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SAPPHO TO PHAON.

VOL. II.

B

[2]

6:

OVID feems to have had the merit," Dr. Warton obferves, " of inventing this beautiful species of writing Epistles under feigned names, although Propertius has one compofition of the same sort, an Epistle of Arethusa to Lycotas." In fact, Ovid's Heroic Epistles were prior to that of Propertius, as it evidently appears from the notes in the quarto edition of Propertius; where it is said exprefsly-Epistola, &c. fcripta ad imitationem Heroidum Ovidianarum, ut recte obfervavit Nic. Heinfius, neque enim dubitari potest quin incidat in idem tempus, quo Nase artes fuas elucubrabat, teste hoc loco, Ex. L. 1.

Ecce parat Cæfar domite quod deficit orbi,
Addere, nunc oriens ultime nofter eris.

Tunc vero jam evulgatæ erant et libri Amorum, et Heroidum Epistolæ, fic enim ipse, lib. 3. art. Aman.

Deve tribus libris titulus quos signat amorum,

Elige, quod docili molliter ore legas,
Vel tibi compofitâ cantetur epistola voce,
Ignotum hoc alias ille novavit opus!

The merit of the invention, therefore, of this species of writing, appears solely to belong to Ovid-it is, as Warton obferves, a high improvement on the Greek Elegy, on account of its dramatic form. He adds, "The judgment of the writer mult appear, by opening the complaint of the person introduced, just at such a period of time as will give occasion for the most tender sentiments, and the most violent and fudden turns of paffion to be dif played." How beautifully is this displayed in Pope's Epistle to Abelard! a poem that has another most interesting circumstance, which Ovid appears, as well as our Drayton, to have neglected; I mean the introduction of appropriate and descriptive imagery, which relieves and recreates the fancy by the pictures and by the landfcapes which accompany the characters. Ovid, in this Epistle> seems not insensible to the effect of the introduction of such seenes --and "the Leucadian Rock," the "Antra, nemusque,” "the aquatic Lotus," the " facred pellucid Fountain," and particularly cularly the Genius of the Place, "the Naiad," addressing the despairing Sappho, (which circumftance Pope has beautifully imitated and improved in Eloise,) are in the genuine spirit of poetical tafte. Drayton, though praised by Warton, has hardly ever attended to this species of beauty-and his Epistles are in general vapid and tame. There are, however, here and there interspersed, fome traits of poetic feeling; and I infert as a specimen, a defcription which has great merit both in painting and versification :

As in September, when our year refigns
The glorious Sun to the cold watery figns,
(Which thro' the clouds, looks on the Earth in scorn)
The little Bird, yet to falute the Morn,
Upon the naked branches fets her foot,
The leaves then lying on the mossy root,
And there a filly chiripping doth keep,
As thơ' the fain would fing, yet fain would weep,
Praising fair Summer, that too foon is gone,
Or fad for Winter, too fast coming on.

Lord Hervey's Epistles are scarcely worth mentioning. The Italians have a Writer of Heroical Epistles, according to Warton, Antonio Bruni. I have not seen them-they were printed at Venice 1636, with prints from designs of Guido and Dominichino.

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