that want of sustained finish already adverted to as one of the characteristics of the French poem; an inequality, however, which has rendered it peculiarly fitted for the process it is about to undergo in this paper, that of separating its gems from the mass of inferior matter in which they are imbedded.

On the merits of the original work of De Lille, which has been naturalised in almost every European language, it would be superfluous, in the present day, to enter into any critical disquisition; but it may be remarked, that "Les Jardins," form a poem which both in manner and matter is built upon a literature and taste almost exclusively extrinsic to the country of its birth; and that whilst its author, with a singular freedom from national prejucice, adopted as his best and purest models the first poets of Britain, he has furnished at the same time, not only the most striking and successful instance of an almost complete emancipation from the pompous frigidity and declamatory affectation, which have so generally debased the poetry of his countrymen, but he has shown also, and in a way so fascinating as to have disarmed all envy

and struck dumb the malevolence of criticism, of what unaffected tenderness and comparative simplicity, of what stores of natural painting and unsophisticated feeling, it might easily and efficiently be rendered the vehicle. Indeed no man appears to have come to the task with talents more fitted to ensure success, or with a higher estimate of what should be achieved, in this department of the art, than De Lille. In his preface, when speaking of the two kinds of interest of which poetry is susceptible, that of the subject and that of the composition, he justly observes, that as the didactic branch, is incapable of exhibiting either the intricacies of fable or the excitement of the stronger passions, it must rest its attractions in a great measure, if not altogether, on this latter species of interest. "Il faut donc suppléer cet intérêt," he proceeds,

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par les détails les plus soignés, et par les agrémens du style le plus brillant et le plus pur. C'est la qu'il faut que la justesse des idées, la vivacité du coloris, l'abondance des images, le charme de la variété, l'adresse des contrastes, une harmonie enchanteresse, une élégance soutenue, attachent et réveillent continuellement

le lecteur. Mais ce mérite demande l'organisation la plus heureuse, le goût le plus exquis, le travail le plus opiniâtre. Aussi les chefsd'œuvres en ce genre sont ils rares. L'Europe compte deux cents bonnes tragedies: les Géorgiques et le poëme de Lucrèce, chez les anciens, sont les seuls monumens du second genre ; et tandis que les tragédies d'Ennius, de Pacuvius, la Médée même d'Ovide, ont péri, l'antiquité nous a transmis ces deux poëmes, et il semble que le génie de Rome, ait encore veillé sur sa gloire en nous conservant ces chefs-d'œuvres. Parmi les modernes nous ne connoissons guère que les deux poëmes des Saisons, Anglois et François, l'Art Poétique de Boileau, et l'admirable Essai sur l'Homme de Pope, qui aient obtenu et conservé une place distinguée parmi les ouvrages de ce genre de poésie." *

It is to be regretted that when this preface was written, the Abbé should have forgotten to enumerate among the distinguished didactic poems of the moderns, the "English Garden" of his contemporary Mason; which had been now completed, and in extensive circulation for nearly * Les Jardins. Preface, pp. xi. xii.

he says,

twenty years. He has, indeed, in the opening of the additional matter which he has given us to the advertisement prefixed to the early editions of his work, adverted to this beautiful poem; for, it appears, that he had been charged, especially in this country, with having been too largely indebted to it. "Quelques littérateurs Anglois," ❝ont cru que j'avois pris l'idée, et plusieurs détails de ce poëme dans celui qu'a composé sur la meme sujet, Mr. Mason, digne ami de Mr. Gray. C'est avec plaisir que je rends justice à quantité de beaux vers qui distinguent cet ouvrage; mais je déclare que longtems avant d'avoir lu le poëme de Mr. Mason j'avois composé le mien, et l'avois recité dans plusieurs séances publiques de l'Académie Françoise et du Collége Royal, auxquels j'avois l'honneur d'appartenir."*

It is somewhat remarkable that the only two poems of any considerable value to which so kindred a subject as the art of embellishing grounds has given birth, should have come before the public nearly at the same time; for though the first book of the " English Garden"

*Preface, p. viii.

was published in 1772, the fourth and last did not appear until 1782, the very year when the first impression of "Les Jardins," issued from the Parisian press; and it is probable, therefore, from what the Abbé has said in the passage just quoted, that if the conception of the English poem, and a part of its execution, were anterior to that of the French work, the larger portion of both must have been written during the same period; a parallelism which must, of course, as far as it obtained, preclude all idea of imitation, though from the identity of design which occupied the minds of the two poets, its appearance could scarcely be avoided.

But returning to the more immediate subject of my paper, the Anonymous Translation of 1789, I think it right to observe that, in conducting a suite of extracts from its pages, it will be my plan, after commenting slightly on the merits of the version, to endeavour to introduce what may, in some measure, serve, through the medium of comparison, remark, or historical disquisition, to illustrate the subject or sentiment of the original.

In a short, but elegantly written, prefatory ad