Poet trod on air in his way to the house of the Manager. The guests were ushered into a little private room, where Garrick soon saluted them with a profusion of compliments. He said to the Poet, "Sir, I have perused your Tragedy with great attention and pleasure; I assure you, that I have not seen, for years, any new production of which I could entertain such very high expectations. But we will talk of it more at large some early day in next week, for Mrs. Garrick is now expecting us to breakfast with her and a few friends. Here is a gentleman here, Mr. Hayley, who knows you very well, and speaks of you with infinite commendation." He then named a literary acquaintance of the Poet, who instantly said, "Is he with you to-day, Sir? I am sorry for it.”—"Why so?” replied Garrick. "I will tell you very frankly," resumed the Poet; "he is a man of admirable talents and most fascinating manners; but he has some very singular peculiarities of character, and he will be deeply, though, perhaps, not ostensibly, affronted, that I did not engage him, instead of my friend Garnier, to introduce me to Mr. Garrick." 66 No, no!" exclaimed the courtly Manager," he speaks of you in the most af

fectionate terms; but come, my dear Sirs, breakfast is waiting for us." The Poet and his friend were then ushered to Mrs. Garrick, who presided at her tea-table, with three or four very agreeable literati in her party. The conversation was lively and general; a new appointment was made, in private, by the Manager, before Hayley and his friend withdrew, that they should both breakfast with him again on the Tuesday following, and settle all particulars relating to their dramatic business.

After breakfast, on the appointed Tuesday, Mr. Garnier said to their host, " Well, Garrick, let us now proceed to your promise; what day have you fixed for the first rehearsal ?" The Manager assumed a face in which politeness vainly endeavoured to disguise his perplexity; and, with much embarrassment, he said, "Why, faith! I have not been able to fix a day; I have been re-considering the Tragedy: it is most elegantly written, it is a charming composition to recite to a small circle, but I am afraid it is not calculated for stage effect. However, it shall certainly be played if you desire it." "O no! by no means," mildly said the

Poet, with suppressed indignation, at the duplicity of the Manager, "I shall instantly put it into my pocket, and I am very sorry, Sir, that it has given you so much trouble." Garrick

burst again into a profusion of new civilities,

and offers of the future occasion.

kindest good offices on any Mrs. Garrick seemed desirous of soothing the spirit of the Poet by personal flattery; and the first hopes of his Tragedy thus ended in a farce of adulation. It was a bitter disappointment, to lose the fair prospect of seeing a favourite drama well played; but the mortification was felt much more severely by the wife and mother of the Poet, than by himself.

During the hubble-bubble rejection of the Tragedy, by Garrick, the Poet, had felt a little like Ariosto when scolded by his father; and instead of lamenting his own defects, he was struck with the idea, what a fine comic scene he could make of the important personage who was giving him a lecture. Indeed, a disappointed Poet with his deluded and angry friend, and a shuffling Manager and the Manager's meddling wife, afforded ample materials for a comedy. But, although the laughable group struck the

fancy of Hayley, in that point of view, he wrote nothing on the occasion, but employed his vivacity in soothing and cheering the vexed and irritated spirit of his Eliza, whose indignation had been peculiarly excited against Mrs. Garrick, as the Manager had incautiously betrayed what ought to have been a secret; and was weak enough to say, that she (Mrs. G.) thought the Tragedy not pathetic.

TRANSLATORS OF HOMER AND VIRGIL.

HOBBES, in his translation of "Homer," (1684,) treats his readers with the following opening lines of the “Iliad:”

"O Goddess, sing what woe the discontent

Of Thetis' son brought to the Greeks; what souls

Of heroes down to Erebus it sent

Leaving their bodies unto dogs and fowls;
Whilst the two princes of the army strove,
King Agamemnon and Achilles stout.

That so it should be was the will of Jove,

But who was he that made them first fall out?
Apollo ?"

But bad as this is, it is far better than the translation of "Virgil," by the notorious Vicars,

published in 1632. The following lines are a part of the description of the storm in the first book:

"Whiles thus he spake, a whistling northern puff

Whiffs up the waves, gives the sails such a cuff,
As brake their wingy oares, turn'd the fore deck,
And lays the ship's broadside to th' billows' check.
Then follows, flows, a mountainous burst wave,
These, turret-like, on floods tops station haue;
Those twixt two gaping seas seem sunk to ground,
Whom boiling, foamy, frothy floods confound."

Is it to be wondered that Dryden should have thought it necessary to publish his poor translation, when the market was forestalled by such an admirable performance?-The sagacious translator of the old school, we dare say, thought that Virgil could not have written better, or, perhaps, so well, in English, had he been a native: indeed, a friend of Vicars, who signs W. Sq., says expressly, in some commendatory lines, that the version is

"A matchless piece of such exact a frame,
Will envy hush, and criticisin shame.

On then-if Poetry Pythagorize,

Virgil in Vicars' sacred breast survives."