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"This is a beautiful day, and I purpose to "devote it entirely to my blank volume; not "in adding one, two, three, nor in balancing "the preponderance of Debtor to Creditor; "but in filling it with new energies of thought, "and new combinations of diction. This "book is really an acquisition. It is scarcely "less formidable, than the mighty one with "which Johnson repressed the insolence of "his book-seller, or to speak in a more heroic "strain, that which Cadmus of old threw "wrathful at the dragon.

"Tell me if you are about publishing your "poems? Do not go far for a title; nothing appears so stiff and pedantic as a little book

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with a magnificent title. Remember that "Horace gives his odes no other name than "Carmina; though, he might have accumu"lated a thousand imposing epithets, to deco

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rate his title-page. It is rumoured you in"tend dedicating your effusions to Burr. "Avert it literature. Dedicate not the book "to an American. Can Burr, or Maddison, or Adams, or even Jefferson, add to the reputation of him who aspires to be read on the banks of the Thames?

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"Was there ever so stupid a Priest as this? "I wonder not that you hated him. Do you "recollect when we were sitting by the fire, "how you used to hem, and I to laugh at his "tiresome monotony. The old grasshopper

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"asked me very solemnly to-day, which I 'thought the better translation of Virgil; 'Dryden's or Davidson's!!!* After such an "interrogation, can any reasonable man expect that I will ever go again to his church; or is he not enough to make any man "of letters Parcus deorum cultor et infre'quens?"

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"The girls in this village are mad after "literature; they know not what to be at. "Miss Ta young lady of easy deportment, elegant conversation, and bold countenance, has bought Tasso's Gierusaleme, and digs in a dictionary for his meaning. She asked me my opinion of Tasso and the "Italian language. Madam, said I, the language of Tasso is not the language of heroes, "but the sing-song of fidlers, and guitarplayers. The Italian possesses neither the "heroic grandeur of the Greek, the majesty "of the Roman, nor the strength of the Eng"lish language.

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"Then, cried she, you would advise me to study English. By all means, Madam, said "I. And, Sir, rejoined the nymph, what "book do you think is best suited to a female? "Glasse's Cookery, Madam, said I.

* Pope pronounced Dryden's translation of Virgil, the noblest version ever produced by one Poet of another; Davidson's translation is in limping, hobbling, shuffling prose; the solace of Dunces; the clandestine refuge of schoolboys.

"I have passed three hours under an oak"tree by the way-side, in reading the Iliad.

"Blair, in his Lectures, says of Homer, that "in description he is concise. The descrip"tions of Homer, on the contrary, are full " and expanded paintings of nature. Of the "Homeric poetry, copiousness is the charac"teristic; of the Virgilian, metaphorical in' version.

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"There are few metaphorical inflexions of phrase in Homer; in Virgil they overflow. Virgil says, in the fifth book of his Æneis, "Thus he spoke weeping, and gave the reins to his fleet." Homer would have expressed "it more simply. Thus in the twelfth Odyssey "L he says, "Now they leave the inhospitable "shores of the Cyclops, and sail through the

ocean." This marks strongly the distinc"tion between the Homeric and Virgilian poetry.

"I sometimes amuse myself by translating แ from Homer into English verse. I will confront a brick of my house with a brick of "Pope's.

"BY ALEXANDER POPE

"There in the forum swarm a num'rous train,

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The subject of debate a townsman slain;

"One pleads the fine discharg'd, which one denied, "And bade the public, and the laws decide.

"The witnesses appear on either hand,

"For this or that the partial people stand;

"The appointed heralds still the noisy bands,

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And form a ring with sceptres in their hands."

"BY LUCAS GEORGE

"In noisy crouds the populace appear,
"Rise in debate, and urge the wordy war,
"Two in contention rose, &c., &c.

"This pleads his juster cause, attests the skies,
"That juster still, the seeming fact denies.
"The witnesses produc'd, the fickle croud
"To either cause divide, and shout aloud!
"Confusion fills the air; the heralds stand,
"Extend the sceptre, and the peace command."

"Pray, in the justice of criticism, do you "not think mine the more spirited translation? "Is not my versification also more regular, "harmonious and natural? Answer this, I

say.* The four last lines of Pope are mo(( notonous; the pauses fall too late to be lively. "Sum Pius Æneas! &c. &c.

"Have you ever seen Mambrun's epic poem "in Latin, of Idolatry Overthrown? No. "You see, Sir, how little you know of French "authors. This poem I have glanced over "(no matter where), and can inform you that it is below criticism.

"News. Townshend, the schoolmaster, has "fled. Finding his garrison no longer ten

*Answer. NO.

Is not this a bull? [Pierre Mambrun, 1600-1661, of Clermont-Ferrand, but author of Constantinus sive Idolatria debellata.]

"able, he wisely evacuated it, and has em"barked himself, and his system of book-keeping, for the island of Bermudas. Had this "descendant from Orbilius Flagosus known Latin, he would, doubtless, have found a "valedictory quotation in Virgil, and ad"dressed me with it at parting.

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"Nos patriæ fines et dulcia linquimus arva,

Nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra, "Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas."

"The trustees have increased my salary to a hundred and twenty pounds a-year, with boarding; so, I believe, I shall continue to vegetate and eat grass among the Newtown "farmers, till I shall be enabled to look on "the frowns of fortune with a more magnanimous countenance.

"You say you are writing a Novel. There was a man in Babylon! toll de roll!

"June 18, 1801.

"I again resume my conversation with you. "Our right reverend Parson has the predict"ing spirit of Achilles' horse, for he told me "last night we should have fair weather, and "I perceive the sky is without a cloud.

"The people here are become more atten"tive to me of late, than they formerly were; "and though I cannot hope for intellectual

[* Virgil, Ecloga I, 2.]

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