: LETTER XIV. June 24, 1710. 'TIS very natural for a young friend, and a young lover, to think the perfons they love have nothing to do but to please them; when perhaps they, for their parts, had twenty other engagements before. This was my cafe, when I wonder❜d I did not hear from you; but I no fooner receiv'd your fhort letter, but I forgot your long filence and fo many fine things as you faid of me could not but have wrought a cure on my own sickness, if it had not been of the nature of that, which is deaf to the voice of the charmer. 'Twas impoffible you could have better tim'd your compliment on my philosophy; it was certainly propereft to commend me for it juft when I most needed it, and when I could leaft be proud of it; that is, when I was in pain. 'Tis not eafy to express what an exaltation it gave to my fpirits, above all the cordials of my doctor; and 'tis no compliment to tell you, that your compliments were fweeter than the fweeteft of his juleps and fyrups. But if you will not believe fo much. one. Pour le moins, votre compliment Nevertheless, I would not have you entirely lay afide the thoughts of my epitaph, any more than I do those of the probability of my becoming (ere long) the subject of For death has of late been very familiar with fome of my fize; I am told my Lord Lumley and Mr. Litton are gone before me; and tho' I may now, without vanity, efteem myself the least thing like a man in England, yet I can't but be forry, two horoes of fuch a make .fhould die inglorious in their beds; when it had been a fate more worthy our fize, had they met with theirs from ap an irruption of Cranes, or other warlike animals, thofe ancient enemies to our Pygmæan ancestors! You of a fuperior fpecies little regard what befals us bomunciones fefquipedales; however, you have no reason to be fo un concern'd, fince all phyficians agree there is no greater fign of a plague among men, than a mortality among frogs. I was the other day in company with a lady, who rally'd my perfon fo much, as to caufe a total fubverfion of my countenance: fome days after, to be revenged on her, I presented her, among other company, the following Rondeau on that occafion, which I defire you to fhow Sappho. You know where you did defpife You know where. You, 'tis true, have fine black eyes, You know where. This fort of writing call'd the Rondeau is what I never knew practis'd in our nation, and, I verily believe, it was not in ufe with the Greeks or Romans, neither Macrobius nor Hyginus taking the leaft notice of it. "Tis to be observ'd, that the vulgar spelling and pronouncing it round O, is a manifeft corruption, and by no means to be allow'd of by critics. Some may miftakenly imagine that it was a fort of Rondeau which the Gallick foldiers fung in Cæfar's triumph over Gaul-Gallias Cæfar fubegit, etc. as it is recorded by Suetonius in Julio, and fo derive its original from the ancient Gauls to the modern French: but this is erroneous; the words there not being ranged according to the laws of the Rondeau, as laid down by Clement Marot. If you will fay, that the fong of the foldiers might be only the rude beginning of this kind of Poem, Poem, and fo confequently imperfe&t, neither Heinfius nor I can be of that opinion; and fo I conclude, that we know nothing of the matter. But, Sir, I ask your pardon for all this buffoonery, which I could not addrefs to any one fo well as to you, fince I have found by experience, that you most easily forgive my impertinencies. 'Tis only to fhow you that I am mindful of you at all times; that I write at al times; and as nothing I can fay can be worth your reading, so I may as well throw out what comes uppermoft, as ftudy to be dull. I am, etc. LETTER Xv. From Mr. CROMWELL. July 15, 1710. AT laft I have prevail'd over a lazy humour to tranf cribe this elegy: I have changed the fituation of fome of the Latin verses, and made fome interpolations, but I hope they are not abfurd, and foreign to my author's fenfe and manner; but they are referr'd to your cenfure, as a debt; whom I efteem no lefs a critic than a poet: I expect to be treated with the fame rigour as I have practis'd to Mr. Dryden and you. Hanc veniam petimufque damufque viciffim. I defire the favour of your opinion, why Priam, in his fpeech to Payrrus in the fecond Æneid, fays this to him, At non ille, fatum quo te mentiris, Achilles. He would intimate (I fancy by Phyrrus's anfwer) only his degeneracy but then these following lines of the verfion (I fuppofe from Homer's history) seem abfurd in the mouth of Priam, viz. He chear'd my forrows, and for fums of gold I am Your, etc. LETTER LETTER XVI. Give you thanks for the verfion you fent me of Ovid's I Give elegy. It is very much an image of that author's writing, who has an agreeablenefs that charms us without correctnefs, like a mistress, whofe faults we fee, but love her with them all. You have very judiciously alter'd his method in fome places, and I can find nothing which I dare infift upon as an error: what I have written in the margins being merely gueffes at a little improvement, rather than criticisms. 1 affure you I do not expect you fhould fubfcribe to my private notions but when you fhall judge them agreeable to reafon and good sense. What I have done is not as a critic, but as a friend: I know too well how many qualities are requifite to make the one, and that I want almost all I can reckon up; but I am fure I do not want inclination, nor, I hope, capacity to be the other. Nor fhall I take it at all amifs, that another diffents from my opinion: 'Tis no more than I have often done from my own; and indeed, the more a man advances in understanding, he becomes the more every day a critic upon himself, and finds fomething or other ftill to blame in his former notions and opinions. I could be glad to know if you have tranflated the 11th elegy of lib. ii. Ad amicam navigantem. The 8th of book iii, or the 11th of book iii, which are above all others my particular favourites, especially the laft of these. As to the paffage of which you ask my opinion in the fecond Æneid, it is either fo plain as to require no folution; or elfe (which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam would fay, that "Achilles (whom "furely you only feign to be your father, fince your "actions are fo different from his) did not use me thus "inhumanly. He blush'd at his murder of Hector, "when he saw my forrows for him; and restored his "dead body to me to be buried." To this the answer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough, "Go then VOL. III. A a a to "to the fhades, and tell Achilles how I degenerate "from him:" granting the truth of what Priam had faid of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judiciously paffes in filence, the circumftance of Achilles's felling for money the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it in fome measure leffening the character of Achilles's generofity and piety, which is the very point of which Priam endeavours in this place to convince his fon, and to reproach him with the want of. But the truth of this circumftance is no way to be queftion'd, being expressly taken from Homer, who reprefents Achilles weeping for Priam, yet receiving the gold, Iliad xxiv. For when he gives the body, he uses these words, “O 66 my friend Patroclus; forgive me that I quit the "corpfe of him who kill'd thee; I have great gifts in "ransom for it, which I will beftow upon thy funeral." I am, etc. LETTER XVII. From Mr. CROMWELL. Aug. 5, 1710. LOOKING among fome French rhymes, I was agree ably furpriz'd to find in the Rondeau of *Pour le moins -your Apoticaire and Lavement, which I took for your own; fo much is your Mufe of intelligence with the wits of all languages. You have refin'd upon Voiture, whose Où vous favez is much inferior to your You know where. -You do not only pay your club with your author (as our friend fays) but the whole reckoning; who can form fuch pretty lines from fo trivial a hint. For my + Elegy; 'tis confefs'd, that the topography of Sulmo in Latin makes but an aukward figure in the ver * In Voiture's Poems. † Ovid's Amorum, 1. ii, el. 16. Pars me Sulmo, etc. |