in point of science and taste, may be compared to any of Pope's : Thence rose the Roman, and the Lombard line: Of various parts a perfect whole is wrought: One cannot forbear reflecting on the great progress the art of painting has made in this country since the time that Jervas was thought worthy of this panegyric; a progress, that, we trust, will daily increase, if due attention be paid to the incomparable we are told, made man in his own image; if this figure of yours had existed, man would have been made by it." "Par D. je le crois aussi, Mons. Pope," replied Kneller. This artist little deserved to be consulted by Pope concerning the arrangement of the subjects represented on the shield of Achilles. See Iliad. B. 18. Pope's notes. * See Mr. Hayley's fine Epistle to Mr. Romney. incomparable discourses that have been delivered at the Royal Academy; which discourses contain more solid instruction on that subject than, I verily think, can be found in any language. The precepts are philosophically founded on truth and nature, and illustrated with the most proper and pertinent examples. The characters are drawn with a precision and distinctness, that we look for in vain in Felibien, De Piles, and even Vasari or Pliny himself. Nothing, for example, can be more just and elegant, as well as profound and scientific, than the comparison betwixt Michael Angelo and Raffaele, page 169 of these Discourses. Michael Angelo is plainly the hero of Sir Joshua Reynolds, for the same reasons that Homer, by every great mind, is preferred to Virgil. The Epistle to Miss Blount, accompanied with the works of Voiture, is full of gaiety and galC c 3 lantry. Some curious particulars in the life of Voiture are mentioned in vol. ii. p. 409, of the entertaining Miscellanies of Vigneul MARVILLE. An elegant epitaph, to which Pope alludes, was made on him, copied from Martial, and worth perusal: Etrusca lantry. Our author's attachment to this lady ended but with his life. Her affectation and illtemper gave him, however, many hours of uneasiness and disquiet. When she visited him in his very last illness, and her company seemed to give him fresh spirits, the antiquated prude could not be prevailed on to stay and pass the night at Twickenham, because of her reputation. She occasioned an unhappy breach betwixt him and his old friend Allen. The works of Voiture, on which much of this epistle turns, after having been idolized in France, are now justly sunk into neglect and oblivion. The characteristical difference Etruscæ Veneres, Camana Iberæ ; Risus, Delicia, & Dicacitates, Quo Vecturius hoc jacent sepulcro. Corneille was invited to read his Polyeucte at the hotel de Rambouillet; where the principal wits of the time usually assembled, and where Voiture presided. It was very coldly receiv ed; and in a few days, Voiture came to Corneille, and in gentle terms told him, it was the opinion of his friends, that the piece would not succeed. Such ill judges were then the most fashionable wits of France. I difference betwixt Voiture and Balsac* is well expressed by Boileau, in two letters written under their names, from the Elysian Fields, to the Duc de Vivonne, in p. 155 of vol. iii. of his works. And Boileau, speaking often of absurd readers and critics, loved to relate, that one of his relations, to whom he had presented his works, said to him, "Pray, Cousin, how came you to insert any other person's writings among your own? I find in your works two letters, one from Balsac, and the other from Voiture." In the other epistle to the same person, the calamitous state of an unfortunate lady, banished from town to Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks, and the coarse compliments of a rural squire, Who with his hound comes hollowing from the stable, are painted with humour. C c 4 The * Descartes, who, as well as Leibnitz, was an elegant scholar, wrote a judicious censure of Balsac, in admirable Latin. Balsac was, however, much superior to Voiture. But he was affectedly turgid, pompous, and bloated on all subjects and on all occasions alike. Yet was he the first that gave form and harmony to the French prose; which was still more improved by the Provincial Letters of Pascal. The Town Eclogue was written in concert with Lady Wortley Montague, who published four more of this sort. Gay wrote a Quaker's Eclogue, and Swift a Footman's Eclogue; and said to Pope, "I think the pastoral ridicule is not exhausted: what think you of a Newgate pastoral, among the whores and thieves there?" When Lady M. W. Montague would sometimes shew a copy of her verses to Pope, and he would make some little alterations, "No," said she, "Pope; no touching; for then, whatever is good for any thing will pass for yours, and the rest for mine." Next follows a close translation of a fable from Boileau; which fable Boileau removed from the end of his Epistle to the King, by the advice of the great Prince of Condè, as unsuited to the subject, and finished with it an Epistle to L'Abbé des Roches, tom. i. p. 285. It will be no unuseful, or, perhaps, unpleasing, amusement to compare these two pieces.* And I will not think of making any apology for so frequently quoting a writer In the fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth and twelfth verses, Pope is inferior to the original. |