No. LXXXIX. Tuesday, September 11. 1753. ·Præcipua tamen ejus in commovenda miferatione virtus, ut quidam in hac eum parte omnibus ejusdem operis autoribus præferant. QUINTILIAN. His great excellence was in moving compaffion, with respect to which many give him the first place of all the writers of that kind. SIR, To the ADVEnturer. Ir is ufual for fcholars to lament, with indifcriminating regret, the devastations committed on ancient libraries, by accident and time, by fuperftition, ignorance and Gothicifm; but the lofs is very far from being in all cafes equally irreparable, as the want of fome kinds of books may be much more easily supplied than that of others. By the interruption that fometimes happens in the fucceffion of philofophical opinions, the mind is eman emancipated from traditionary fyftems, recovers its native elafticity which had been benumbed by cuftom, begins to examine with freedom and fresh vigour, and to follow truth instead of authority. The lofs of writings, therefore, in which reasoning is concerned, is not, perhaps, fo great an evil to mankind, as of those which defcribe characters and facts. To be deprived of the laft books of Livy, of the fatires of Archilochus, and the comedies of Menander, is a greater misfortune to the republic of literature, than if the logic and the phyfics of Ariftotle had never defcended to pofterity. Two of your predeceffors, Mr. Adventurer, of great judgment and genius, very juftly thought that they should adorn their lucubrations by publishing, one of them a fragment of Sappho, and the other an old Grecian hymn to the Goddess Health: and, indeed, I conceive it to be a very important ufe of your paper, to bring into common light those beautiful remains of ancient art, which by their present fituation are deprived of that univerfal admiration they fo juftly deserve, and are only the fecret enjoyment of a few curious readers. In imitation, therefore, of the examples I have juft mentioned, I fhall fend you, for the inftruction and entertainment of your readers, a fragment of Simonides and of Menander. Simonides was celebrated by the ancients for the fweetness, correctnefs, and purity of his ftyle, and his irresistible skill in moving the paffions. It is a fufficient panegyric that Plato often mentions him with approbation. Dionyfius places him among thofe polished writers, who excel" in a smooth volubility, and "flow on, like plenteous and perennial rivers, in a "courfe of even and uninterrupted harmony." It is to this excellent critic that we are indebted for the preservation of the following paffage, the tenderness and elegance of which, fcarcely need be pointed out to those who have tafte and fenfibility. Danaë, being by her mercilefs father inclofed in a chest and thrown into the fea with her child, the poet proceeds thus far to relate her diftrefs: When the raging wind began to roar, and the waves to beat fo violently on the cheft as to threaten to overfet it, the threw her arm fondly around Perefus, and faid, the tears trickling down her cheeks, “ Ο my fon, "what forrows do I undergo! but thou art wrapt in a deep flumber; thou fleepest foundly like a fuckling « child, in this joylefs habitation, in this dark and "dreadful night, lighted only by the glimmerings of the “ moon! Covered with thy purple mantle, thou regard 46 σε eft "eft not the waves that dafh around thee, nor the whiftling of the winds. O thou beauteous babe! "If thou wert fenfible of this calamity, thou wouldest "bend thy tender ears to my complaints. Sleep on, "I beseech thee, O my child! Sleep with him, O ye "billows! and fleep likewise my diftrefs!" Those who would, form a full idea of the delicacy of the Greek, fhould attentively confider the following happy imitation of it, which, I have reason to believe, is not fo extenfively known, or fo warmly admired, as it ought to be; and which, indeed, far excels the ori ginal. The poet, having pathetically painted a great princefs taking leave of an affectionate husband on his death-bed, and endeavouring afterwards to comfort her inconfolable family, adds the following particular. His conatibus occupata, ocellas 66 Qui matrem cruciant tuæ quietis "Rumpant Rumpant fomnia.-Quando, quando, tales "Redibunt oculis meis fopores !" The contrast betwixt the infenfibility of the infant and the agony of the mother; her obferving that the child is unmoved with what was most likely to affect him, the forrows of his little brothers, the many mournful countenances, and the difmal filence that reigned throughout the court; the circumftances of the father playing with the child on his knees or in his arms, and teaching him to speak; are fuch delicate master-strokes of nature and parental tenderness as fhew the author is intimately acquainted with the human heart, and with those little touches of paffion that are best calculated to move it. The affectionate with of "dormi, "parvule" is plainly imitated from the fragment of Simonides; but the fudden exclamation that follows, when, O̟ when shall I fleep like this infant!" is entirely the property of the author, and worthy of, though not excelled by, any of the ancients. It is making the most artful and the moft ftriking use of the flumber of the child, to aggravate and heighten by comparison, the reftleffness of the mother's forrow; it is the fineft and ftrongest way of faying, "my grief "will never cease," that has ever been used. I think it not exaggeration to affirm, that in this little poem, are united the pathetic of Euripides, and the elegance of Catullus. It affords a judicious example of the manner in which the ancients ought to be imitated; not by using their expreffions and epithets, which is the common method, but by catching a portion of their spirit, and adapting their images and ways of thinking to new fubjects. The generality of those who have propofed |