I curre per Alpes Ut pueris placeas, & declamatio fias. The contrariety of ftyle to the fubject plea. fes the more ftrongly, because it is more furprifing; the expectation of the reader is pleafantly deceived, who expects an humble style from the fubject, or a great fubject from the style. It pleafes the more univerfally, because it is agreeable to the tafte both of the grave and the merry; but more particularly fo to those who have a relifh of the beft writers, and the nobleft fort of poetry. I fhall produce only one paffage out of this poet, which is the misfortune of his Galligafkins: My Galligafkins, which have long withstood This is admirably pathetical, and fhews very well the vciffitudes of fublunary things. The reft goes on to a prodigious height; and a mán in Greenland could hardly have made a more pathetick and terrible complaint. Is it not furprising that the subject should be so mean, and the verse so pompous, that the least things in his poetry, as in a microfoope, fhould grow great great and formidable to the eye; efpecially confidering that, not understanding French, he had no model for his ftyle? that he should have no writer to imitate, and himself be ini mitable? that he should do all this before he was twenty? at an age which is ufually pleased with a glare of falfe thoughts, little turns, and unnatural fuftian? at an age, at which Cowley, Dryden, and I had almost faid Virgil, were inconfiderable? So foon was his imagination at its full ftrength, his judgement ripe, and his humour complete. This poem was written for his own diverfion, without any defign of publication. It was communicated but to me: but foon spread, and fell into the hands of pirates. It was put out, vilely mangled, by Ben Bragge; Land impudently faid to be corrected by the author. This grievance is now grown more epidemical; and no man' now has a right to his own thoughts; or a title to his own writings. Xenophon anfwered the Perfian, who demanded his arms, "We have nothing now "left but our arms and our valour; if we "furrender the one, how fhall we make use "of the other?" Poets have nothing but Gg 4 their their wits and their writings; and if they are plundered of the latter, I don't fee what good the former can do them. To pirate, and publickly own it, to prefix their names to the works they steal, to own and avow the theft, I believe, was never yet heard of but in England. It will found oddly to posterity, that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the most wife, most learned, and moft generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better fecured than that of a fcholar; that the pooreft manual operations fhould be more valued than the nobleft products of the brain; that it fhould be felony to rob a cobler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best author of his whole fubfiftence; that nothing should make a man a fure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them; that the works of Dryden should meet with lefs encouragement than those of his own, Flecknoe, or Blackmore; that Tillotfon and St. George, Tom Thumb and Temple, fhould be fet on an equal foot, This is the reason why this very Paper has been fo long delayed; and while the most impudent and fcandalous libels are publickly vended by the pirates, this innocent work is forced to steal abroad as if it were a libel. Our prefent writers are by these wretches reduced to the fame condition Virgil was, when the centurion feized on his eftate. But I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Mæcenas of the prefent age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips; it helped him to a reputation, which he neither defired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himfelf capable; but the event fhewed his modefty. And it was reasonable to hope, that he, who could raise mean subjects so high, fhould ftill be more elevated on greater themes; that he, that could draw fuch noble ideas from a fhilling, could not fail upon fuch a fubject as the duke of Marlborough, which is capable of heightening even the most low and trifling genius. And, indeed, moft of the great works which have been produced in the world have been owing lefs to the poet than the patron. Men of the greatest genius are fometimes lazy, and want a fpur; often modeft, modeft, and dare not venture in publick they certainly know their faults in the worst things; and even their best things they are not fond of, because the idea of what they ought to be is far above what they are. This induced me to believe that Virgil defired his work might be burnt, had not the fame Auguftus, that defired him to write them, preferved them from deftruction. A fcribbling beau may imagine a Poet may be induced to write, by the very pleasure he finds in writing; but that is feldom, when people are neceffitated to it. I have known men row, and ufe very hard labour, for diverfion, which if they had been tied to, they would have thought themselves very unhappy. But to return to Blenheim, that work fo much admired by fome, and cenfured by others. I have often wifhed he had wrote it in Latin, that he might be out of the reach of the empty criticks, who could have as little understood his meaning in that language as they do his beauties in his own. Falfe criticks have been the plague of all ages; Milton himself, in a very polite court, has |