We may judge, from this passage, of the state of the language. Master Eustache has been particularly careful to mark the time in which he lived and wrote, by his two concluding lines:

L'an mil cent cinquante-cinq ans

Fit Maistre Eustache ces Romans.

I will take leave to add, that the second poem, now remaining, in the French language, was entitled, The Romance of Alexander the Great. It was the confederated work of four authors, famous in their time. Lambert le Court, and Alexander of Paris, sung the exploits of Alexander; Peter de Saint Clost, wrote his will in verse; the writing the will of a hero being then a common topic; and John le Nivelois added a book concerning the manner in which his death was revenged. It is remarkable, that before this time, all the Romans had been composed in verses of eight syllables; but in this piece, the four authors first used verses of TWELVE syllables, as more solemn and majestic. And this was the origin, though but little known, of those verses which

T4

SECTION VI.

OF THE EPISTLE OF SAPPHO TO PHAON, AND OF ELOISA TO ABELARD.

It is no small merit in Ovid, to have invented * IT this beautiful species of writing epistles under feigned characters. It is a high improvement on the Greek elegy; to which its dramatic nature renders it greatly superior. It is, indeed, no other than a passionate soliloquy, in which the mind gives vent to the distresses and emotions under which it labours: but, by being directed and addressed to a particular person, it gains a degree of propriety, that the best conducted soliloquy in a tragedy must ever want. Our impatience under any pressures of grief,

and

* Propertius, however, has one composition of this sort, entitled, Epistola Arethusæ ad Lycotam. Lib. iv. Eleg. 3. Vul pius observes, that Horace never once mentions Propertius with approbation, but glances at him with ridicule in the pas sage, Quis nisi Callimachus. Ep. 2. L. 2. v. 100.

His

and disorder of mind, makes such passionate expostulations with the persons supposed to cause such uneasinesses, very natural. Judgment is chiefly shewn, by opening the interesting complaint just at such a period of time, as will give occasion for the most tender sentiments, and the most sudden and violent turns of passion, to be displayed. Ovid may, perhaps, be blamed for a sameness of subjects in these epistles of his heroines, whose distresses are almost all occasioned by their lovers forsaking them. epistles are likewise too long; which circumstance has forced him into a repetition and languor in the sentiments. It would be a pleasing task, and conduce to the formation of a good taste, to shew how differently Ovid, and the Greek tragedians, have made Medea, Phædra, and Deianira speak, on the very same occasions. Such a comparison would abundantly manifest the FANCY and wiT of Ovid, and the JUDGMENT and NATURE of Euripides and Sophocles. If the character of Medea was not better supported in the tragedy which Ovid is said to have produced, and of which Quintilian speaks so advantageously,

vantageously, than it is in her epistle to Jason, one may venture to declare, that the Romans would not yet have been vindicated from their inferiority to the Greeks in tragic poesy.

The Epistle before us is translated by POPE, with faithfulness, and with elegance, and much excels any that Dryden translated in the volume he published; several of which were done by some "of the mob of gentlemen that wrote with ease;" that is, Sir C. Scroop, Caryl, Pooly, Wright, Tate, Buckingham, Cooper, and other careless rhymers. A good translation of these epistles is as much wanted as one of Juvenal; for, out of sixteen satires of that poet, Dryden himself translated but six. We can now boast of happy translations in verse, of almost all the great poets of antiquity; whilst the French have been poorly contented with only prose translations of Homer and Horace, which, says Cervantes, can no more resemble the original, than the wrong side of tapestry can represent the right. The inability of the French tongue to express many Greek or Roman ideas with facility and grace, is here visible;

visible; but the Italians have Horace translated * by Pallavacini; Theocritus, by Ricolotti and Salvini; Ovid, by Anguillara; the Æneid, admirably well, in blank verse, by Annibal Caro ; and the Georgics, in blank verse also, by Daniello; and Lucretius, by Marchetti.

I return to Ovid, by observing, that he has put into the mouth of his heroine, a greater number of pretty panegyrical epigrams, than of those tender and passionate sentiments which suited her character, and made her sensibility in amours so famous. What can be more elegantly gallant than this compliment to Phaon?

Sume fidem & pharetram; fies manifestus Apollo;
Accedant capiti cornua; Bacchus eris.

This thought seems indisputably to have been imitated in that most justly celebrated of modern epigrams,

Lumine

* The Spaniards have the Odyssey of Homer translated in verse by G. Perez. The Medea of Euripides by P. Abril. Parts of Pindar by L. de Leon, and of Theocritus by Villegas. The Eclogues of Virgil by I. Encina. The Georgics, in blank verse, by I. de Guzman. The Eneid by L. de Leon, published by Quevedo, 1631.