that may be lawfully done which cannot be forborn. Time and place will always enforce regard. In eftimating this tranflation, confideration must be had of the nature of our language, the form of our metre, and, above all, of the change which two thousand years have made in the modes of life and the habits of thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the fame general fabrick with that of Homer, in verfes of the fame measure, and in an age nearer to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years; yet he found, even then, the ftate of the world fo much altered, and the demand for elegance fo much increased, that mere nature would be endured no longer; and perhaps, in the multitude of borrowed paffages, very few can be fhewn which he has not embellished.

There is a time when nations emerging from barbarity, and falling into regular fubordination, gain leisure to grow wife, and feel the fhame of ignorance and the craving pain of unfatisfied curiofity. To this hunger of the mind plain fenfe is grateful; that which fills the void removes uneafinefs, and to be free from pain for a while is pleasure; but repletion generates faftidioufnefs; a faturated intellect foon becomes luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing reception till it is recommended by artificial diction. Thus it will be found, in the progrefs of learning, that in all nations the first writers are fimple, and that every age improves in elegance. One refinement always makes way for another, and what was expedient to Virgil was neceffary to Pope.

I fuppofe many readers of the English Iliad, when they have been touched with fome unexpected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy it in the origi

nal,

nal, where, alas! it' was not to be found. Homer doubtlefs owes to his tranflator many Ovidian graées not exactly fuitable to his character; but to have added can be no great crime, if nothing be taken away. Elegance is furely to be defired, if it be not gained at the expence of dignity. A hero would wish to be loved, as well as to be reverenced.

To a thoufand cavils one answer is fufficient; the purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside. Pope wrote for his own age and his own nation: he knew that it was neceffary to colour the images and point the fentiments of his author; he therefore made him graceful, but loft him fome of his fublimity.

The copious notes with which the version is accompanied, and by which it is recommended to many readers, though they were undoubtedly written to swell the volumes, ought not to pafs without praife: commentaries which attract the reader by the pleasure of perufal have not often appeared; the notes of others are read to clear difficulties, thofe of Pope to vary entertainment.

It has however been objected, with fufficient reafon, that there is in the commentary too much of unfeasonable levity and affected gaiety; that too many appeals are made to the Ladies, and the ease which is so carefully preserved is fometimes the ease of a trifler, Every art has its terms, and every kind of instruction its proper style; the gravity of common criticks may be tedious, but is lefs defpicable than childish merriment.

Of

Of the Odyssey nothing remains to be observed: the fame general praise may be given to both translations, and a particular examination of either would require a large volume. The notes were written by Broome, who endeavoured not unsuccessfully to imitate his mafter.

Of the Dunciad the hint is confeffedly taken from Dryden's Mac Flecknoe; but the plan is fo enlarged and diversified as juftly to claim the praise of an original, and affords perhaps the best specimen that has yet appeared of perfonal fatire ludicrously pompous.

That the defign was moral, whatever the author might tell either his readers or himself, I am not convinced. The first motive was the defire of revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated his Shakespeare, and regaining the honour which he had loft, by crushing his opponent. Theobald was not of bulk enough to fill a poem, and therefore it was neceffary to find other enemies with other names, at whofe expence he might divert the publick.

In this defign there was petulance and malignity enough; but I cannot think it very criminal. An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of Criticism, and folicits fame at the hazard of difgrace. Dulnefs or deformity are not culpable in themfelves, but may be very juftly reproached when they pretend to the honour of wit or the influence of beauty. If bad writers were to pafs without reprehenfion, what fhould restrain them? impune diem confumpferit ingens Telephus; and upon bad writers only will cenfure have much effect. The fatire which brought Theobald and Moore into contempt, dropped impotent from Bentley, like the javelin of Priam.

VOL. IV.

K

All

All truth is valuable, and fatirical criticifm may be confidered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgement; he that refines the publick tafte is a publick benefactor.

The beauties of this poem are well known; its chief fault is the groffnefs of its images. Pope and Swift had an unnatural delight in ideas phyfically impure, fuch as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every car fhrinks from the

mention.

But even this fault, offenfive as it is, may be forgiven for the excellence of other paffages; fuch as the formation and diffolution of Moore, the account of the Traveller, the misfortune of the Florist, and the crouded thoughts and stately numbers which dignify the concluding paragraph.

The alterations which have been made in the Dunciad, not always for the better, require that it fhould be published, as in the laft collection, with all its variations.

The Efay on Man was a work of great labour and long confideration, but certainly not the happiest of Pope's performances. The fubject is perhaps not very proper for poetry, and the poet was not fufficiently mafter of his fubject; metaphyfical morality was to him a new study, he was proud of his acquifitions, and, fuppofing himself mafter of great fecrets, was in hafte to teach what he had not learned. Thus he tells us, in the first Epiftle, that from the nature of the Supreme Being may be deduced an order of beings fuch as mankind, because Infinite Excellence can do only what is beft. He finds out that thefe beings must be fumetchere, and that all the question is whether man be in a wrong place. Surely if, according to the poet's Leibnitian

nitian reasoning, we may infer that man ought to be, only because he is, we may allow that his place is the right place, because he has it. Supreme Wisdom is not lefs infallible in difpofing than in creating. But what is meant by fomewhere and place, and wrong place, it had been vain to ask Pope, who probably had never asked himself.

Having exalted himself into the chair of wisdom, he tells us much that every man knows, and much that he does not know himself; that we fee but little, and that the order of the univerfe is beyond our comprehenfion; an opinion not very uncommon; and that' there is a chain of fubordinate beings from infinite to nothing, of which himself and his readers are equally ignorant. But he gives us one comfort, which, without his help, he supposes unattainable, in the pofition that though we are fools, yet God is wife.

This Effay affords an egregious inftance of the predominance of genius, the dazzling fplendour of imagery, and the feductive powers of eloquence. Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of fentiment fo happily disguised. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns nothing; and when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the talk of his mother and his nurse. When these wonder-working founds fink into fenfe, and the doctrine of the Effay, difrobed of its ornaments, is left to the powers of its naked excellence, what shall we difcover? That we are, in comparison with our Creator, very weak and ignorant; } that we do not uphold the chain of existence, and that we could not make one another with more skill than We may learn yet more; that the arts

we are made.