Nor has an author been wanting to give our poet such a father, as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, namely a demon: For thus Mr. Gildon": "Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, but the Devil; and that he wanted nothing but horns and tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal father." Finding therefore such contrariety of opinions, and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall defer writing the life of our poet, till authors can determine among themselves what parents or education he had, or whether he had any education or parents at all. Proceed we to what is more certain, his works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Essay on Criticism, of which hear first the most ancient of critics, Mr. JOHN DENNIS. "His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common :-instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean; instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion." And in another place: "What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sinner, upon • Character of Mr. P. and his Writings, in a Letter to a Friend, printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. Curl, in his Key to the Dunciad (first edit. said to be printed for A. Dodd), in the roth page, declared Gildon to be author of that libel; though in the subsequent editions of his Key he left out this assertion, and affirmed (in the Curliad, p. 4. and 8.) that it was written by Dennis only. upon account of impotence, and who being poxed by her former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepid age, which makes her hobble so damnably "." No less peremptory is the censure of our hypercritical historian, Mr. OLDMIXON. "I dare not say any thing of the Essay on Criticism in verse; but if any more curious reader has discovered in it something new which is not in Dryden's prefaces, dedications, and his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, not to mention the French critics, I should be very glad to have the benefit of the discovery "." He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the modest and simple-minded Mr. LEONARD WELSTED; who, out of great respect to our Poet not naming him, doth yet glance at his Essay, together with the Duke of Buckingham's, and the Criticisms of Dryden, and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth': "As to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, &c. both in verse and prose, that have been written by the moderns on this ground-work, they do but hackney the same thoughts over again, making them still more trite. Most of their pieces are nothing but a pert, insipid heap of common-place. Horace has even in his Art of Poetry thrown out several things which plainly shew he thought an Art of Poetry was of no use, even while he was writing one."” To all which great authorities, we can only oppose that of Mr. P Reflections critical and satirical on a Rhapsody, called an Essay on Criticism. Printed for Bernard Lintot, octavo. 4 Essay on Criticism in prose, octavo, 1728, by the author of the Critical History of England. r Preface to his Poems, p. 18. 53. Mr. ADDISON. The Art of Criticism (saith he) which was published some months since, is a master-piece in its kind. The observations follow one another, like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that ease and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before ac-. quainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the preface to his works: that wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for us who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others; we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire. Longinus, in his reflections, has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them: I cannot but take take notice that our English author has after the same manner exemplified several of the precepts in the very precepts themselves." He then produces some instances of particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with saying, that "there are three poems in our tongue of the same nature, and each a masterpiece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse; the Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criticism." Of Windsor Forest, positive is the judgment of the affirmative Mr. JOHN DENNIS. "That it is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in emulation of the Cooper's Hill of Sir John Denman the author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous." : But the author of the Dispensary, Dr. GARTH, in the preface to his poem of Claremont ", differs from this opinion: Those who have seen these two excellent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windsor Forest, the one written by Sir John Denham, the other by Mr. Pope, will shew a great deal of candour if they approve of this." Of the Epistle of Eloisa, we are told by the obscure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That because Prior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest tastes, our author writ his Eloise in opposition to it; but forgot innocence and virtue: if you take away her tender thoughts, and her fierce desires, all the rest is of no value." In which, methinks, his judgment resembles that of a French taylor on a villa and gardens by t Letter to B. B. at the end of the Remarks on Pope's Homer, 1717. Printed 1728, p. 12. away by the Thames: "All this is very fine, but take himself, saying in his Alma ", And Venus shall the texture bless, &c. Come we now to his translation of the Iliad, celebrated by numerous pens, yet shall it suffice to mention the indefatigable Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE, Kt. Who (though otherwise a severe censurer of our author) yet styleth this a " laudable translation *.” That ready writer MR. OLDMIXON, in his forementioned essay, frequently commends the And the painful same. Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD thus extols it: "The spirit of Homer breathes all through this translation.I am in doubt, whether I should most admire the justness to the original, or the force and beauty of the language, or the sounding variety of the numbers: but when I find all these w Alma, Cant. ii. In his Essays, vol. i. printed for E. Curl. meet, |