a writer so pure, sensible, and classical, as Boileau. Once (says an author, where I need not say) Un * I cannot forbear mentioning a work, not so well known as it deserves to be, the Latin Fables of J. Desbillons, a Jesuit, printed first at Paris, and afterwards at Manheim, 8vo. 1768, in a most chaste and unaffected style. To speak in his own words; Me Fabularum suavis indoles capit, Capit venusta munditie latinitas Simplex, & arti prænitens facilis color Laboriosæ "The fables in your Esop, (said Pope to Vanbrugh,) have the very spirit of La Fontaine." " It may be so, (replied Vanbrugh;) but I protest to you I never have read La Fontaine's Fables." Patru, who was consulted as a capital critic, by all the wits of France, dissuaded La Fontaine from attempting to write Fables: fortunately he disregarded his advice, Un jour, dit un Auteur, n'importe en quel chapitre, Devant elle à grand bruits ils expliquent la chose. Demande l'huître, l'ouvre, & l'avale à leur yeux, Des sottises d'autrui, nous vivons au Palais; We will pass over the next ten little pieces, stopping only to commend the verses on the Grotto, and the lines addressed to Southerne, when he was eighty years old. In the former is a passage of a striking and awakening solemnity: Approach! great Nature, studiously behold In * Who was one of the most able and eloquent of that respectable body of patriots that leagued together against Sir Robert In the latter, the venerable father of Isabella and Imoinda is said to have raised, by his eminence, The price of prologues and of plays. For Southerne was the first author that had two benefit-nights, the third and sixth, at the exhibition Robert Walpole. Indeed, almost all the men of wit and genius in the kingdom opposed this minister, who in vain paid the enormous sum of above fifty thousand pounds to paltry and dull scribblers in his defence. Soon after Mr. Glover had published his Leonidas, a poem that was eagerly read, and universally admired, he passed some days with Mr. Pope at Twickenham, where they were one evening honoured with the company of the Prince of Wales, attended by Mr. Lyttelton: the latter privately desired Mr. Pope and Mr. Glover, (who himself kindly related to me this fact) that they would join with him in dissuading the Prince from riding a vicious horse he was fond of: and, among other things urged on the subject, Pope said with earnestness to the Prince, "I hope, Sir, the people of England will not be made miserable by a second horse:" alluding to the accident that befel King William. "I think (added Pope, turning, and whispering to Mr. Glover) this speech was pretty well for me!" In a letter, dated May, 1737, Swift asks Pope, "Who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the poem called Leonidas, which is reprinting here, and hath great vogue?" Pope's answer does not appear it would have been curious to have known his opinion concerning a poem that is written in a taste and manner so different from his own, in a style formed in the Grecian school, and with the simplicity of an ancient. hibition of his comedy, entitled, Sir Anthony Love, 1691. By the custom, which had something illiberal in it, and was first dropt by Addison, of distributing tickets, Southerne gained 7001. for one play. In the year 1722, he received of a bookseller, 1201. for copy-money; when, the year before, Dr. Young could get no more than fifty pounds for his Revenge. But to drive a bargain, was not the talent of this generous and disinterested man. The fifteen Epitaphs, which conclude our author's poetical works, do not seem to merit a particular discussion. The three best * are that on Mrs. Corbett, Fenton, and the Duke of Buckingham. They are all, in general, over-run with point and antithesis, and are a kind of panegyrical epigrams. They are, consequently, very different from the simple sepulchral inscriptions of the * As that on Kneller is the worst, in imitation of two wretched lines on Raphaël, which had a much better turn given to them by Mr. W. Harrison, of New College, a favourite of Swift: Here Raphaël lies, by whose untimely end, the ancients, of which that of Meleager on his wife, in the Greek Anthology, is a model and master-piece; and in which taste a living author, that must be nameless, has written the following hendecasyllables: O dulcis puer, O venuste Marce, O multi puer et meri leporis, Festivi puer ingenî, valeto! Ergo cum, virideis vigens per annos, As it was the professed intention of these papers to consider POPE as a poet, the observations on his * Prose Works will not be long. The rich vein of humour that runs through the Memoirs of Scriblerus, is heightened by the. variety The style of which is certainly not so melodious and voluble as that of Dryden's enchanting prose. Voltaire, it must be owned, writes prose with remarkable elegance, precision and force. |