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for giving to Europe the firft regular epic poem, and for firft daring to throw off the bondage of rhyme, published at Vicenza, in the year 1529, DELLA POETICA, divifioni quattro, feveral years before his Italia Liberata. We have of Fracaftorius, NAUGERIUS, five de Poetica dialogus, Venetiis, 1555. Minturnus, DE POETA, libri fex, appeared at Venice, 1559. Bernardo Taffo, the father of Torquato, and author of an epic poem entitled L'Amadigi, wrote RAGIONAMENTO della Poefia, printed at Venice, 1562. And to pay the highest honour to criticism, the great Torquato Taffo himself wrote DISCORSI del Poema Eroico, printed at Venice, 1587. These discourses are full of learning and taste. But I must not omit a curious anecdote, which Menage has given us in his AntiBaillet; namely, that Sperone claimed thefe difcourfes as his own: for he thus fpeaks of them in one of his letters to Felice Paciotto; "Laudo voi infinitamente di voler fcrivere della poetica; della quale interrogato molto

* Tom. i. pag. 353.

fiate dal Taffo*, e rifpondendogli io liberamente, fi come foglio, egli n'a fatto un volume, e mandato al Signior Scipio Gonzaga per cofa fua, e non mea: ma io ne chiarirò

il mondo."

48. And BOILEAU ftill in right of Horace fways t

MAY I be pardoned for declaring it as my opinion, that Boileau's is the best ‡ Art of Poetry extant? The brevity of his precepts, enlivened by proper imagery, the justness of his metaphors, the harmony of his numbers, as far as alexandrine lines will admit, the exactness of his method, the perfpicacity of his remarks, and the energy of his style, all duly confidered, may render this opinion not unreasonable. It is fcarcely to be conceived, how much is comprehended in four short cantos §. He that has well digefted these,

It may be remarked, as an instance of Taffo's JUDGEMENT, that he himself did not approve the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, fo commonly cenfured.

+ Ver. 715.

It was tranflated into Portugueze verfe, by Count d'Ericeyra.

It is remarkable, Boileau declared he had never read Vida.

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cannot be faid to be ignorant of any important The tale of the physician

rule of poetry.

turning architect, in the fourth canto, is told with vast pleasantry. It is to this work

Boileau owes his immortality: which was of the highest utility to his nation, in diffufing a just way of thinking and writing, banishing every species of false wit, and introducing a general tafte for the manly fimplicity of the ancients, on whofe writings this poet had formed his tafte. Boileau's chief talent was the DIDACTIC. His fancy was not the predominant faculty of his mind. Fontenelle has thus characterised him. " Il etoit grand et excellent verfificateur, pourvû cependant que cette louange fe renferme dans fes beaux jours, dont la difference avec les autres eft bien marquée, et faifoit fouvent dire Helas! et Hola! mais il n'etoit pas grand poete, si l'entend per ce mot, comme on le doit, celui qui FAIT, qui INVENTE, qui CREE *.”

49. Such was the muse, whose rules and practice tell,

"Nature's chief mafter-piece is writing well t.'

* Œuvres de Fontenelle. Tom. iii. pag. 376. à Paris, 1752. + Ver. 724.

THIS high panegyric procured to POPE the acquaintance, and afterwards, the constant friendship, of the duke of Buckingham: who, in his ESSAY here alluded to, has followed the method of Boileau, in difcourfing on the various fpecies of poetry, to no other purpose than to manifest his own inferiority. The piece is, indeed, of the fatyric, rather than of the preceptive, kind. The coldness and neglect with which this writer, formed only on the French critics, fpeaks of Milton, must be confidered as proofs of his want of critical discernment, or of critical courage. I can recollect no performance of Buckingham, that stamps him a true genius. His reputation was owing to his rank. In reading his poems, one is apt to exclaim with our author,

What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer or me?
But let a LORD ONCE OWN the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the ftyle refines!
Before his facred name flies every fault,

And each exalted ftanza teems with thought.

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THE best part of Buckingham's ESSAY is that, in which he gives a ludicrous account of the plan of modern tragedy. I should add, that his compliment to POPE, prefixed to his poems, contains a pleafing picture of the fedateness and retirement proper to age, after the tumults of public life; and by it's moral turn, breathes the spirit, if not of a poet, yet of an amiable old Man.

50. Such was ROSCOMMON *.

AN ESSAY on Tranflated Verfe feems at first fight to be a barren fubject; yet Rofcommon has decorated it with many precepts of utility and tafte, and enlivened it with a tale, in imitation of Boileau. It is indifputably better written than the laft-mentioned ESSAY. Rofcommon was more learned than Buckingham. He was bred under Bochart at Caen in Normandy. He had laid a defign of forming a fociety for the refining, and fixing the standard of, our language: in which project, his intimate friend Dryden was a

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