He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the modest and simple-minded

MR. LEONARD WELSTED,

but at Oxford! a fourth,' that he had no univer- | dramatic poetry, not to mention the French critics, sity education at all. Those who allow him to be I should be very glad to have the benefit of the bred at home, differ as much concerning his tutor: discovery'." one saith, he was kept by his father on purpose; a second', that he was an itinerant priest; a third', that he was a parson; one calleth him a secular clergyman of the church of Rome; ano- Who, out of great respect to our poet, not naming ther, a monk. As little do they agree about his him, doth yet glance at his essay, together with father, whom one' supposeth, like the father of the duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another, a Dryden and of Horace, which he more openly taxhusbandman; another", a hatter, &c. Nor has eth: "As to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, an author been wanting to give our poct such a &c. both in verse and prose, that have been writfather as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to ten by the moderns on this ground-work, they do Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, namely a de- but hackney the same thoughts over again, making mon: for thus Mr. Gildon1o: "Certain it is, that them still more trite. Most of their pieces are his original is not from Adam, but the devil; | nothing but a pert, insipid beap of common-place. and that he wanteth nothing but horns and tail to Horace has, even in his Art of Poetry, thrown out be the exact resemblance of his infernal father." several things which plainly show, he thought an Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opinions, art of poetry was of no use, even while he was and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) writing one." not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall defer writing the life of our poet, till authors can determine among themselves what parents or education he had, or whether he had any education or parents at all.

Proceed we to what is more certain, his works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Essay on Criticism, of which hear first the most ancient of critics,

MR. JOHN DENNIS.

To all which great authorities, we can only oppose that of

MR. ADDISON.

"The Art of Criticism (saith he) which was published some months since, is a master-piece în its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that ease and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the preface to his works that wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criNo less peremptory is the censure of our hyper-ticism, morality, or any art or science, which critical historian

"His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common ;--instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean: instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion." And in another place" What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated Muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sinner, upon account of impotence, and who, being poxed by the former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepid age, which makes her hobble so damnably "."

MR. OLDMIXON.

"I dare not say any thing of the Essay on Criticism in verse; but if any more curious reader has discovered in it something new, which is not in Dryden's prefaces, dedications, and his essay on

Guardian, No. 40.

2 Jacob's Lives, &c. vol. ii. 3 Dunciad dissected, p. 4. Farmer P. and his son. "Dunciad dissected. Characters of the Times, p. 45. Female Dunciad, p. ult. Roome, Paraphrase on

Dunciad dissected. the 4th of Genesis, printed 1729.

turn.

have not been touched upon by others; we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing, and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

"Longinus, in his Reflections, bas given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them: I cannot 10 Character of Mr. P. and his writings in a Let- but take notice that our English author has after ter to a Friend, printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. the same manner exemplified several of the preCurll, in his Key to the Dunciad (first edition said cepts in the very precepts themselves?" He then to be printed for A. Dold) in the 16th page, de-produces some instances of a particular beauty in clared Gildon to be the author of that libel; though the numbers, aud concludes with saying, that in the subsequent editions of his Key he left out this assertion, and affirmed (in the Curliad, p. 2 and 8) that it was written by Dennis only.

11 Reflections critica and satirical on a rhapsody, called, an Essay on Criticism. Printed for Bernard Lintot, octavo.

there are three poems in our tongue of the same

1 Essay on Criticism in prose, octavo, 1728, by the author of the Critical History of England. Preface to his Poems, p. 18, 53. Spectator, No. 255.

3

nature, and each a master-piece in its kind! The | the force of several masterly hands." Indeed the

Essay on Translated Verse; the Esay on the Art
of Poetry; and the Essay on Criticism."
Of Windsor Forest, positive is the judgment of
the affirmative'

MR. JOHN DENNIS,
"That it is a wretched rhapsody, impudently
writ in enulation of the Cooper's Hill of sir John
Denham: the author of it is obscure, is ambiguous,
is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous '."
But the author of the Dispensary2,
DR. GARTH,

in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: "Those who have seen these two excellent poeins of Cooper's Hill and Windsor Forest, the one written by sir John Denham, the other by Mr. Pope, will show a great deal of candour if they approve of this."

