the ancients, which this poet hath turned into French with fo much addrefs, and which he hath happily made fo homogeneous, and of a piece with the rest of the work, that every thing feems to have been conceived in a continued train of thought, by the very fame person, confer as much honour on M. Defpreaux, as the verses which are purely his own. The original turn which he gives to his tranfflations, the boldness of his expreffions, fo little forced and unnatural, that they seem to be born, as it were, with his thoughts, display almost as much invention, as the first production of a thought entirely new. This induced La Bruyere to fay, " que Defpreaux paroiffoit creer les penfees * Il y a du merite a faire un pareil larcin parcequ' 'on ne sçauroit le faire bien fans peine, et fans avoir du moins le talent de l'expreffion. Il faut autant d'industrie pour y reüffir qu' il en falloit a Lacedemone, pour fair un larcin en galand homme. Ces penfees tranfplantées d'une langue dans un autre ne peuvent reüffir que entre les mains de ceux qui du moins ont le don de l'invention des termes. Ainfi lorfqu' elles reüffiffent, la moitie de leur beauté appartient a celuy qui les a remises en oeuvre. Du Bos, Reflexions critiques. Section viii. vol. 2. d'autruy." " d'autruy." Both he and POPE might * have answered their accusers, in the words with which Virgil is faid to have replied, to those who accufed him of borrowing all that was valuable in his Æneid from Homer "CUR NON ILLI QUOQUE EADEM FURTA TENTARENT? VERUM INTELLECTUROS, FACILIUS ESSE HERCULI CLAVUM, QUAM HOMERO VERSUM, SURRIPERE." ; *The Jefuits that wrote the journals of Trevoux ftrongly object plagiarism to Boileau. Donat. In Vit. Virgil. SECT. SECT. III. Of the ESSAY on Criticifm.. WE E are now arrived at a poem of that fpecies, for which our author's genius was particularly turned, the DIDACTIC and the MORAL; it is therefore, as might be expected, a mafter-piece in its kind. I have been sometimes inclined to think, that the praises Addison has bestowed on it, were a little partial and invidious. "The obferva"tions, fays he, follow one another, like "those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without "that methodical regularity which would "have been requifite in a profe writer*." It is however certain, that the poem before us is by no means destitute of a just integrity, and a lucid order: each of the precepts and remarks naturally introduce the fucceeding ones, fo as to form an entire whole. The ingenious Mr. Hurd, hath also usefully shewn, * Spectator, No. 253. that that Horace obferved a ftrict method, and unity of defign, in his epistle to the Pifones, and that altho' the connexions are delicately fine and almoft imperceptible, like the fecret hinges of a well-wrought box, yet they artfully and closely unite each part together, and give coherence, uniformity, and beauty to the work. The Spectator adds; “ The "obfervations in this effay are fome of them uncommon;" there is, I fear, a small mixture of ill-nature in these words; for this ESSAY, tho' on a beaten subject, abounds in many new remarks, and original rules, as well as in many happy and beautiful illuftrations, and applications, of the old ones. We are indeed amazed to find fuch a knowledge of the world, fuch a maturity of judgment, and fuch a penetration into human nature, as are here displayed, in so very young a writer as was POPE, when he produced this ESSAY; for he was not twenty years old. Correctnefs and a juft tafte, are usually not attained. but by long practice and experience in any art; but a clear head, and strong sense were the the characteristical qualities of our author; and every man foonest displays his radical excellencies. If his predominant talent be warmth and vigor of imagination, it will break out in fanciful and luxuriant descriptions, the colouring of which will perhaps be too rich and glowing. If his chief force lies in the understanding rather than in the imagination, it will foon appear by folid and manly obfervations on life or learning, expreffed in a more chaft and fubdued style. The former will frequently be hurried into obscurity or turgidity, and a false grandeur of diction; the latter will feldom hazard a figure, whofe ufage is not already established, or an image beyond common life; will always be perfpicuous if not elevated; will never difguft, if not transport, his readers; will avoid the groffer faults, if not arrive at the greater beauties of compofition; The " eloquentiæ genus," for which he will be diftinguished, will not be the " plenum et erectum, et audax, et præcelfum," but the << preffum, et mite, |