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ably to the state of the English tongue at that time, be generally Latin, his phraseology is perfectly English: An advantage, he owed to his slender acquaintance with the Latin idiom. Whereas the other writers of his age, and such others of an older date as were likely to fall into his hands, had not only the most familiar acquaintance with the Latin idiom, but affected on all occasions to make use of it. Hence it comes to pass, that, though he might draw Cometimes from the Latin (Ben Jonson, you know, tells us, He had less Greek) and the learned English writers, he takes nothing but the sentiment; the expression comes of itself, and is purely English.

I might indulge in other reflexions, and detain you still further with examples taken from his works. But we have lain, as the Poet speaks, on these primrose beds, too long. It is time that you now rise to your own nobler inventions; and that I return myself to those, less pleasing, perhaps, but more useful studies from which your friendly sollicitations have called me. Such as these amusements are, however, I cannot repent me of them, since they have been innocent at least, and even ingenuous; and, what I am fondest to recollect, have helped to enliven those many years of

friendship we have passed together in this place. I see indeed, with regret, the approach of that time, which threatens to take me both from it, and you. But, however fortune may dispose of me, she cannot throw me to a distance, to which your affection and good wishes, at least, will not follow me.

And for the rest,

"Be no unpleasing melancholy mine."

The coming years of my life will not, I foresee, in many respects, be what the past. have been to me. But, till they take me from myself, I must always bear about me the able remembrance of our friendship.

agree

I am,

CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 15, 1757.

Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate

Friend and Servant.

INDEX

TO THE

TWO VOLUMES.

A.

ADDISON, Mr. his judgment of the double sense
of verbs, i. 359. his Cato, defended, 102. not
too poetical, ib. its real defects, ib. his criti-
cism on Milton proceeds on just principles, 393.
how far defective, 396.

AENEIS, prefigured under the idea of a temple,

i. 333. the destruction of Troy, an episode,
why, i. 139.

AGLAOPHON, his rude manner of painting; why
preferred to Parrhasius and Zeuxis, i. 346.
ALLEGORY, the distinguished pride of ancient
poetry, i. 343. a fine instance from Virgil, 333.
ANCIENTS, immoderately extolled, why, i. 346.
ANTIGONE, the chorus of it defended, i. 158.
APHORISMS, Condemned in the Roman writers, i.

184. why used so frequently by the Greeks, 185.
APOLLONIUS Rhodius, why censured by Aristopha-
nes and Aristarchus, i, 267.

APOTHEOSIS, the usual mode of flattery in the Au-
gustan age, i. 333.

ARISTOTLE, his opinion of Homer's imitations, i.
67. of Euripides, 116. of the business of the
chorus, 145. of the sententious manner, 186.
his fine Ode, corrected, 188. n. translated, 189.
of the origin of tragedy, 194. a passage in his
poetics explained, 123. his censure of the
Iphigenia at Aulis, considered, 131. he was
little known at Rome in Cicero's time, 191. why
Horace differs from him in his account of Aeschy-
lus's inventions, 240. a supposed contradiction
between him and Horace reconciled, 263. his
judgment of moral pictures, 375. his admiration
of an epithet in Homer, on what founded, ii. 126.
ART and NATURE, their provinces in forming a
poet, i. 273.

ATELLANE FABLE, a species of Comedy, i. 192.

different from the satyric piece, 195. the Oscan
language used in it, 198. why criticised by Ho-
race, 206. in what sense Pomponius, the In-
ventor of it, 198.

ATHENAEUS, of the moralizing turn of the Greeks,
i. 187.

AUCTOR ad Herennium, defines an aphorism, i. 184.
AUGUSTUS, fond of the old Comedy, i. 228. n.

B..

BACON, Lord, his idea of poetry, ii. 178.

BALZAC, Mr. his flattery of LOUIS LE JUSTE, i. 344,

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