"(5) The day that she was born, the Cyprian Queen "Had like t' have dy'd thro' envy and thro' fpleen ;

(5) Le jour qu'elle naquit, Venus bien qu'immortelle, Penfa mourir de honte, en la voyant fi belle,

Les Graces a l'envi defcendirent des cieux,

Pour avoir l'honeur d'accompagner les yeux ;

Et l'Amour, qui ne put entrer dans fons courage,
Voulut obstinément longer fur fon visage,

"The

This is a lover's description of his mistress by the great Corneille; civil, to be fure, and polite as any thing can be. Let any body turn over Waller, and he will fee how much more naturally and delicately the English author treats the article of love than this celebrated Frenchman. I would not however be thought, by any derogatory quotation, to take from the merit of a writer whofe reputa. tion is fo univerfally and so justly established in all nations; but, as I said before, I rather chufe, where any failings are to be found, to correct my own countrymen by foreign examples, than to provoke them by inflances drawn from their own writings; bumanum eft errare. I cannot forbear one quotation more from another celebrated French author. It is an epigram upon a monument for Francis I. King of France, by way of question and answer, which in English is verbatim thus :

Under this marble who lies buried here?
Francis the Great, a king beyond compare.
Why has fo great a king fo fmall a stone?
Of that great king here's but the heart alone,
Then of this conqueror here lies but part?
No-here he lies all-for he was all heart.

The author was a Gafcon, to whom I can properly oppose nobody fo well as a Welchman; for which purpose I am farther furnished, from the fore-mentioned collection of Oxford Verses, with an Epigram by Martin Lluellin upon the same subject, which I remember to have heard often repeated to me when I was a boy. Besides, from whence can we draw better examples than from the very feat and nurfury of the Muses?

Thus flain, thy valiant ancestor * did lie,
When his one bark a navy did defy;
When now encompass'd round he victor ftood,
And bath'd his pinnace in his conquering blood,
Till, all the purple current dry'd and spent,
He fell, and made the waves his monument.
Where shall the next fam'd Granville's ashes stand?
Thy grandfire's fill the fea, and thine the land.

Sir Richard Granville, Vice-admiral of England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintained a fight with his fingle ship against the whole armada of Spain, confifting of fifty-three of their best men of war.

"The Graces in a hurry left the skies
"To have the honour to attend her eyes;
"And Love, despairing in her heart a place,
"Would needs take up his lodging in her face
Tho' wrote by great Corneille, fuch lines as these,
Such civil nonfenfe, fure could never please.
Waller, the beft of all th' infpired train,
To melt the fair inftructs the dying fwain.

(6) The Roman wit †, who impiously divides
His hero and his gods to different fides,
I would condemn, but that, in spite of fenfe,
Th' admiring world still stands in his defence.
How oft, alas! the best of men in vain
Contend for bleffings which the worst obtain !
The gods, permitting traitors to fucceed,
Become not parties in an impious deed;
And by the tyrant's murder we may find,
That Cato and the gods were of a mind.

Thus forcing truth with fuch prepofterous praife,
Qur characters we leffen when we'd raise;
Like caftles built by magic art in air,

That vanish at approach, fuch thoughts appear;
But rais'd on truth by fome judicious hand,
As on a rock, they fhall for ages stand.

(7) Our

I cannot say the two laft lines, in which confift the fting or point of the epigram, are strictly conformable to the rule herein fet down the word ashes, metaphorically, can fignify nothing but fame, which is mere found, and can fill no space either of land or fea; the Welchman however must be allowed to have outdone the Gafcon. The fallacy of the French epigram appears at first fight; but the English ftrikes the fancy, fufpends and dazzles the judgment, and may perhaps he allowed to pafs under the shelter of thofe daring hyperboles which, by prefenting an obvious meaning, make their way, according to Seneca, through the incredible to true.

(6) Victrix caufa Deis placuit, fed victa Catoni.

* Corneille.

† Lucan.

The

(7) Our King return'd, and banish'd Peace reflor'd, The Mufe ran mad to fee her exil'd lord;

On

The confent of fo many ages having established the reputation of this line, it may perhaps be prefumption to attack it; but it is not to be fuppofed that Cato, who is described to have been a man of rigid morals and strict devotion, more resembling the gods than men, would have chofen any party in oppofition to thofe gods whom he profeffed to adore. The poet would give us to understand, that his hero was too righteous a person to accompany the divinities themselves in an unjust cause; but to represent a mortal man to be either wifer or juster than the Deity, may fhew the impiety of the writer, but add nothing to the merit of the hero; neither reafon nor religion will allow it; and it is impoffible for a corrupt being to be more excellent than a divine; fuccefs implies permiffion, and not approbation; to place the gods always on the thriving fide, is to make them partakers of all fuccefsful wickedness: to judge right, we must wait for the conclufion of the action; the catastrophe, will best decide on which fide is Providence; and the violent death of Cafar acquits the gods from being companions of his ufurpation.

