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nature, than impairs her. What has been, may be again another Homer, and another Virgil, may poffibly arife from those very causes which produced the first though it would be imprudence to affirm that any fuch have appeared.

It is manifeft, that fome particular ages have been more happy than others in the production of great men, in all forts of arts and sciences; as that of Euripides, Sophocles, Ariftophanes, and the reft for Stage Poetry amongst the Greeks that of Augukus for Heroic, Lyric, Dramatic, Elegiac, and indeed all forts of Poetry in the perfons of Virgil, Horace, Varius, Ovid, and many others; efpecially if we take into that century the latter end of the commonwealth; wherein we find Varro, Lucretius, and Catullus: and at the fame time lived Cicero, Saluft, and Cæfar. A famous age in modern times, for learning in every kind, was that of Lorenzo de Medici, and his fon Leo X. wherein Painting was revived, and Poetry flourished, and the Greek language was restored.

Examples in all thefe are obvious: but what I would infer is this; That, in fuch an age, it is poffible fome great genius may arise, equal to 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 fuppofe that Homer and Virgil were the only of their species, and that Nature was fo much worn out in producing them, that he is never able to bear VOL. VII.

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the like again; yet, the example only holds in Heroic Poetry in Tragedy and Satyr, I offer myself to maintain against some of our modern critics, that this age and the laft, particularly in England, have excelled the ancients in both thofe kinds; and, I would inftance in Shakespeare of the former, of your Lordship

in the latter fort.

Thus I might fafely confine myself to my native country; but, if I would only cross the feas, I might find in France a living Horace and a Juvenal, in the perfon of the admirable Boileau; whofe numbers are `excellent, whofe expreffions are noble, whose thoughts are juft, whofe language is pure, whofe fatyr is pointed, and whofe fenfe is clofe: what he borrows from the ancients, he repays with ufury of his own, in coin as good, and almost as univerfally valuable: for, fetting prejudice and partiality apart, though he is our enemy, the stamp of Louis, the patron of all arts, is not much inferior to the medal of an Auguftus Cæfar. Let this be faid without entering into the intereft 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 be permitted me to go back again to the confideration of Epique Poetry, I have confeffed, that no man hitherto has reached, or fo much as approached to, the excellencies of Homer, or of Virgil; I muft further add, that Statius, the beft verfificator next Virgil, knew not how to defign after him, though

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he had the model in his eye; that Lucan is wanting both in defign and fubject, and is, befides, too full of heat and affectation that, among the moderns, Ariofto neither defigned juftly, nor observed any unity of action, or compafs of time, or moderation in the vastness of his draught: his style is luxurious, without majefty or decency; and his adventures, without the compass of nature and poffibility: Taffo, whofe defign was regular, and who obferved the rules of unity in time and place more clofely than Virgil, yet was not fo happy in his action; he confeffes himself to have been too lyrical; that is, to have written beneath the dignity of Heroic Verse, in his Epifodes of Sophronia, Erminia, and Armida; his story is not so pleasing as Ariofto's; he is too flatulent fometimes, and fometimes too dry; many times unequal, and almost always forced; and befides, is full of conception, points of Epigram and witticism; all which are not only below the dignity of Heroic Verfe, but contrary to its nature: Virgil and Homer have not one of them. And thofe who are guilty of fo boyish an ambition in fo grave a fubject, are fo far from being confidered as Heroic Poets, that they ought to be turned down from Homer to the Anthologia, from Virgil to Martial and Owen's Epigrams, and from Spenfer to Flecnoe; that is, from the top to the bottom of all Poetry. But to return to Taffo: he borrows from the invention of Boyardo, and in his alteration of his Poem, which is infinitely the worfe, imitates Homer fo very fervilely, that (for example) he gives the king of Jerufalem

fifty fons, only, because Homer had beftowed the like number on king Priam; he kills the youngest in the fame manner, and has provided his hero with a Patroclus, under another name, only to bring him back to the wars, when his friend was killed. The French have performed nothing in this kind, which is not as below those two Italians, and subject to a thousand more reflections, without examining their St. Lewis, their Pucelle, or their Alarique: the English have only to boast of Spenfer and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning, to have been perfect Poets; and yet, both of them are liable to many cenfures. For there is no uniformity in the defign of Spenfer he aims at the accomplishment of no one action: he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures; and endows each of them with fome particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without fubordination or performance. Every one is moft valiant in his own legend; only we must do them that justice to obferve, that magnanimity, which is the character of prince Arthur, fhines throughout the whole Poem; and fuccours the reft, when they are in diftrefs. The original of every knight was then living in the court of queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them, that virtue which he thought moft confpicuous in them: an ingenious piece of flattery, though At turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his Poem, in the fix remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But

prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the Poet both of means and fpirit, to accomplish his defign: for the reft, his obfolete language, and the ill choice of his stanza, are faults but of the second magnitude: for, notwithstanding the first, he is ftill intelligible, at least after a little practice; and for the laft, he is the more to be admired, that, labouring under fuch a difficulty, his verfes are fo numerous, fo various, and harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he profeffedly imitated, has furpaffed him, among the Romans; and only Mr. Waller among the English.

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As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with fo much justice, his fubject is not that of an Heroic Poem, properly fo called. His defign is the lofing of our happiness his event is not profperous, like that of all other Epic works: his heavenly machines are many, and human perfons are but two. But I will not take Mr. Rymer's work out of his hands: he has promised the world a Critique on that author; wherein, though he will not allow his Poem for Heroic, I hope he will grant us, that his thoughts are elevated, his words founding, and that no man has fo happily copied the manner of Homer, or fo copiously tranflated his Græcifins, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil. It is true, he runs into a flat thought, fometimes for a hundred lines together, but it is when he is got into a track of fcripture: his antiquated words were his choice, not his neceffity; for therein he imitated. Spen I 3