Dr. Warton obferves, that this Tranflation is fuperior to any of Dryden's. If, indeed, we compare Pope's Translations with those of any other writer, their fuperiority must be ftrikingly apparent. There is a finish in them, a correctness, a natural flow, and a tone of originality, added to a wonderful propriety and beauty of expreffion and language. The literary world has of late been gratified by fome excellent Translations from the Clafficks-of the Georgics, by Sotheby-Horace, by Bofcawen-Juvenal, by Gifford-and Anacreon, by Moore; whofe verfion, though not always quite faithful, is truly spirited and elegant.

If Pope ever fails, it is where he generalifes too much This is particularly objectionable, where in the original there is any marked, distinct, and beautiful Piare: fo, as it has been observed, Pope only says,

"Cupid for thee shall spread the fwelling fail ;"

whereas in Ovid, Cupid appears before us in the very act of guiding, the vessel feated as the pilot, and with his tender HAND, (tenerá manu) contracting, or letting flow, the fail. I need not point out another beauty in the original, the repetition of the word "Ipfe."

ELOISA TO ABELARD.

O Abelard, ill-fated youth!
Thy tale shall justify this truth.
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong,
Adorns a nobler Poet's fong:
Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd,
With kind concern and fkill has weav'd
A filken web; and ne'er fhall fade
Its colours; gently has he laid
The mantle o'er thy fad diftress,
And Venus fhall the texture bless.

PRIOR.

ARGUMENT.

ABELARD and Eloifa flourished in the twelfth century; they

were two of the moft diftinguished perfons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate paffion. After a long courfe of calamities, they re tired each to a feveral Convent, and confeerated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this feparation, that a letter of Abelard's to a Friend, which contained the history of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloifa. This awakening all her tenderness, occafioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give fo lively a picture of the ftruggles of grace and nature, virtue and paffion. POPE.

A Traveller who visited the Convent about the year 1768 (see Annual Regifler) fays, that its fituation and profpects by no means refemble Pope's beautiful and romantic description of it. Father St. Romain, the officiating Prieft, walked with him round the whole demefne. The Abbefs, who was in her eighty-fecond year, defired to fee our Traveller, for fhe faid fhe was his countrywoman, and allied to the extinct families of Lifford and Stafford. She was aunt to the then Duke de Rochfaulcault; and being fifth in fucceffion, as Abbefs of that Convent, hoped it would become a kind of patrimony. We know, alas! what has fince happened both to her Family and her Convent! The community feemed to know but little of the afflicting ftory of their Founder. Little remains of the original building but a few pointed arches. In examining the tombs of these unfortunate lovers, he observed that Eloisa appeared much taller than Abelard.

WARTON.

ELOISA TO ABELARD*.

IN these deep folitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive contemplation dwells,

And ever-mufing melancholy reigns;

What means this tumult in a Veftal's veins ?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!-From Abelard it came,
And Eloïfa yet muft kifs the name.

Dear fatal name! reft ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips in holy filence feal'1:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where mix'd with God's, his lov'd Idea lies:
O write it not, my hand-the name appears
Already written-wash it out, my tears!

NOTES.

However happy and judicious the fubject of this Epiftle may be thought to be, as difplaying the various conflicts and tumults between duty and pleasure, between penitence and paffion, that agitated the mind of Eloifa; yet, we muft candidly own, that the principal circumftance of distress is of fo indelicate a nature, that it is with difficulty disguised by the exquifite art and address of the poet. The capital and unrivalled beauties of the poem arife from the ftriking images and defcriptions of the Convent, and from the fentiments drawn from the myftical books of devotion, particularly WARTON. Madame Guion and the Archbishop of Cambray.

VOL. II.

D