Lucan was a determined Republican, no wonder he was a Free-thinker.

(7) Mr. Dryden in one of his prologues has thefe two lines:

He's bound to please, not to write well, and knows
There is a mode in plays as well as clothes.

From whence it is plain, where he has expofed himself to the critics, he was forced to follow the fashion to humour an audience, and not to please himself : a hard facrifice to make for present subsistence, especially for fuch as would have their writings live as well as themfelves. Nor can the poet whofe labours are his daily bread be delivered from this cruel neceffity, unless fome more certain encouragement can be provided than the bare uncertain profits of a third day, and the theatre be put under fome more impartial management than the jurisdiction of players. Who write to live must unavoidably comply with their tafte by whofe approbation they fubfift; fome generous prince, or prime minifter like Richlieu, can only find a remedy. In his epiftle dedicatory to The Spanish Friar, this incomparable poet thus cenfures himself :

"I remember fome verses of my own Maximin and Almanzor which cry vengeance upon me for their extravagance, &c. All I can fay for those passages, which are, I hope, not many, is, that I knew they were bad enough to 66 please even when I wrote them; but I repent of them among my fins; and "if any of their fellows intrude by chance into my prefent writings, I draw a "ftroke over those Dalilahs of the theatre, and am refolved I will fettle myself " no reputation by the applause of fools: It is not that I am mortified to all ambition, but I scorn as much to take it from half-witted judges as I should

"

to raise an estate by cheating of bubbles: neither do I difcommend the lofty

ftyle in tragedy, which is pompous and magnificent; but nothing is truly "fublime that is not just and proper,"

*King Charles II,

On the crack'd stage the bedlam heroes roar'd,
And scarce could speak one reasonable word:
Dryden himself, to please a frantic age,
Was forc'd to let his judgment ftoop to rage;
To a wild audience he conform'd his voice,
Comply'd to cuftom, but not err'd by choice.
Deem then the people's, not the writer's fin
Almanzor's rage and rants of Maximin :
That fury spent, in each elaborate piece.

He vies for fame with ancient Rome and Greece.

First Mulgrave rofe, Rofcommon next, like light,
To clear our darkness, and to guide our flight;
With fteady judgment, and in lofty founds,
They gave us patterns, and they set us bounds.
The Stagyrite and Horace laid afide,
Inform'd by them, we need no foreign guide:
Who feek from poetry a lasting name,
May in their leffons learn the road to fame ;
But let the bold adventurer be sure

That every line the test of truth endure :
On this foundation may the fabric rise,

Firm and unfhaken, till it touch the skies.

From pulpits banish'd, from the court, from love, Forfaken Truth feeks shelter in the grove :

Cherish, ye Mufes! the neglected fair,

And take into your train th' abandon'd wanderer.

This may ftand as an unanswerable apology for Mr. Dryden against his critics; and likewife for an unquestionable authority to confirm those principles which the foregoing poem pretends to lay down for nothing can be just and proper but what is built upon truth.

* Earl of Mulgrave's Effay upon Poetry, and Lord Rofcommon's upon Tranflated Verfe.

ROWE.

ROW

E.

NICHOLAS

ICHOLAS ROWE was born at Little Beckford in Bedfordshire in 1673. His family had long poffeffed a confiderable eftate, with a good house, at Lambertoun * in Devonshire. The ancestor from whom he defcended in a direct line, received the arms borne by his descendants for his bravery in the Holy War. His father John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any art of profit, profeffed the law, and published Benlow's and Dallifon's Reports in the reign of James the Second, when, in oppofition to the notions then diligently propagated of difpenfing power, he ventured to remark how low his authors rated the prerogative. He was made a ferjeant, and died April 30, 1692. He was buried in the Temple Church.

Nicholas was firft fent to a private school at Highgate; and being afterwards removed to Westminster, was at twelve years chofen one of the King's fcholars. His mafter was Bufby, who fuffered none of his scholars to

*

In the Villare, Lamerton.

let