I met with the reprefentatives of all these notions drawn up in the fame confused order upon paper. Sage NesTOR, I am, Your most obedient humble fervant, ULYSSES COSMOPOLITA. N. B. I went round the table, but could not find a wit or mathematician among them. I imagine the account here given may be useful in directing to the proper cure of a free-thinker. In the first place, it is plain His understanding wants to be opened and enlarged, and he should be taught the way to order and methodize his ideas; to which end the study of the mathematics may be ufeful. I am farther of opinion, that as his imagination is filled with amusements, arifing from prejudice, and the obfcure or falfe lights in which he fees things, it will be neceflary to bring him into good company, and now and then carrying him to church; by which means he may in time come to a right sense of religion, and wear off the ill impreffions he has received. Laftly, I advife whoever undertakes the reformation of a modern Free-thinker, that above all things he be careful to fubdue his vanity; that being the principal motive which prompts a little genius to distinguish itself by fingularities that are hurtful to mankind. Or, if the paffion of vanity, as it is for the most part very strong in your free-thinkers, cannot be fubdued, let it be won over to the interest of religion, by giving them to underftand, that the greatest genii of the age have a refpect for things facred; that their rhapsodies find no admirers; and that the name Free-thinker has, like Tyrant of old, degenerated from its original fignifi cation, and is now fuppofed to denote fomething contrary to wit and reafon. In fine, let them know, that whatever temptations a few men of parts might formerly have had, from the novelty of the thing, to oppofe the received opinions of Chriftians; yet that now the humour is worn out, and blafphemy and irreligion are diftinctions which have long fince defcended down to lackeys and drawers. But it must be my business to prevent all pretenders in this kind from hurting the ignorant and unwary. In order to this I communicated an intelligence which I received, of a gentleman's appearing very forry that he was not well during a late fit of ficknels; contrary, to his own doctrine, which obliged him to be merry upon that occafion, except he was fure of recovering. Upon this advice to the world, the following advertisement got a place in the Poft-boy. W 7Hereas, in the paper called the Guardian, of Sa turday the 11th of April inftant, a corollary reflection was made on Monfieur Da member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, author of a book lately published, intitled, A philological effay, or Reflexions on the death of Free-thinkers; with the cha racters of the most eminent perfons of both fexes, ancient and modern, that died pleasantly and unconcerned, &c. Sold by J. Baker in Pater nofter-row: Suggesting, as if that gentleman, now in London, was very much out of humour in a late fit of fickness, till he was in a fair way of recovery: This is to affure the public, that the faid. gentleman never expreffed the lealt concern as the approach of death, but expected the fatal minute with a. moft heroical and philofophical refignation; of which a copy of yerfes he writ in the ferene intervals of his dif temper, is an invincible proof, All that I contend for, is, that this gentleman was. out of humour when he was fick and the advertiser, to confute me, fays, that in the ferene intervals of his. diftemper, that is, when he was, not fick, he writ verses. I fhall not retract my advertisement till I fee those verfes; and I'll chufe what to believe then, except they are underwritten by his nurfe; nor then neither, except fhe is an houfekeeper. I mult tie this gentleman clofe to the argument: for if he had not actually his lit upon him, there is nothing couragious in the thing ; nor does it make for his purpose; nor are they heroic verfes The point of being merry at the hour of death, is a matter that ought to be fettled by divines; but the pu blither of the philological effay produces his chief auro rities from Lucretius, the Earl of Rochefter, and Mr John Dryden; who were gentlemen that did not think themfelves obliged to prove all they faid; or else proved their affertions, by faying or fwearing they were all fools that believed to the contrary. If it be abfolutely neceffary that a man fhould be facetious at his death, it.. would be very well if thefe gentlemen, Monfieur D and Mr B, would repent betimes, and not trust to a deathbed-ingenuity. By what has appeared hitherto, they have only raifed our longing to fee their pofthumous works.. The author of Poeta rufticantis literatum otium is but a mere phrafeologift; the philological publifher is but a translator: but I expected better ufage from Mr Abel Roper, who is an original. ********* N° 40. ******** Monday, April 27. Compuleramque greges Corydon & Thyrfis in unum ; Ex illo Corydon, Corydon eft tempora nobis. Virg. Ecl. 7. v. 2. et ult. Their fheep and goats together gras'd the