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Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable, Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the ENEIS, and compare my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own, that this excellent young man has shewed me many faults, which I have endeavoured to correct. It is true, he might have easily found more, and then my translation had been more perfect.

Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names concealed,' seeing me straitened in my time, took pity on me, and gave me

5 Dr. Chetwood, and Addison. The latter, as appears from Mr. Tickell's preface to his collection of his friend's works, wrote the Essay on the GEORGICKS; and he also furnished the arguments of the several books. Mr. Tickell having said that he often wondered Dryden did not acknowledge his obligations to Addison for that Essay, Steele very properly observed (Dedication of the DRUMMER, 1722,) that this was a most unjust reflection on our author," who, though tied down not to name Mr. Addison, pointed at him, so as all mankind conversant in these matters knew him, with an elogium equal to the highest merit, considering who it was that bestowed it,"

The Life of Virgil, and the Preface to the Pastorals, were written by Dr. Chetwood, for whom our author appears to have had a great regard. "The PRAISES OF ITALY (says he, in his Notes on Virgil,) translated by the learned and every way excellent Mr. Chetwood, which are printed in one of my Miscellany Poems, are the greatest ornament of this book [the second Georgick].”

Knightly Chetwood was born in 1652. He was bred at Eton, and from thence removed to Cambridge, where he was Fellow of King's College in 1683, when he con

the Life of Virgil, the two Prefaces—to the PASTORALS and the GEORGICKS, and all the arguments

tributed the Life of Lycurgus to the translation of Plutarch's Lives published in that year. He was intimately connected with Wentworth, Earl of Roscommon, whose Life, written by him, is preserved in the publick library of Cambridge, among Baker's manuscript collections, (vol. xxxvi.) and furnished Fenton with some of the anecdotes concerning that nobleman, which are found among his Notes on Waller's Poems. Jacob mentions that he had a claim to an ancient English barony; a circumstance which accounts for his being styled a person of honour, in the translation which he published of some of St. Evremont's pieces. See p. 65.

By the favour probably of the Earl of Dartmouth, he was nominated to the see of Bristol by King James II.; but soon after his nomination, the King's Abdication took place. In April 1707, he was installed Dean of Glocester, which preferment he enjoyed till his death, which happened April 11th, 1720, at Tempsford in Bedfordshire, where he had an estate, and where he was buried with the following inscription: "Knightley Chetwood, egregius sane et singularis vir, ingenio adeo sublimi et venusto, adeo divinis et humanis literis exculto, ut nihil supra. Ecclesiæ et patriæ amicissimus, catholicæ fidei rigidus servator, immortalitatem adivit, annum exigens sexagesimum octavum, tertio Nonas Aprilis, 1720."

He married a daughter of the celebrated Sheriff of London in the time of Charles the Second, Samuel Shute; by whom he left a son named John, who was fellow of Trinity Hall, in Cambridge, and died in 1735.

The following particulars concerning this gentleman are found in one of Baker's MSS. in the Museum :

"Knightley Chetwood, extraordinariè electus, born at

in prose to the whole translation; which perhaps has caused a report that the two first poems are not

Coventry, came into the place of Thomas Brinley [as fellow of King's College]; chaplain to the Lord Dartmouth, to the Princess of Denmark, and to King James II.; prebend of Wells, rector of Broad Risington in Glocestershire, archdeacon of York; nominated Bishop of Bristol by King James, just before his Abdication; went afterwards chaplain to all the English forces [sent] into Holland under the Earl of Marlborough, 1689; commenced D. D. 1691: dean of Gloucester." MS. Harl. 7038. p. 221.

Two copies of verses by Dr. Chetwood, one in English and the other in Latin, are prefixed to Lord Roscómmon's ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE, 4to. 1685. He was also author of several poems, some of which are preserved in Dryden's Miscellany. He likewise published three single sermons, and "a Speech to the Lower House of Convocation, May 20, 1715, against the late riots."

The most curious passage in his Life of Virgil, (which is often erroneously attributed to Dryden,) is one relative to Cromwell; the following proof of the great agitation of mind which that odious impostor suffered, while the crown was suspended over his head, not being noticed, I believe, by any earlier writer:

"Cromwell had never been more desirous of the power, than he was afterwards of the title, of King; and there was nothing in which the heads of the parties, who were all his creatures, would not comply with him; but by too vehement allegation of arguments against it, he who had outwitted every body besides, at last outwitted himself, by too deep dissimulation; for his Council, thinking to make their court by assenting to his judgment, voted unanimously for him against his inclination; which

mine. If it had been true, that I had taken their verses for my own, I might have gloried in their aid; and like Terence, have farthered the opinion, that Scipio and Lælius joined with me. But the same style being continued through the whole, and the same laws of versification observed, are proofs sufficient that this is one man's work; and your Lordship is too well acquainted with my manner, to doubt that any part of it is another's.

That your Lordship may see I was in earnest when I promised to hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land-service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say, that Virgil has avoided those proprieties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, peasants, &c. but to all in general, and in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, it is enough for a poet to write so plainly, that he may be understood by his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought learned in all things."

surprized and troubled him to such a degree, that as soon as he got into his coach, he fell in a swoon."

The principal topicks urged by Whitelocke, Glynne, St. John, Lord Broghill, Thurloe, &c. to induce him to accept the crown, in a conference held at Whitehall, in April, 1657, were reduced by Dr. Johnson into one argument, which may be found in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for 1741, vol. x. p. 93.

Our author, however, is sometimes guilty of this

I have omitted the four preliminary lines of the first Æneid, because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem ; and consequently believe they are not Virgil's. There is too great a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the substantive arva in the latter end of the third; which keeps his meaning in obscurity too long, and is contrary to the clearness of his style. Ut quamvis avido is too ambitious an ornament to be his, and gratum opus agricolis are all words unnecessary, and independent of what he had said before. Horrentia Martis arma is worse than any of the rest. Horrentia is such a flat epithet, as Tully would have given us in his verses. It is a mere filler, to stop a vacancy in the hexameter, and connect the preface to the work of Virgil.

Our author seems to sound a charge, and begins like the clangour of a trumpet:

Arma, virumque cano, Troja qui primus ab oris,. Scarce a word without an r, and the vowels for the greater part sonorous. with Ille ego, which he was up in the fourth line with sense cohere; and if both

The Prefacer began constrained to patch at nunc, to make the those words are not

affectation; for in his translation he has-tack to the lar board,-veer starboard,-and other similar expressions. 7 Ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena Carmen, et, egressus silvis, vicina coegi

Ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono,

Gratum opus agricolis; at nunc horrentia Martis ---..

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