Palamon and Arcite, Sigifmunda and Guifcardo, Theodore and Honoria; and to his mufic ode. The warmth and melody of these pieces, has never been excelled in our language, I mean in rhyme. As general and unexemplified criticism is always useless and absurd, I must beg leave to felect a few paffages from these three poems, and the reader muft not think any observations on the character of Dryden, the conftant pattern of POPE, unconnected with the main fubject of this work. The picture of Arcite in the absence of Emilia, is highly expreffive of the deepest distress, and a compleat image of anguish.

He rav'd with all the madness of despair,

He roar'd, he beat his breaft, he tore his hair.

The falling off of his hair, faid a man of wit, had no other confequence, than to make his laurels to be seen the more. A person who tranflated fome pieces after Dryden used to say,

Experto credite, quantus

In clypeum affurgat, quo turbine torqueat haftam.

Crebillon was ninety when he brought his Catiline on the stage.

Dry forrow in his stupid eyes appears,

For wanting nourishment, he wanted tears :
His eye-balls in their hollow fockets fink,
Bereft of fleep he loaths his meat and drink;
He withers at his heart, and looks as wan,
As the pale spectre of a murder'd man *.

THE image of the Suicide is equally pictu refque and pathetic.

The flayer of himself yet faw I there

The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair:
With eyes half-clos'd and gaping mouth he lay,
And grim, as when he breath'd his fullen foul away.

This reminds me of that forcible description in a writer whofe fancy was eminently strong. "Catilina vero, longe a fuis, inter hoftium ca<davera repertus eft, paululum etiam fpirans; ferociamque animi, quam habuerat vivus, in « vultu retinens." Nor must I omit that affecting image in Spenfer, who ever excels in the pathetic,

And him befides there lay upon the grass
A dreary corfe, whofe life away did pass,

*Palamon and Arcite, Book Į.

All

All wallow'd in his own, yet lukewarm, blood,
That from his wound yet welled fresh, alas;
In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood,

And made an open paffage for the gushing flood *.

When Palamon

perceived his rival had

escaped,

He ftares, he ftamps the ground;

The hollow tow'r with clamour rings around:
With briny tears he bath'd his fetter'd feet,

And dropp'd all o'er with agony of sweat.

Nor are the feelings of Palamon less strongly
impreffed on the reader, where he says,

The rage of Jealousy then fir'd his foul,
And his face kindled like a burning coal :
Now cold despair fucceeding in her stead,
To livid palenefs turn'd the glowing red f.

If we pass on from defcriptions of perfons to thofe of things, we fhall find this poem

* Fairy Queen, Book I. Canto 9. Stanza 36. These paffages are chiefly of the pathetic fort; for which Dryden in his tragedies is far from being remarkable. But it is not unusual for the fame perfon to fucceed in defcribing externally a distressful character, who may miferably fail in putting proper words in the mouth of fuch a character. In a word, fo much more difficult is DRAMATIC than DESCRIPTIVE poetry!

equally