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wards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a morning visit to Dryden, whom he always refpected *, found him in an unusual agitation of spirits, even to a trembling. On enquiring the cause, "I have been up all night, replied the old bard; my mufical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their feast of St. Cæcilia: I have been so struck with the fubject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it; here it is, finished at one fitting." And immediately he fhewed him this ode, which places the British lyric poetry above that of any other nation. This anecdote, as true as it is curious, was imparted by lord Bolingbroke to POPE, by POPE to Mr. Gilbert Weft, by him to the ingenious friend who communicated it to me*. The rapidity, and yet the perspi

* See his verses to Dryden, prefixed to the tranflation of Virgil. Lord Bolingbroke affured POPE, that Dryden often declared to him, that he got more from the Spanish critics alone, than from the Italian, French, and all other critics put together. This appears ftrange. Lord Bolingbroke learned Spanish in less than three weeks.

+ Richard Berenger, Efq;

M 2

cuity

cuity of the thoughts, the glow and the expreffiveness of the images, thofe certain marks of the first sketch of a mafter, confpire to corroborate the truth of the fact.

THE TRANSLATION of the first book of Statius, is the next piece that belongs to this Section. It was in his childhood only, that he could make choice of fo injudicious a writer. It were to be wished that no youth of genius were fuffered ever to look into Statius*, Lucan, Claudian, or Seneca the tragedian; authors, who by their forced conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by their want of a juft decorum, have a ftrong tendency to dazzle, and to mislead inexperienced minds, and taftes unformed, from the true relish of poffibility, propriety, fimplicity and nature. Statius had undoubt

* Writers of this ftamp are always on the ftretch, They difdain the natural. They are perpetually grafping at the vast, the wonderful, and the terrible, “ Καν έκαςον αυτων προς αυγας ανασκοπης, εκ τε φοβερες κατ' ολίγον ύπονοςει προς το ευκαταφρόνητον. Κακοι δε ογκος, και επι σωμάτων και λόγων, οι χαυνοι και αναληθείς, και μήποτε περίσαντες ήμας εἰς τεναντιον' εδεν γαρ, φασι, ξηρότερον Size" Longinus, des μ. y. Sect. iii.

edly

edly invention, ability and spirit; but his images are gigantic and outrageous, and his fentiments tortured and hyperbolical. It can hardly, I think, be doubted, but that Juvenal intended a fevere fatire on him, in these well known lines which have been commonly interpreted as a panegyric.

Curritur ad vocem jucundam et carmen amice
Thebaidos, latam fecit cum Statius urbem,
Promifitque diem; tanta dulcedine captos
Afficit ille animos, tantaque libidine vulgi
Auditur: fed, cum fregit fubfellia verfu,
Efurit.-

In these verses are many expreffions, here marked with italics, which feem to hint obliquely, that Statius was the favourite poet of the vulgar, who were eafily captivated with a wild and inartificial tale, and with an empty magnificence of numbers; the noify roughness of which, may be particularly alluded to in the expreffion, fregit fubfellia verfu. One cannot forbear reflecting on the short duration of a true tafte in poetry, among the Romans. From

From the time of Lucretius, to that of Statius,

was no more than about one hundred and forty-feven years; and if I might venture to pronounce fo rigorous a sentence, I would say, that the Romans can boast of but eight poets who are unexceptionably excellent; namely, TERENCE, LUCRETIUS, CATULLUS, VIRGIL, HORACE, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, PHADRUS. These only can be called legitimate models of just thinking and writing. Succeeding authors, as it happens in all countries, refolving to be original and new, and to avoid the imputation of copying, became distorted and unnatural: by endeavouring to open a new path, they deferted fimplicity and truth; weary of common and obvious beauties, they muft needs hunt for remote and artificial decorations. Thus was it that the age of Demetrius Phalerëus fucceeded that of Demofthenes, and the falfe relifh of Tiberius's court, the chafte one of Auguftus. Among the various caufes however that have been affigned, why poetry and the arts have more eminently flourished in fome particular ages and nations,

than

than in others, few have been fatisfactory and adequate. What folid reason can we give why the Romans, who so happily imitated the Greeks in many respects, and breathed a truly tragic fpirit, could yet never excel in tragedy, though fo fond of theatrical spectacles? Or why the Greeks, fo fruitful in every species of poetry, yet never produced but one great epic poet? While on the other hand, modern Italy, can fhew two or three illuftrious epic writers, yet has no Sophocles, Euripides, or Menander. And France, without having formed a fingle Epopëa, has carried dramatic poetry to so high a pitch of perfection in Corneille, Racine, and Moliere.

FOR a confirmation of the foregoing remark on Statius, and for a proof of the strength and fpirit of POPE's tranflation, I fhall felect the following paffage.

He fends a monfter horrible and fell,
Begot by furies in the depth of hell.

The peft a virgin's face and bofom wears;
High on a crown a rifing snake appears,
Guards her black front, and hiffes in her hairs:

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