knowlege, that I owe the fenfe, and the beft lines in the Art of Poetry...

POPE, Effay 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 pafs 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 fame nature, and each of them a master-piece in its kind; the Effay on tranflated Verfe, the Efay on Poetry, and the Effay upon Criticism.

Lord LANSDOWNE, Effay upon unnatural
Flights in Poetry.

First MULGRAVE rofe, ROSCOMMON next, like light,
To clear our darkness, and to guide our flight;
With fteady judgment, and in lofty founds,
They gave us patterns, and they set us bounds;
The STAGIRITE and HORACE laid afide,
Inform'd by them we need no foreign guide :

Who

Who feek from poetry a lafting name,
May in their leffons learn the road to fame.

Mrs. KATHARINE PHILIPS, Letter from
Dublin.

MY lord RosCOMMON is a very ingenious perfon, of excellent natural parts, and certainly the most hopeful young nobleman in Ireland.

TRAPP, Preface to his Virgil.

-BUT we should certainly have feen VIRGIL far better tranflated by a noble hand, had the earl of LAUDERDALE been the earl of Ros COMMON, or had the Scotifh 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'eft point furprenant, que la poëfie foit portée fi loin chés cette nation. Les prémiers feigneurs ne dédaignent point de la cultiver. My lord RosCOMMON, le duc de BUCKINGHAM, my lord DOR. SET, et plufieurs autres perfonnes nées dans le rang le plus élevé, ont fait des ouvrages, qui egalent les ̈ beaux morceaux des grands poëtes. It is not at all furprizing, that poetry hath been carried fuch a length, in this nation. Men of the firft quality have not difdained to become followers of the mufes. My lord ROSCOMMON, the duke of BUCKINGHAM, the earl of DORSET, and many other perfons of an elevated rank, have written pieces, which give them, with juftice, the title of great poets.

ΑΝ

A N

ESSAY

O N

TRANSLATED VERSE.

Fungar vice cotis, acutum

Reddere quae ferrum valet, exfors ipfa fecandi.

HOR. de Art. Poet.

Cape dona extrema tuorum.

VIRG.iii. Aeneid.

A

1

To the Earl of ROSCOMMON, on his excellent Effay on translated verse.

W

HETHER the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,

The feeds of arts and infant fcience bore,

'Tis fure the noble plant, translated first, Advanc'd its head in Grecian gardens nurst.

The Grecians added verfe, their tuneful tongue

Made nature first, and nature's God their fong.
Nor stopt tranflation here: for conqu❜ring Rome
With Grecian fpoils, brought Grecian numbers home;
Enrich'd by thofe Athenian mufes more,

Than all the vanquifh'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 prose,
That limp'd along, and tinkled in the close :
But Italy, reviving from the trance

Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkish ignorance,

With paufes, cadence, and well-vowell'd words,
And all the graces a good ear affords,