nature, than impairs her. What has been, may be again: another Homer, and another Virgil, may posfibly arise from those very causes which produced the first: though it would be imprudence to affirm that any fuch have appeared.

It is manifeft, that some particular ages have been more happy than others in the production of great men, in all forts of arts and sciences; as that of Euripides, Sophocles, Ariftophanes, and the reft for Stage Poetry amongst the Greeks: that of Auguftus for Heroic, Lyric, Dramatic, Elegiac, and indeed all forts of Poetry in the persons of Virgil, Horace, Varius, Ovid, and many others; especially if we take into that century the latter end of the commonwealth; wherein we find Varro, Lucretius, and Catullus: and at the fame time lived Cicero, Saluft, and Cæfar. A famous age in modern times, for learning in every kind, was that of Lorenzo de Medici, and his fon Leo X. wherein Painting was revived, and Poetry flourished, and the Greek language was restored.

Examples in all these are obvious: but what I would infer is this; That, in fuch an age, it is poffible fome great genius may arife, equal to any of the ancients; abating only for the language. For great contemporaries whet and cultivate each other: and mutual borrowing and commerce makes the common riches of learning, as it does of the civil government.

But fuppofe that Homer and Virgil were the only of their fpecies, and that Nature was so much worn out in producing them, that she is never able to bear

the like again; yet, the example only holds in Heroic Poetry: in Tragedy and Satyr, I offer myself to maintain against fome of our modern critics, that this age and the daft, particularly in England, have excelled the ancients in both those kinds; and, I would inftance in Shakespeare of the former, of your Lordship in the latter fort.

Thus I might fafely confine myself to my native country; but, if I would only crofs the feas, I might find in France a living Horace and a Juvenal, in the perfon of the admirable Boileau; whofe numbers are .excellent, whofe expreffions are noble, whofe thoughts are juft, whofe language is pure, whofe fatyr is pointed, and whofe fenfe is clofe: what he borrows from the ancients, he repays with ufury of his own, in coin as good, and almoft as univerfally valuable: for, fetting prejudice and partiality apart, though he is our enemy, the stamp of Louis, the patron of all arts, is not much inferior to the medal of an Auguftus Cæfar. Let this be faid without entering into the interest of factions and parties, and relating only to the bounty of that king to men of learning and merit: a praise so just, that even we, who are his enemies, cannot refuse it to him.

Now if it be permitted me to go back again to the confideration of Epique Poetry, I have confeffed, that no man hitherto has reached, or so much as approached to, the excellencies of Homer, or of Virgil; I must further add, that Statius, the best versificator next Virgil, knew not how to defign after him, though

be

he had the model in his eye; that Lucan is wanting both in defign and subject, and is, besides, top full of heat and affectation; that, among the moderns, Ariofto neither defigned justly, nor obferved any unity of action, or compass of time, or moderation in the vastness of his draught: his style is luxurious, without majesty or decency; and his adventures, without the compafs of nature and poffibility: Taffo, whose defign was regular, and who observed the rules of uni ty in time and place more closely than Virgil, yet was not fo happy in his action; he confeffes himself to have been too lyrical; that is, to have written beneath the dignity of Heroic Verfe, in his Epifodes of Sophronia, Erminia, and Armida; his story is not fo pleafing as Ariofto's; he is too flatulent sometimes, and sometimes too dry; many times unequal, and almost always forced; and befides, is full of conception, points of Epigram and witticism; all which are not only below the dignity of Heroic Verfe, but contrary to its nature: Virgil and Homer have not one of them. And thofe who are guilty of fo boyish an ambition in fo grave a fubject, are fo far from being confidered as Heroic Poets, that they ought to be turned down from Homer to the Anthologia, from Virgil to Martial and Owen's Epigrams, and from Spenfer to Flecnoe; that is, from the top to the bottom of all Poetry. But to return to Taffo: he borrows from the invention of Boyardo, and in his alteration of his Poem, which is infinitely the worfe, imitates Homer fo very fervilely, that (for example) he gives the king of Jerufalem.

fifty fons, only, because Homer had beftowed the like number on king Priam; he kills the youngest in the fame manner, and has provided his hero with a Patroclus, under another name, only to bring him back to the wars, when his friend was killed. The French have performed nothing in this kind, which is not as below those two Italians, and fubject to a thousand more reflections, without examining their St. Lewis, their Pucelle, or their Alarique: the English have only to boast of Spenfer and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning, to have been perfect Poets; and yet, both of them are liable to many cenfures. For there is no uniformity in the design of Spenfer he aims at the accomplishment of no one action: he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures; and endows each of them with fome particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without fubordination or performance. Every one is moft valiant in his own legend; only we must do them that justice to observe, that magnanimity, which is the character of prince Arthur, fhines throughout the whole Poem; and fuccours the rest, when they are in distress. The original of every knight was then living in the court of queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them, that virtue which he thought moft confpicuous in them: an ingenious piece of flattery, though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his Poem, in the fix remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But

prince

prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana dying before him, deprived the Poet both of means and fpirit, to accomplish his defign: for the reft, his obfolete language, and the ill choice of his stanza, are faults but of the second magnitude: for, notwithstanding the first, he is still intelligible, at least after a little practice; and for the last, he is the more to be admired, that, labouring under fuch a difficulty, his verses are fo numerous, fo various, and harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he profeffedly imitated, has furpaffed him, among the Romans; and.only Mr. Waller among the English..

As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with fo much justice, his fubject is not that of an Heroic Poem, properly fo called. His defign is the lofing of our happiness: his event is not profperous, like that of all other Epic works: his heavenly machines are many, and human perfons are but two. But I will not take Mr. Rymer's work out of his hands.: he has promifed the world a Critique on that author; wherein, though he will not allow his Poem for Heroic, I hope. he will grant us, that his thoughts are elevated, his words founding, and that no man has fo happily copied the manner of Homer, or fo copiously tranflated his. Græcifms, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil. It is true, he runs into a flat thought, fometimes for a hundred lines together, but it is when he is got into a track of fcripture: his antiquated words were hischoice, not his neceffity; for therein he imitated Spen-