I on the guineas shew the difference. That your lordship is formed by nature for this supremacy, could easily prove, (were it not already granted by the world,) from the distinguishing character of your writing which is so visible to me, that I never could be imposed on to receive for yours, what was written by any others; or to mistake your genuine poetry for their spurious productions. I can farther add with truth, though not without some vanity in saying it, that in the same paper, written by divers hands, whereof your lordship's was only part, I could separate your gold from their copper and though I could not give back to every author his own brass, (for there is not the same rule for distinguishing betwixt bad and bad, as betwixt ill and excellently good,) yet I never failed of knowing what was yours, and what was not: and was absolutely certain, that this, or the other part, was positively yours, and could not possibly be written by any other. : True it is, that some bad poems, though not all, carry their owners' marks about them. There is some peculiar awkwardness, false grammar, imperfect sense, or at the least, obscurity; some brand or other on this buttock, or that ear, that it is notorious who are the owners of the cattle, though they should not sign it with their names. But your lordship, on the contrary, is distinguished, not only by the excellency of your thoughts, but by your style, and manner of expressing them. A painter judging of some admirable piece, may af firm with certainty, that it was of Holbein, or Vandyck but vulgar designs, and common draughts, are easily mistaken, and misapplied. Thus, by my long study of your lordship, I am arrived at the knowledge of your particular manner. In the good poems of other men, like those artists, I can only say, this is like the draught of such a one, or like the colouring of another; in short, I can only be sure, that it is the hand of a good master: but in your performances, it is scarcely possible for me to be deceived. If you write in your strength, you stand revealed at the first view; and should you write under it, you cannot avoid some peculiar graces, which only cost me a second consideration to discover you: for; I may say it with all the severity of truth, that every line of yours is precious. Your lordship's only fault is, that you have not written more; unless I could add another, and that yet greater, but I fear for the publick, the accusation would not be true,—that you have written, and out of a vicious modesty will not publish. Virgil has confined his works within the compass of eighteen thousand lines, and has not treated many subjects; yet he ever had, and ever will have, the reputation of the best poet. Martial says of him, that he could have excelled Varius in tragedy, and Horace in lyrick poetry, but out of deference to his friends he attempted neither.' ' Sic Maro nec Calabri tentavit carmina Flacci, See what Melonoth sage on this in The same prevalence of genius is in your lordship, but the world cannot pardon your concealing it on the same consideration; because we have neither a living Varius, nor a Horace, in whose excellencies both of poems, odes, and satires, you had equalled them, if our language had not yielded to the Roman majesty, and length of time had not added a reverence to the works of Horace. For good sense is the same in all or most ages; and course of time rather improves nature, than impairs her. What has been, may be again another Homer, and another Virgil, may possibly arise from those very causes which produced the first: though it would be impudence to affirm that any such have yet appeared. It is manifest, that some particular ages have been more happy than others in the production of great men, in all sorts of arts and sciencies; as that of Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and the rest, for stage-poetry amongst the Greeks; that of Augustus, for heroick, lyrick, dramatick, elegiack, and indeed all sorts 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 same time lived Cicero, and Sallust, and Cæsar. A famous age in modern times, for learning in every kind, Et Vario cessit Romani laude cothurni, Cum posset tragico fortius ore loqui. MART. lib. viii. epigr. xviii. ་་ was that of Lorenzo de' Medici, and his son Leo the Tenth; 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 such an age, it is possible some great genius may arise, to equal 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 suppose that Homer and Virgil were the only of their species, 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 heroick poetry in tragedy and satire, I offer myself to maintain, against some of our modern criticks, that this age and the last, particularly in England, have excelled the ancients in both those 2 In the age of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo the Tenth, that is, from about the middle of the fifteenth century to the death of the latter in 1521, flourished Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, Vida, Sanazarius, Fracastorius, Bembo, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Titian.-The great restorer of Greek learning in Italy was Leontius Pilatus, who was the first Greek Professor at Florence, (from 1360 to 1363) and was the instructor of Boccace and Petrarch. An account of him may be found in Gibbons's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. vi. p. 421, 4to. 3 Alit æmulatio ingenia; et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio, incitationem accendit; naturaque, quod summo studio petitum est, adscendit in summum. VEL. PATERC. i. 17. kinds; and I would instance in Shakspeare of the former, of your lordship in the latter sort.* Thus I might safely confine myself to my native country. But if I would only cross the seas, I might find in France a living Horace and a Juvenal, in the person of the admirable Boileau ; whose numbers are excellent, whose expressions are noble, whose thoughts are just, whose language is pure, whose satire is pointed, and whose sense is close. What he borrows from the ancients, he repays with usury of his own, in coin as good, and almost as universally valuable: for, setting prejudice and partiality apart, though he is our enemy, the stamp of a Louis, the patron of all arts, is not much inferiour to the medal of an Augustus Cæsar. Let this be said without entering into the interests 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 may be permitted me to go back again to the consideration of epick poetry, I have confessed, that no man hitherto has reached, or so much as approached to the excellencies of Homer or of Virgil; I must farther add, that Statius, the * “Would it be imagined (says Dr. Johnson) that, of this rival to antiquity, all the Satires were little personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of eleven stanzas? The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast, not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy." O England war at this time at bay agains! Verge in at this tri Fcarrying with great vignet. |