There is a time when nations emerging from barbarity, and falling into regular fubordination, gain leifure to grow wife, and feel the fhame of ignorance and the craving pain of unfatisfied curiofity. To this hunger of the mind. plain fenfe is grateful; that which fills the void removes uneafinefs, and to be free from pain for a while is pleasure; but repletion generates faftidiousness; a faturated intellect foon becomes luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing reception till it is recommended by artificial diction. Thus it will be found, as learning advances, that in all nations the first writers are fimple, and that every age improves in elegance. refinement always makes way for ano

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ther,

ther, and what was expedient to Virgil was neceffary to Pope.

I suppose many readers of the English Iliad, when they have been touched with fome unexpected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried to enjoy it in the original, where, alas! it was not to be found. Homer doubtlefs owes to his

tranflator many Ovidian graces not exactly fuitable to his character; but to have added can be no great crime, if nothing be taken away. Elegance is furely to be defired, if it be not gained at the expence of dignity. A hero would with to be loved, as well as to be reverenced.

To a thousand cavils one anfwer is fufficient; the purpofe of a writer is to

be

309

be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown afide. Pope wrote for his own age and his own nation: he knew that it was neceffary to colour the images and point the fentiments of his author; he therefore made him graceful, but lost him fome of his fublimity.

The copious notes with which the verfion is accompanied, and by which it is recommended to many readers, though they were undoubtedly written to fwell the volumes, ought not to pass without praise commentaries which attract the reader by the pleasure of perufal have not often appeared; the notes of others are read to clear difficulties,

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ties, thofe of Pope to vary entertain

ment.

It has however been objected, with fufficient reafon, that there is in the commentary too much of unfeasonable levity and affected gaiety; that too many appeals are made to the Ladies, and the eafe which is fo carefully preferved is fometimes the ease of a trifler. Every art has its terms, and every kind of inftruction its proper ftyle; the gravity of common criticks may be tedious, but is lefs defpicable than childish merriment.

Of the Odyfey nothing remains to be obferved the fame general praise may be given to both tranflations, and a particular examination of either would require a large volume. The notes were written.

written by Broome, who endeavoured not unfuccefsfully to imitate his master.

Of the Dunciad the hint is confeffedly taken from Dryden's Mac Flecno; but the plan is fo enlarged and diverfified as justly to claim the praise of an original, and affords perhaps the beft fpecimen that has yet appeared of perfonal fatire ludicrously pompous.

That the defign was moral, whatever the author might tell either his readers or himfelf, I am not convinced. The first motive was the defire of revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated his Shakespeare, and regaining the honour which he had loft, by crushing his opponent. Theobald was not of bulk enough to fill a poem, and there

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