knowlege, that I owe the sense, and the best lines in the Art of Poetry. ..

Pope, Essay on Criticism. Such was ROSCOMMON, not more learn'd than good, With manners generous as his noble blood; To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And ev'ry author's merit, but his own.

ADDISON, An Account of the greatest

English Poets. Nor muft RosCOMMON pass neglected by, That makes even rules a noble poetry ; Rules whose deep sense and heav'nly numbers show The best of critics, and of poets too.

ADDISON, Spectator, Vol. 4. N° 253.

I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice, that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the same nature, and each of them a master-piece in its kind; the Esay on translated Verse, the Elay-on. Poetry, and the Elay upon Criticism.

Lord LANSDOWNE, Essay upon unnatural

Flights in Poetry. First MULGRAVE rose, R OSCOMMON next, like light, To clear our darkness, and to guide our flight; With steady judgment, and in lofty sounds, They gave us patterns, and they set us bounds; The STAGIRITE and Horace laid aside, Inform’d by them we need no foreign guide :

Who

Who seek from poetry a lasting name,
May in their lessons learn the road to fame.

Mrs. KATHARINE PHILIPS, Letter from

Dublin..

MY lord ROSCOMMON is a very ingenious person, of excellent natural parts, and certainly the most hope ful young nobleman in Ireland.

TRAPP, Preface to his Virgil. -BUT we should certainly have seen VIRGIL far better translated by a noble hand, had the earl of LAUDERDALE been the earl of ROSCOMMON, or had the Scotith peer followed all the precepts, and been animated with the genius of the Irish

Marquis D'ARGENS, Letters Juives, tom.

iv. letter cxl.

IL n'est point surprenant, que la poësie soit portée li loin chés cette nation. Les prémiers seigneurs ne dédaignent point de la cultiver.' My lord RosCOMMON, le duc de BUCKINGHAM, my lord Dor. SET, et plusieurs autres personnes nées dans le rang le plus élevé, ont fait des ouvrages, qui egalent les beaux morceaux des grands poëtes. It is not at all surprizing, that poetry hath been carried such a length, in this nation. Men of the first quality have not difdained to become followers of the muses. My lord ROSCOMMON, the duke of BUCKINGHAM, the earl of DORSET, and many other perfons of an elevated rank, bave written pieces, which give them, with justice, the title of great poets.

AN

Α Ν

E S S A Y

Ο Ν

TRANSLATED VERS E.

Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quae ferrum valet; exfors ipfa fecandi.

Hor. de Art. Poet.

To the Earl of RosCOMMON, on his ex

cellent Essay on translated verse.

W

HETHER the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,

The seeds of arts and infant science bore, 'Tis sure the noble plant, translated first,

Advanc'd its head in Grecian gardens nurst.
The Grecians added verse, their tuneful tongue
Made nature first, and nature's God their song.
Nor stopt translation here: for conqu’ring Rome
With Grecian spoils, brought Grecian numbers home;
Enrich'd by those Athenian muses more,
Than all the vanquish'd world could yield before.

'Till barb'rous nations, and more barb'rous times,

Debas’d the majesty of verse to rhimes ;
Those rude at first; a kind of hobbling profe,
That limp'd along, and tinkled in the close :
But Italy, reviving from the trance
Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkih ignorance,
With pauses, cadence, and well-vowell'd words,
And all the graces a good ear affords,
A 2

Made