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when I am a matron will wear broad tuckers whether you succeed or no. If the flying project takes, I intend to be the last in wings, being resolved in everything to behave myself as becomes

"Your most obedient ward. "

No. 119. TUESDAY, JULY 28.

-poetarum veniet manus, auxilio quæ

Sit mihi

HOR.

THERE is nothing which more shows the want of taste and discernment in a writer, than the decrying of any author in gross, especially of an author who has been the admiration of multitudes, and that too in several ages of the world. This, however, is the general practice of all illiterate and undistinguishing critics. Because Homer, and Virgil, and Sophocles have been commended by the learned of all times, every scribbler, who has no relish of their beauties, gives himself an air of rapture when he speaks of them. But as he praises these he knows not why, there are others whom he depreciates with the same vehemence and upon the same account. We may see after what a different manner Strada proceeds in his judgment on the Latin poets; for I intend to publish, in this paper, a continuation of that Prolusion which was the subject of the last Thursday. I shall therefore give my reader a short account, in prose, of every poem which was produced in the learned assembly there described; and if he is thoroughly conversant in the works of those ancient authors, he will see with how much judgment every subject is adapted to the poet who makes use of it, and with how much delicacy every particular poet's way of writing is characterized in the censure that is passed upon it. Lucan's representative was the first who recited before the august assembly. As Lucan was a Spaniard, his poem does honour to that nation, which, at the same time, makes the romantic bravery in the hero of it more probable.

Alphonso was the governor of a town invested by the Moors. During the blockade, they made his only son their prisoner, whom they brought before the walls, and exposed to his father's sight, threatening to put him to death if he did not immediately give up the town. The father tells

them, if he had an hundred sons, he would rather see them all perish than do an ill action, or betray his country. “But, (says he,) if you take a pleasure in destroying the innocent, you may do it if you please: behold a sword for your purpose." Upon which he threw his sword from the wall, returned to his palace, and was able, at such a juncture, to sit down to the repast which was prepared for him.

He was

soon raised by the shouts of the enemy and the cries of the besieged. Upon returning again to the walls, he saw his son lying in the pangs of death; but far from betraying any weakness at such a spectacle, he upbraids his friends for their sorrow, and returns to finish his repast.

The

Upon the recital of this story, which is exquisitely drawn up in Lucan's spirit and language, the whole assembly declared their opinion of Lucan in a confused murmur. poem was praised or censured according to the prejudices which every one had conceived in favour or disadvantage of the author. These were so very great, that some had placed him in their opinions above the highest, and others beneath the lowest of the Latin poets. Most of them, however, agreed, that Lucan's genius was wonderfully great, but at the same time too haughty and headstrong to be governed by art, and that his style was like his genius, learned, bold, and lively, but withal too tragical and blustering. In a word, that he chose rather a great than a just reputation; to which they added, that he was the first of the Latin poets who deviated from the purity of the Roman language.

The representative of Lucretius told the assembly, that they should soon be sensible of the difference between a poet who was a native of Rome, and a stranger who had been adopted to it: after which he entered upon his subject, which I find exhibited to my hand in a speculation of one of my predecessors.

Strada, in the person of Lucretius, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such a virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manHe tells us, that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of those needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four and twenty letters, in the same

ner.

manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four and twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend, in the mean while, saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at: by this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

The whole audience were pleased with the artifice of the poet who represented Lucretius, observing very well how he had laid asleep their attention to the simplicity of his style in some verses, and to the want of harmony in others, by fixing their minds to the novelty of his subject, and to the experiment1 which he related. Without such an artifice they were of opinion that nothing would have sounded more harsh than Lucretius's diction and numbers. But it was plain that the more learned part of the assembly were quite of another mind. These allowed that it was peculiar to Lucretius above all other poets, to be always doing or teaching something, that no other style was so proper to teach in, or gave a greater pleasure to those who had a true relish for the Roman tongue. They added further, that if Lucretius. had not been embarrassed with the difficulty of his matter, and a little led away by an affectation of antiquity, there could not have been anything more perfect than his poem.

Claudian succeeded Lucretius, having chosen for his subject the famous contest between the nightingale and the

1 To the novelty-and to the experiment—it should be on, in both places.

lutanist, which every one is acquainted with, especially since Mr. Phillips has so finely improved that hint in one of his pastorals.

He had no sooner finished, but the assembly rung with acclamations made in his praise. His first beauty, which every one owned, was the great clearness and perspicuity which appeared in the plan of his poem. Others were won

derfully charmed with the smoothness of his verse, and the flowing of his numbers, in which there were none of those elisions and cuttings-off so frequent in the works of other poets. There were several, however, of a more refined judgment, who ridiculed that infusion of foreign phrases with which he had corrupted the Latin tongue, and spoke with contempt of the equability of his numbers, that cloyed and satiated the ear for want of variety: to which they likewise added a frequent and unseasonable affectation of appearing sonorous and sublime.

The sequel of this prolusion shall be the work of another day.

No. 122. FRIDAY, JULY 31.

Nec magis expressi vultus per ahenea signa. HOR.

THAT I may get out of debt with the public as fast as I can, I shall here give them the remaining part of Strada's criticism on the Latin heroic poets. My readers may see the whole work in the three papers numbered 115, 119, 122. Those who are acquainted with the authors themselves, cannot but be pleased to see them so justly represented; and as for those who have never perused the originals, they may form a judgment of them from such accurate and entertaining copies. The whole piece will show, at least, how a man of genius (and none else should call himself a critic) can make the driest art a pleasing amusement.

THE SEQUEL OF STRADA'S PROLUSION.

The poet who personated Ovid gives an account of the chryso-magnet, or of the loadstone which attracts gold, after the same manner as the common loadstone attracts iron.

The author, that he might express Ovid's way of thinking, derives this virtue to the chryso-magnet from a poetical metamorphosis.

"As I was sitting by a well, (says he,) when I was a boy, my ring dropped into it, when immediately my father, fastening a certain stone to the end of a line, let it down into the well. It no sooner touched the surface of the water, but the ring leaped up from the bottom, and clung to it in such a manner, that he drew it out like a fish. My father seeing me wonder at the experiment, gave me the following account of it. When Deucalion and Pyrrha went about the world to repair mankind by throwing stones over their heads, the men who rose from them differed in their inclinations, according to the places on which the stones fell. Those which fell in the fields became ploughmen and shepherds. Those which fell into the water produced sailors and fishermen. Those that fell among the woods and forests gave birth to huntsmen. Among the rest there were several that fell upon mountains, that had mines of gold and silver in them. This last race of men immediately betook themselves to the search of these precious metals; but nature being displeased to see herself ransacked, withdrew her treasures towards the centre of the earth. The avarice of man, however, persisted in its former pursuits, and ransacked her inmost bowels in quest of the riches which they contained. Nature seeing herself thus plundered by a swarm of miners, was so highly incensed, that she shook the whole place with an earthquake, and buried the men under their own works. The Stygian flames which lay in the neighbourhood of these deep mines broke out at the same time with great fury, burning up the whole mass of human limbs and earth, until they were hardened and baked into stone. The human bodies that were delving in iron mines were converted into those common loadstones which attract that metal. Those which were in search of gold became chryso-magnets, and still keep their former avarice in their present state of petrifaction.

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Ovid had no sooner given over speaking, but the assembly pronounced their opinions of him. Several were so taken with his easy way of writing, and had so formed their tastes upon it, that they had no relish for any composition which was not framed in the Ovidian manner. A great many, how.

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