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 amuse

ment.

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 plowmen 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 these 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 petrefaction.'

speaking, but the assembly Several were so taken with formed their tastes upon it,

Ovid had no sooner given over pronounced their opinions of him. his easy way of writing, and had so that they had no relish for any composition which was not framed in the Ovidian manner. A great many, however, were of a contrary opinion, until, at length, it was determined by a plu rality of voices, that Ovid highly deserved the name of a witty man, but that his language was vulgar and trivial, and of the nature of those things which cost no labour in the invention, but are ready found out to a man's hand. In the last place

they all agreed, that the greatest objection which lay against Ovid, both as to his life and writings, was his having too much wit, and that he would have succeeded better in both, had he rather checked than indulged it. Statius stood up next with a swelling and haughty air, and made the following story the subject of his poem.

2

A German and a Portuguese,' when Vienna was besieged, having had frequent contests of rivalry, were preparing for a single duel, when on a sudden the walls were attacked by the enemy. Upon this, both the German and Portuguese consented to sacrifice their private resentments to the public, and to see who could signalize himself most upon the common foe. Each of them did wonders in repelling the enemy from different parts of the wall. The German was at length engaged amidst a whole army of Turks, until his left arm, that held the shield, was unfortunately lopped off, and he himself so stunned with a blow he had received, that he fell down as dead. The Portuguese seeing the condition of his rival, very generously flew to his succour, dispersed the multitudes that were gathered about him, and fought over him as he lay upon the ground. In the mean while, the German recovered from his trance, and rose up to the assistance of the Portuguese, who a little after had his right-arm, which held his sword, cut off by the blow of a sabre. He would have lost his life at the same time by a spear which was aimed at his back, had not the German slain the person who was aiming at him. These two competitors for fame having received such mutual obligations now fought in conjunction, and as the one was only able to manage the sword and the other the shield,

1 Founded upon the story of the two Romans in Cæsar's commentaries, lib. v. ch. 44.—G.

2 By the Turks in 1683, an event familiar to the lover of Italian poetry by Filicaja's three odes.-G.

made up but one warrior betwixt them. The Portuguese covered the German, while the German dealt destruction among the enemy. At length, finding themselves faint with loss of blood, and resolving to perish nobly, they advanced to the most shattered part of the wall, and threw themselves down, with a huge fragment of it, upon the heads of the besiegers.

When Statius ceased, the old factions immediately broke out concerning his manner of writing. Some gave him loud acvery clamations, such as he had received in his life-time, declaring him the only man who had written in a style which was truly heroical, and that he was above all others in his fame as well as in his diction. Others censured him as one who went beyond all bounds in his images and expressions, laughing at the cruelty of his conceptions, the rumbling of his numbers, and the dreadful pomp and bombast of his expressions. There were, however, a few select judges, who moderated between both these extremes, and pronounced upon Statius, that there appeared in his style much poetical heat and fire, but withal so much smoke as sullied the brightness of it. That there was a majesty in his verse, but that it was the majesty rather of a tyrant than of a king. That he was often towering among the clouds, but often met with the fate of Icarus. In a word, that Statius was among the poets, what Alexander the Great is among heroes, a man of great virtues and of great faults.

self

Virgil was the last of the ancient poets who produced himupon this occasion. His subject was the story of Theutilla,a which being so near that of Judith in all its circumstances, and at the same time translated by a very ingenious gentleman in one of Mr. Dryden's miscellanies, I shall here give no farther account of it. When he had done, the whole assembly declared

• The Rape of Theutilla, imitated from the Latin of Famian Strada. By Mr. Thomas Yalden.-*

the works of this great poet a subject rather for their admiration than for their applause, and that if any thing was wanting in Virgil's poetry, it was to be ascribed to a deficiency in the art itself, and not in the genius of this great man. There were, however, some envious murmurs and detractions heard among the crowd, as if there were very frequently verses in him which flagged or wanted spirit, and were rather to be looked upon as faultless than beautiful. But these injudicious censures were

heard with a general indignation.

I need not observe to my learned reader, that the foregoing story of the German and Portuguese is almost the same in every particular with that of the two rival soldiers in Cæsar's commentaries. This prolusion ends with the performance of an Italian poet, full of those little witticisms and conceits which have infected the greatest part of modern poetry.

No. 123. SATURDAY, AUGUST 1.

-hic murus aheneus esto

Nil conscire sibi

THERE are a sort of knights-errant in the world, who, quite contrary to those in romance, are perpetually seeking adventures to bring virgins into distress, and to ruin innocence.

When men

of rank and figure pass away their lives in these criminal pursuits and practices, they ought to consider that they render themselves more vile and despicable than any innocent man can be whatever low station his fortune or birth have placed him in.

a

Fortune or birth have placed. Though two things are spoken of, the disjunctive, or, shews that each is considered singly; the verb, therefore, should not have been in the plural number. But, perhaps, the turn of the sentence may admit the subjunctive mood, and then, have placed will be right, have in that mood, being singular as well as plural. My