same gentleman appears to have changed his sentiments in his Essay on the Art of Sinking in Reputation (printed in Mist's Journal, March 30, 1728), where he says thus: "In order to sink in reputation, let him take it into his head to descend into Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, how the Devil he got there), and pretend to do him into English, so his version denote his neglect of the manner how." Strange variation! We are told in

MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8,

"That this translation of the Iliad was not in all respects conformable to the fine taste of his friend Mr. Addison; insomuch that he employed a younger Muse in an undertaking of this kind, which he supervised himself." Whether Mr. Addison did find it conformable to his taste, or not, best appears from his own testimony the year fol

Of the Epistle to Eloisa, we are told by the obscure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That be-lowing its publication, in these words: cause Prior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest tastes, our author writ his Eloisa in opposition to it; but forgot innocence and virtue: if you take away her tender thoughts, and her fierce desires, all the rest is of no value." In which, methinks, his judgment resembleth that of a French taylor on a villa and gardens by the Thames: "All this is very fine; but take away the river, and it is good for nothing."

But very contrary hereunto was the opinion of

MR. PRIOR

himself, saying in his Alma,'

O Abelard! ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song:

Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd,
With kind concern and skill has weav'd
A silken web; and ne'er shall fade
Its colours: gently has he laid
The mantle o'er thy sad distress,
And Venus shall the texture bless, &c.

MR. ADDISON'S FREEHOLDER, NO. 40. "When I consider myself as a British freeholder, I am in a particular manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language with the translations of old Greek and Latin authors.-We have already most of their historians in our own tongue, and, what is more for the honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our own countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil of the most perfect epic performance. And those parts of Homer which have been published already by Mr. Pope, give us reason to think that the Iliad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem."

As to the rest there is a slight mistake, for this younger Muse was an elder: nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by Mr. Addison to translate it after him, since he saith himself that he did it before'. Contrariwise, that Mr. Addison engaged our author in this work apce-peareth by declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad, printed some time before his death, and by his own letters of October 26, and November 2, 1713, where he declares it is his opinion that no other person was equal to it.

Come we now to his translation of the Iliad, lebrated by numerous pens, yet shall it suffice to mention the indefatigable

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE, KNT.
Who (though otherwise a severe censurer of our
author) yet styleth this a "laudable translation "."
That ready writer

MR. OLDMIXON,

Next comes his Shakespeare on the stage: "Let him (quoth one, whom I take to be

MR. THEOBALD, MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,)

in his forementioned Essay, frequently commends publish such an author as he has least studied, the same. And the painful

MR. LEWIS THEOBALD

thus extols it", "The spirit of Homer breathes all through this translation.-I am in doubt, whether I should most admire the justness to the original, or the force and beauty of the language, or the sounding variety of the numbers: but when I find all these meet, it puts me in mind of what the poet says of one of his heroes, that he alone raised and flung with ease a weighty stone, that two common men could not lift from the ground; just so, one single person has performed in this translation, what 1 once despair'd to have seen done by

1 Letter to B. B. at the Pope's Homer, 1717.

Alma, Cant. 2.

end of the Remarks on
2 Printed 1728, p. 12.

In his Essays, vol. i. printed for E. Curll.
Censor, vol. ii. n. 33.

and forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let him lend the bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit of an exorbitant subscription." Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same Journalist of June 8. "The bookseller proposed the book by subscription, and raised some thousand of pounds for the same: I believe the gentleman did not share in the profits of this extravagant subscription."

"After the Iliad, he undertook (saith MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728,) the sequel of that work, the Odyssey; and having secured the success by a numerous subscription,

Vid. pref. to Mr. Tickell's translation of the first book of the Iliad, 4to.

• he employed some underlings to perform what, | morality), to wit, plagiarism, from the inventive according to his proposals, should come from his and quaint-conceited own hands." To which heavy charge we can in truth oppose nothing but the words of

MR. POPE'S PROPOSAL FOR THE ODYYSSEY (PRINTED
BY J. WATTS, JAN. 10, 1724.)

JAMES-MOORE, SMITH, GENT.

Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Miscellanies, I found five lines which I-thought excellent; and happening to praise them, a gentleman produced a modern comedy (the Rival Modes) published last year, where were the same verses to a tittle.

