pleasure, and with some profit, those two fathers of our English poetry; but had not seriously enough considered those beauties which give the last perfection to their works. Some sprinklings of this kind I had also formerly in my plays; but they were casual, and not designed. But this hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley; there I found, instead of them, the points of wit, and quirks of epigram, even in the DAVIDEIS, a heroick poem, which is of an opposite nature to those puerilities; but no elegant turns, either on the word or on the thought. Then I consulted a greater genius, (without offence to the manes of that noble author,) I mean-Milton; but as he endeavours every where to express Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true sublimity, lofty thoughts, which were clothed with admirable Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spencer, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked.* At last I

* It is extraordinary that Dryden should have overlooked the speech of Eve, in the fourth book of Paradise LOST:

"With thee conversing, I forget all time,

"All seasons, and their change; all please alike:

had recourse to his master, Spencer, the author of that immortal poem called the FAIRY QUEEN

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, "With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun, "When first on this delightful land he spreads "His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glist'ring with dew: fragrant the fertile earth "After soft show'rs, and sweet the coming on "Of grateful evening mild: then, silent night "With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, "And these the gems of heaven, her starry train: "But neither breath of morn, when she ascends "With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun "On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, "Glist'ring with dew; nor fragrance after show'rs; "Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night, "With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon: "Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."

On these beautiful lines a high encomium has been bestowed in THE TATLER, No. 114, folio, (written by Addison and Steele in conjunction) in which it is observed that "several other passages in Milton, have as excellent turns of this nature, as any of our English poets whatsoever.”—In the subsequent paper, among some singular ERRATA, (such as, for says justly, r. expresses himself thus,) for which the printer is made answerable, the reader is desired to insert the following paragraph, after the lines above quoted, from Milton:

"The variety of images in this passage is infinitely pleasing, and the recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the expression, makes one of the finest turns of words that I have ever seen; which, I rather mention, because Mr. Dryden has said in his Preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with no turn of words in Milton."

and there I met with that which I had been looking for so long in vain. Spencer had studied Virgil to as much advantage, as Milton had done Homer; and amongst the rest of his excellencies had copied that. Looking farther, into the Italian, I found Tasso had done the same; nay more, that all the sonnets in that language are on the turn of the first thought; which Mr. Walsh, in his late ingenious preface to his poems, has observed. In short, Virgil and Ovid are the two principal fountains of them in Latin poetry. And the French at this day are so fond of them, that they judge them to be the first beauties: delicate, et bien tourné, are the highest commendations which they bestow on somewhat which they think a masterpiece.

An example of the turn of words, amongst a thousand others, is that, in the last book of Ovid's METAMORPHOSES:

Heu! quantum scelus est, in viscera, viscera condi!
Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus ;
Alteriusque animantem animantis vivere leto.

An example on the turn both of thoughts and words, is to be found in Catullus, in the complaint of Ariadne, when she was left by Theseus :

Tum jam nulla viro juranti fæmina credat ;
Nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles;
Qui, dum aliquid cupiens animus prægestit apisci,
Nil metuunt jurare, nihil promittere parcunt :
Sed simul ac cupidæ mentis satiata libido est,
Dicta nihil metuere, nihil perjuria curant.3

3 In faithless man let maid ne'er more believe,
Whose vows are utter'd only to deceive ;

An extraordinary turn upon the words, is that in Ovid's EPISTOLÆ HEROIDUM, of Sappho to Phaon:

Si, nisi quæ formâ poterit te digna videri,

Nulla futura tua est, nulla futura tua est.

Lastly, a turn, which I cannot say is absolutely on words, for the thought turns with them, is in the fourth Georgick of Virgil; where Orpheus is to receive his wife from Hell, on express condition not to look on her, till she was come on earth :

Cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem;
Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes.

I will not burthen your lordship with more of them; for I write to a master, who understands them better than myself. But I may safely conclude them to be great beauties.--I might descend also to the mechanick beauties of heroick verse; but we have yet no English Prosodia, not so much as a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; so that our language is in a manner barbarous; and what government will encourage any one, or more, who

In falsehood knowing, practised in disguise,
From truth averse, and disciplin'd in lies:
Who, when inflamed by love's licentious fire,
Eager to gratify their loose desire,

Nor vow, nor oath, nor protestation spare,
Nor scruple aught to promise, or to swear;

But, perjured race! when once they gain their suit,
Of various artifice the dear-bought fruit,

Meanly deny the vows they made before,
Nor heed those promises to which they swore.

are capable of refining it, I know not: but nothing under a publick expence can go through with it. And I rather fear a declination of the language, than hope an advancement of it in the present

age.

I am still speaking to you, my lord; though in all probability, you are already out of hearing. Nothing which my meanness can produce, is worthy of this long attention. But I am come to the last petition of Abraham; if there be ten righteous lines in this vast preface, spare it for their sake; and also spare the next city, because it is but a little one.

4

I would excuse the performance of this translation, if it were all my own; but the better, though not the greater, part being the work of some gentlemen, who have succeeded very happily in their undertaking, let their excellencies atone for my imperfections, and those of my sons. I have perused some of the Satires, which are done by other hands; and they seem to me as perfect in their kind, as any thing I have seen in English verse.' The common way which we have taken,

4 The first, third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires, were translated by our author; the seventh by his eldest son, Charles; the fourteenth by the younger, John; the eleventh by Congreve, and the thirteenth by Creech. His other coadjutors were, Nahum Tate, (who translated the second and fifteenth satires,) Richard Duke, William Bowles, George Stepney, Stephen Hervey, and Thomas Power.

5" The general character of this translation" (says Dr. Johnson) "will be given, when it is said to preserve the