who have conversed with you, are for ever after inviolably yours. This is a truth so generally acknowledged, that it needs no proof: it is of the nature of a first principle, which is received as soon as it is proposed; and needs not the reformation which Descartes used to his; for we doubt not, neither can we properly say,—we think we admire and love you above all other men: there is a certainty in the proposition, and we know it. With the same assurance I can say, you neither have enemies, nor can scarce have any; for they who have never heard of you, can neither love or hate you; and they who have, can have no other notion of you than that which they receive from the publick, that you are the best of men. After this, my testimony can be of no farther use, than to declare it to be daylight at high noon: and all who have the benefit of sight, can look up as well, and see the sun.

It is true, I have one privilege which is almost particular to myself, that I saw you in the East, at your first arising above the hemisphere: I was as soon sensible as any man of that light, when it was but just shooting out, and beginning to travel upwards to the meridian. I made my early addresses to your lordship, in my ESSAY OF DRAMATICK POETRY, and therein bespoke you to the world; wherein I have the right of a first discoverer. When I was myself in the rudiments of my poetry, without name or reputation in the world, having rather the ambition of a writer, than

the skill; when I was drawing the outlines of an art, without any living master to instruct me in it; an art which had been better praised than studied here in England; wherein Shakspeare, who created the stage among us, had rather written happily, than knowingly and justly, and Jonson, who by studying Horace had been acquainted with the rules, yet seemed to envy to posterity that, knowledge, and like an inventor of some useful art, to make a monopoly of his learning; when thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage amongst the moderns, which are extremely different from ours, by reason of their opposite taste; yet even then, I had the presumption to dedicate to your lordship-a very unfinished piece, I must confess, and which only can be excused by the little experience of the author, and the modesty of the title, AN ESSAY. Yet I was stronger in prophecy than I was in criticism: I was inspired to foretell you to mankind, as the restorer of poetry, the greatest genius, the truest judge, and the best patron.

Good sense and good nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good nature, by which I mean beneficence and candour, is the product of right reason; which of necessity will give allowance to the failings of others, by considering that there is nothing

perfect in mankind; and by, distinguishing that which comes nearest to excellency, though not absolutely free from faults, will certainly produce a candour in the judge. It is incident to an elevated understanding, like your lordship's, to find out the errours of other men; but it is your prerogative to pardon them: to look with pleasure on those things which are somewhat congenial, and of a remote kindred to your own conceptions; and to forgive the many failings of those, who, with their wretched art, cannot arrive to those heights that you possess, from a happy, abundant, and native genius: which are as inborn to you, as they were to Shakspeare, and for aught I know, to Homer; in either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural philosophy, without knowing that they ever studied them.

parts of

poetry The most

There is not an English writer this day living, who is not perfectly convinced, that your lordship excels all others in all the several which you have undertaken to adorn. vain, and the most ambitious of our age, have not dared to assume so much as the competitors of Themistocles: they have yielded the first place without dispute; and have been arrogantly content to be esteemed as second to your lordship; and even that also, with a longo, sed proximi intervallo. If there have been, or are any, who go farther in their self-conceit, they must be very singular in their opinion: they must be like the officer, in a play, who was called captain, lieute

nant, and company. The world will easily conclude, whether such unattended generals can ever be capable of making a revolution in Parnassus,

I will not attempt in this place, to say any thing particular of your Lyrick Poems, though they are the delight and wonder of this age, and will be the envy of the next. The subject of this book confines me to satire; and in that, an author of your own quality, whose ashes I will not disturb, has given you all the commendation, which his selfsufficiency could afford to any man: The best good man, with the worst-natured muse. In that character, methinks, I am reading Jonson's Verses to the memory of Shakspeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyrick: where good nature, the most godlike commendation of a man, is only attributed to your person, and denied to your writings; for they are every where so full of candour, that, like Horace, you only expose the follies of men, without arraigning their vices; and in this excel him, that you add that pointedness of thought, which is visibly wanting in our great Roman. There is more of salt in all your verses, than I have seen in any of the moderns, or even of the ancients: but you have been sparing of the gall; by which means you have pleased all readers, and offended none. Donne alone, of all our countrymen, had your talent; but was not happy

6 Lord Rochester, in his imitation of the tenth Satire of the first book of Horace.

enough to arrive at your versification; and were he translated into numbers, and English,' he would yet be wanting in the dignity of expression. That which is the prime virtue, and chief ornament of Virgil, which distinguishes him from the rest of writers, is so conspicuous in your verses, that it casts a shadow on all your contemporaries; we cannot be seen, or but obscurely, while you are present. You equal Donne in the variety, multiplicity, and choice of thoughts; you excel him in the manner, and the words. I read you both, with the same admiration, but not with the same delight. He affects the metaphysicks, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where Nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love. In this (if I may be pardoned for so bold a truth) Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault; so great a one, in my opinion, that it throws his MISTRESS infinitely below his PINDARICKS, and his latter compositions; which are undoubtedly the best of his poems, and the most correct. For my own part, I must avow it freely to the world, that I never attempted any thing in satire, wherein I have not studied your writings, as the most perfect model. I have con

8

This probably suggested to Pope the scheme of modernizing Donne's Satires.

* It should seem from this high eulogy, that several of