ABOUT this time, when he was * fifteen years old, he began to write his ALCANDER, an epic poem, of which he himself speaks with so much amiable frankness and ingenuity, in a paffage restored to the excellent preface before his works. "I confefs there was a time when I was in love with myself, and my firft productions were the children of felf-love upon innocence. I had made an epic poem, and panegyrics on all the princes of Europe, and I thought myself the greatest genius that ever was. I cannot but regret these delightful vifions of my childhood, which, like the fine colours we fee when our eyes are fhut, are vanished for ever." Atterbury had perufed this early piece, and we may gather from one of his letters, advised him to burn it; though he adds, "I would have interceded for the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my curiofities." I have been credibly informed, that some of the anonymous verses, quoted as examples of the *Nec placet ante annos vates puer: omnia jufto Vida Poet. 1. 1. Art Art of Sinking in Poetry, in the incomparable fatire fo called, were fuch as our poet remembered from his own ALCANDER. So fenfible of its own errors and imperfections is a mind truly great. QUINTILIAN, whofe knowledge of human nature was confummate, has observed, that nothing quite correct and faultlefs, is to be expected in very early years, from a truly elevated genius: that a generous extravagance and exuberance are its proper marks, and that a premature exactness is a certain evidence of future flatness and fterility. His words are incomparable, and worthy confideration. * "Audeat hæc ætas plura, et INVENIAT, et inventis gaudeat, fint licet illa non fatis interim ficca et fevera. Facile remedium eft ubertatis, fterilia nullo labore vincuntur. Illa mihi in pueris natura nimium fpei dabit, in quâ INGENIUM judicio præfumitur. Materiam effe primum volo vel abundantiorem, atque ultra quam oportet fufam. * Lib. 2. Inftit. Cap. 4. ad init. M Multum Multum inde decoquent anni, multum ratio limabit, aliquid velut ufu ipfo deteretur, fit modo unde excidi poffit et quod exculpi: erit autem, fi non ab initio tenuem laminam duxerimus, et quam cælatura altior rumpat.Quare mihi ne maturitas quidem ipsa festinet, nec musta in lacu ftatim auftera fint; fic et annos ferent, et vetuftate proficient." This is very strong and mafculine fenfe, expreffed and enlivened by a train of metaphors, all of them elegant, and well preserved. Whether these early productions of POPE, would not have appeared to Quintilian to be rather too finished, correct, and pure, and what he would have inferred concerning them, is too delicate a fubject for me to enlarge upon. Let me rather add an entertaining anecdote. When Guido and Domenichino had each of them painted a picture in the church of Saint Andrew, Annibal Carrache, their master, was preffed to declare, which of his two pupils had excelled. The picture of Guido reprefented Saint Andrew on his knees before the cross; that of Domenichino represented the the flagellation of the fame apoftle. Both of them in their different kinds were capital pieces, and were painted in fresco, oppofite each other, to eternize, as it were, their rivalship and contention. Guido, said Carrache, has performed as a mafter, and Domenichino as a scholar. But, added he, the work of the fcholar is more valuable than that of the master. In truth, one may perceive faults in the picture of Domenichino that Guido has avoided; but then there are noble ftrokes, not to be found in that of his rival. It was easy to discern a genius that promised to produce beauties, to which the sweet, the gentle, and the graceful Guido would never afpire. THE laft piece that belongs to this section, is the ODE entitled, THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL, written in imitation of the well known fonnet of Hadrian, addreffed to his departing fpirit; concerning which it was our author's judicious opinion, that the diminutive epithets with which it abounds, fuch as Vagula, Blandula, were by no means expreffions M 2 preffions of levity and indifference, but rather of endearment, of tenderness and concern. This ode was written we find at the defire of Steele; and our poet in a letter to him on that occafion, fays- "You have it, as Cowley calls it, juft warm from the brain; it came to me the first moment I waked this morning; yet you'll fee, it was not so abfolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head, not only the verfes of Hadrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho.”* It is poffible however, that our author might have had another compofition in his head, befides those he here refers to; for there is a close and surprising resemblance between this ode of POPE, and one of an obfcure and forgotten rhymer of the age of Charles the fecond, namely Thomas Flatman; from whofe dunghill, as well as from the *In Longinus, fect. 10. quoted by him, as a model of that Sublime which combines together many various and oppofite paflions and fenfations,” Ινα μη ἓν τι παθος φαινῆκαι, παθων δὲ ΣΥΝΟΔΟΣ.” See THE ADVENTURER, Vol. 2. II. ed. p. 230. dregs |