opportunity of entertaining fatire as Horace. The copy certainly pleafes us more than the original. Dryden fays, that Donne was the greatest wit in the nation. He calls him, and perhaps christened him, the metaphyfical poet. Almost all his poems were written when he was very young. It is a task to read and to understand an hundred lines of his-fatires. "A poet, fays fome lively writer, ought to run like Ovid, or walk like Virgil, but never to stand stock still like Donne." His intention was to write fatire in a loose familiar verfe; but unfortunately, it is meafure, without measure; like Lucilius or Horace, and not like Juvenal. Bishop Hall's fatires, called Virgidemarium, which it seems did not fall in the way of Pope foon enough, are more luminous and more mufical to the ear. The poetical fatirist should not oblige his reader, as Barten Holyday fays of Juvenal and Perfius, to choose a meaning or to find one. The fatires of the "divine" Ariosto, viewed even through the thickness of an English atmosphere, are more interesting to the reader. The Hilliad of poet Smart was not without its its patrons. Fielding, either through con viction or revenge, faid of it, in a letter to the author, that it was as witty as the hero of it was worthlefs. Two lines from thence, because they are pronounced by a powerful eritic to be fatirical, poetical, and philofophical; and which, if they had been written by Pope, would have been much admired, fhould have a place here, though they fix a ridicule on the hero who became at last a Knight of the Polar Star. Th' infolvent tenant of incumber'd space." Pope was content to be an imitator, when he ceased being a tranflator. He never scrupled to borrow (but fure he feldom borrowed from neceffity, as Warburton once gave it under his hand-litera scripta manet), knowing he was fo well able to repay. No one can charge him with robbing and murdering at the fame time. Ill-nature may trace his parodies and allufions through fifty authors. My friend Thompson (called from a particular compofition Sickness Thompson) had the patience to read Hammond's Elegies, with 7 Ti Tibullus in his hand, and declared, there was hardly any thing in Hammond, which had not pre-existence in Tibullus-Nil dictum, quod non dictum prius. He interleaved Pope's works, as he faid, to obferve how much originality there was in them. He was an excellent claffic fcholar, and, next to the Wartons, I imagine, the greatest master of the English poets, both old and new. The admirers of Pope would not thank any body. for detecting his petty larcenies of wit, or proving too much against him. Thompson is gone; and, to say nothing of his writings, his common-place book probably followed him. A writer started up fome years ago, who reprefented Ben Jonfon and Pope as plunderers of Parnaffus : "Thieves of renown, and pilferers of fame." A defender of Pope immediately appeared, who gave it as his opinion, that Pope adorned every sentiment he adopted with a peculiar grace and dignity. In the following remarkable paffage he seems to have imitated Silius Italicus, fays the vindicator: "Self Self-love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble ftirs the peaceful lake: The centré möv'd, a circle ftrait fucceeds, Another ftill and still another spreads : Friend; parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; Earth fmiles around, with boundless beauty bleft; Silius Italicus has introduced this fimile upon å different occafion. "Signa reportandi crefcebat in agmine fervor. Pope had borrowed this fimile once before, in his Temple of Fame. He confeffes, "that he had ferved himself all he could by reading," which must be admitted as an apology F for for all his imitations. Neither the friends nor enemies of Pope feem to have discovered his making free with this Latin poet. "Suppofing Mr. Pope, fays his admirer (Mr. Robertson) took his idea from these exquifite lines, yet every reader of tafte will acknowledge himself obliged to him for the ingenuity of the application, the management of the allufion, and the harmony of the verfification. His enemies can only fay, he found the gem in Italy: it may be added, he brought it into England, and, by fetting it anew, gave it additional luftre." From what fource did our great dramatist derive the following fimilitude, in the First Part of Henry VI? Was it from the Roman claffic, or from the volume of nature that was always open before. him? . "Glory is like a circle in the water, Till by broad fpreading it difperfe to nought." While the pen of recollection is in hand, let it be obferved, that it was boafted of Leo nidas, that it was all the property of Mr. Glover, and that he had not borrowed or ftolen |