plains- Dryden. Defigned to have troubled the reader with no farther difcourfes of Paftorals: but being informed that I am taxed of partiality, in not mentioning an author whofe eclogues are published in the fame volume with Mr Philips's; I fhall employ this paper in obfervations upon him written in the free fpirit of criticifm, and without apprehenfion of offending that gentleman, whose character it is, that he takes the greatest care of his works before they are published, and has the leaft con• cern for them afterwards. I have laid it down as the first rule of paftoral, That its idea should be taken from the manners of the golden age, and the moral formed upon the reprefentation of innocence; it is therefore plain, that any deviations from that defign degrade a poem from being true palto ral. In this view it will appear, that Virgil can only have two of his eclogues allowed to be fuch. His first and ninth must be rejected, because they defcribe the ravages of armies, and oppreffions of the innocent; Corydon's criminal-paffion for Alexis throws out the fecond; the calumny and railing in the third are not proper to that state of concord; the eighth reprefents unlawful ways of procuring love by inchantments, and introduces a fhepherd, whom an inviting precipice tempts to felf-murder. As to the fourth, fixth, and tenth, they are given up by Heinfius, Salmafius, Rapin, and the critics in general. They likewise observe, that but eleven of all the Idyllia of Theocritus are to be. admitted as pastorals; and even out of that number the greater part will be excluded, for one or other of the reafons abovementioned. So that when I remarked in a former paper, that Virgil's eclogues, taken all together, are rather felect poems than paftorals, I might have faid the fame thing with no less truth of Theocritus. The reason of this I take to be yet unobserved by the critics, viz. they never meant them all for paftorals; which it is plain Philips hath done, and in that particular excelled both Theocritus and Virgil. As fimplicity is the diftinguishing characteristic of paftoral, Virgil has been thought guilty of too courtly a ftyle: his language is perfectly pure, and he often for gets he is among peafants. I have frequently wondered, that, fince he was fo converfant in the writings of Ennius, he had not imitated the rufticity of the Doric, as well by the help of the old obfolete Roman languag as Philips hath by the antiquated English. For exam ple, might he not have faid quoi inftead of cui; quoijam for cujam; volt for vult, &c.: as well as our modern hath wellady for alas; whilome for of old; make mock for deride; and witless younglings for fimple lambs, &c; by which means he had attained as much of the air of Theocritus, as Philips hath of Spenfer. Mr Pope hath fallen into the fame error with Virgil, His clowns do not converfe in all the fimplicity proper to the country: his names are borrowed from Theocritus and Virgil; which are improper to the scene of his * See Rap in de Carm. Past, pars 3. paftorals. He introduces Daphnis, Alexis, and Thyrfis, on British plains; as Virgil hath done before him on the Mantuan: whereas Philips, who hath the strictest regard to propriety, makes choice of names peculiar to the country, and more agreeable to a reader of delicacy; fuch as, Hobbinol, Lobbin, Cuddy, and Colin Clout. So eafy as paftoral writing may feem, in the fimplicity we have defcribed it; yet it requires great reading, both of the ancients and moderns, to be master of it. Philips hath given us manifeft proofs of his knowledge of books. It must be confeffed his competitor hath imitated fome fingle thoughts of the ancients well enough, if we confider he had not the happiness of an university education; but he hath difperfed them here and there, without that order and method which Mr Philips obferves; whofe whole third paftoral is an inftance how weil he hath ftudied the fifth of Virgil, and how judicioufly reduced Virgil's thoughts to the standard of paftoral; as his contention of Colin Clout and the Nightingale fhows with what exactnefs he hath imitated Strada. When I remarked it as a principal fault, to introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth, in defcriptions where the scene lies in our country; I did not defign that obfervation should extend alfo to animals, or the fenfitive life for Philips hath with great judgment de. fcribed wolves in England in his firft paftoral. Nor would I have a poet flavishly confine himself, as Mr Pope hath done, to one particular feafon of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue... It is plain Spenfer neglected this pedan. try; who, in his paftoral of November, mentions the mournful fong of the nightingale.. Sad Philomel her fong in tears doth fleep. And Mr Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most induftrious gardener; his roles, lilies, and daffodiles, blow in the fame feafon. But the better to discover the merits of our two contemporary paftoral writers, I fhall endeavour to draw a parallel of them, by fetting feveral of their paticular |