V. Come, gentle air! and, while the thickets bloom, • Anxious for futile gains beneath me stray, And feek with erring ftep contentment's obvious way, The gentle air allow'd my claim; And, more to chear my drooping frame, But ah! the nymphs that heal the penfive mind, Neglect their votary's anxious moan: Oh, how should they relieve?-the mufes all were flown. VIII. By flow'ry plain, or woodland fhades, I leave behind my native mead, Ah foolish man! to feek the tuneful maids IX. Scarce have my footsteps prefs'd the favour'd ground, When founds etheriel ftrike my ear; At once celeftial forms appear; My fugitives are found! The The mufes here attune their lyres, Ah partial! with unwonted fires; X. But whilst I wander'd o'er a fcene fo fair, Had long employ'd their care. Glows not a thell on Adria's rocky shore, Her native genius guides her hand, Thus I my rage and grief difplay; Till LUXBOROUGH lead the way. G Imitations of Horace. By Thomas Neville, A. M. Fellow of Jefus College, Cambridge. 12mo. 2s. Dodsley, &c. SOM OME of thefe imitations have been printed fingly, and were feverally mentioned in the Review, at their respective times of publication. The whole are taken from the first and fecond books of Horace's Satires, and from the first book of his Epiftles; amounting altogether, in this volume, to four fatires, and ten epiftles. Were we to characterize them in the most fummary manner, we fhould call them agreeable and elegant imitations. They are at the fame time very free and digreffive ones, and feem rather to afpire at catching a lucky and refembling glance and manner of the original, now and then, than at tranfcribing all its features and expreffion. In this light, these Imitations may be contrafted to Mr.Francis's clofe verfion: and poffibly, upon the whole, there may be fomething more fprightly and graceful in this liberal manner of imitating, than there would be in a verbal and more exact tranflation, which does not feem to have been the fort most to Horace's own tafte. Indeed Mr. Neville appears to have confidered, how that great judge of men and manners would have expreffed himself in regard to our modern ones, if he had lived in our time and country, and wrote in our language. This, we imagine, was no bad defign, and we think him often happy in the execution of it; but never more fo, than when he moft refembles Mr. Pope in thofe fpirited and excellent applications of the original, which he calls fomething like Horace. And our Author, in fome inftances, fo nearly refembles him, that we imagined, on our first perusal of these Imitations, we had met with a few of Mr.Pope's lines here and there amongst Mr.Neville's. Doubtless, where he has prefixed any of his friends names to these epiftles, he has found, or fuppofed, fome fimilarity between their characters, and thofe to whom the originals were addressed: which circumftance, being observed, must have increased the propriety of our Author's addreffing fuch friends with the like fentiments. In fact, our English Bard feems to partake both of the candour and judgment of the Latin Poet, in the occafional compliments. he makes to fome modern characters; and in the reproof with which he laughs at others; though he exprefly names but very few whom he ridicules. We could only have wifhed, that a man of fo fair a character as Mr. Beard had not been involved in that common objection made to good fingers, of their being only with great importunity, or not at all, prevailed upon to oblige their admirers with their melody; (from which affectation he is allowed to be entirely free) and that he had not been fo difrefpectfully mentioned as the loweft of a clafs in which has acquired fo much reputation. But as his name unfortunately rhimed with herd, there is, we hope, more of accident than intention in the following paffage: A fault there is, for which the tuneful herd Prefs them, you'd think they never would fing more; Having thus fubfcribed to the general merit of these Imitations, we must admit, that many admirers of Horace will approve our Author the lefs, for his contracting, fometimes too freely, his imitation of fome very poetical lines and philofophical reflections; which he certainly might have diffused in a more pleasing manner, by rendering them jufter to Horace. For instance, in the following lines of the twelfth epiftle. Cum tu inter fcabiem tantam & contagia lucri, Nil parvi fapias, et adhuc fublimia cures : Quæ mare compefcant caufæ ; quid temperat annum : Stellæ fponte fua, juffæne vagentur et errent; Quid premat obfcurum lunæ, quid proferat orbem; Quid velit & poflit rerum concordia difcors ; Verum feu pifces, feu porrum & cæpe trucidas. The fubfequent English verfes, fuppofed to imitate, or glance the nearest at them, are as follows. 'Tis that preferment nothing real brings, And temperance foars above all earthly things. Or books to thoughts of canonry give place, &c. Now thefe lines, though little faulty in themselves, feem too remote and digreffive from Horace, and rather fomewhat depress than imitate him: and yet it may be replied, perhaps, that the English being better acquainted with aftronomy than the antient Romans, this paffage was lefs proper for a direct modern appli cation. cation. The conclufion of the fame epiftle is more happily imitated and modernized. Ne tamen ignores quo fit Romana loco res; To fay one word of what the world's about, As we could not boaft of great crops and plenty lately, the Imitator has judiciously avoided any allufion to the Italiæ pleno diffudit copia cornu. -Aurea fruges After the above ftricture, which cannot offend a Writer, whofe excellent taste must have been disgusted with implicit approbation, we might cite many paffages from thefe imitations, in proof of their merit and elegance; but we fhall content ourfelves with tranfcribing the third epiftle of the first book, which is a fhort one, and happens to be exactly of the fame number of lines with the original. You! whom all places in their turns delight, Does Celfus ftill a war with reason wage, ΤΑ |