"These gentlemen are undoubtedly the first plagiaries, that pretend to make a reputation by stealing from a man's works in his own life-time, and out of a public print '." Let us join to this what is written by the author of the Rival Modes, the said Mr. James-Moore Smith, in a letter to our author himself, who had informed him a

"I take this occasion to declare that the subscription for Shakespeare belongs wholly to Mr. Ton- | son: and that the benefit of this proposal is not solely for my own use, but for that of two of my friends, who have assisted me in this work." But these very gentlemen are extolled above our poet himself in another of Mist's Journals, March 30, 1728, saying, "That he would not advise Mr. Pope to try the experiment again of getting a great part of a book done by assistants, lest those extraneous parts should unhappily ascend to the sub-month before that play was acted, Jan. 27, 1726-7, lime, and retard the declension of the whole." Behold! these underlings are become good

writers!

that "These verses, which he had before given him leave to insert in it, would be known for his, some copies being got abroad. He desires, neverIf any say, that before the said proposals were theless, that since the lines had been read in his printed, the subscription was begun without de- comedy to several, Mr. P. would not deprive it claration of such assistance; verily those who set of them," &c. Surely, if we add the testimoit on foot, or (as the term is) secured it, to wit,nies of the lord Bolingbroke, of the lady to whom the right honourable the lord viscount Harcourt, the said verses were originally addressed, of Hugh were he living, would testify, and the right ho- Bethel, Esq. and others, who knew them as our nourable the lord Bathurst, now living, doth tes-author's, long before the said gentleman composed tify, the same is a falsehood. his play; it is hoped, the ingenuous, that affect not errour, will rectify their opinion by the suffrage of so honourable personages,

Sorry I am, that persons professing to be learned, or of whatever rank of authors, should either falsely tax, or be falsely taxed, Yet let us, who are only reporters, be impartial in our citations, and proceed.

MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728. "Mr. Addison raised this author from obscurity, obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his powerful interests with those great men to this rising bard, who frequently levied by that means. unusual contributions on the public," Which surely cannot be, if, as the author of the Dunciad Dissected reporteth, Mr. Wycherley had before introduced him into a familiar acquaintance with the greatest peers and brightest wits then living."

And yet followeth another charge, insinuating no less than his enmity both to church and state, which could come from no other informer than the said

MR. JAMES-MOORE SMITH.

"The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk was a very dull and unjust abuse of a person who wrote in defence of our religion and constitution, and who has been dead many years." This seemeth also most untrue; it being known to divers that these Memoirs were written at the seat of the lord Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before that excellent person (bishop Burnett's) death, and many years before the appearance of that history, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is, that "No sooner (saith the same journalist) was his Mr. Moore had such a design, and was himself the body lifeless, but this author, reviving his resent- man who prest Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to ment, libelled the memory of his departed friend; assist him therein; and that he borrowed those and what was still more heinous, made the scan- memoirs of our author, when that history came dal public." Grievous the accusation! unknown forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse. the accuser! the person accused, no witness in his But being able to obtain from our author but ona own cause; the person, in whose regard accused, single hint, and either changing his mind, or havdead! But if there be living any one nobleman ing more mind than ability, he contented himself whose friendship, yea any one gentleman whose to keep the said memoirs, and read them as his subscription, Mr. Addison procured to our author, own to all his acquaintance, A noble person there. let him stand forth, that truth may appear! is, into whose company Mr. Pope once chanced Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica to introduce him, who well remembereth the converitas. In verity, the whole story of the libel is versation of Mr. Moore to have turned upon the a lie; witness those persons of integrity, who, se- contempt he had for the work of that reverend veral years before Mr. Addison's decease, did see prelate, and how full he was of a design he deand approve of the said verses, in no wise a libel,clared himself to have of exposing it." This nobut a friendly rebuke sent privately in our author's ble person is the earl of Peterborough. own hand to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public, till after their own journals, and Curll had printed the same. One name alone, which I am here authorised to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the right honourable the earl of Burlington.

Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in

66

Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the foresaid right honourable and worthy personages, for having mentioned them in the same page with such weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers; but that we had their ever-honour'd commands for the

Daily Journal, March 18, 1728.
Daily Journal, April 3, 1728.

wishing some check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task so worthy of his virtue:

Why slumbers Pope, who leads the Muses' train,

Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain?

To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk, of Suffolk,