But Our prefent writers are by these wretches reduced to the fame condition Virgil was, when the centurion feized on his eftate. I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Mæcenas of the prefent age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips; it helped him. to a reputation, which he neither defired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himfelf capable; but the event fhewed his modefty. And it was reasonable to hope, that he, who could raife mean fubjects fo high, fhould still be more elevated on great. er themes; that he, that could draw fuch noble ideas from a fhilling, could not fail upon fuch a fubject as the duke of Marlborough, which is capable of heightening even the moft low and trifling genius. And, indeed, most of the great works which have been produced in the world have been owing lefs to the poet than the patron. Men of the greatest genius are fometimes lazy, and want a fpur; often modest, and dare not venture in publick; they certainly know their faults in the worft things; Hh 4 things; and even their best things they are not fond of, because the idea of what they ought to be is far above what they are. This induced me to believe that Virgil defired his work might be burnt, had not the fame Auguftus that defired him to write them, preferved them from deftruction. A féribling beau may imagine a Poet may be induced to write, by the very pleasure he finds in writing; but that is feldom, when people are neceffi tated to it, I have known men row, and ufe very hard labour, for diverfion, which, if they had been tied to, they would have thought themselves very unhappy. But to return to Blenheim, that work for much admired by fome, and cenfured by others. I have often withed he had wrote it in Latin, that he might be out of the reach of the empty criticks, who would have as little understood his meaning in that language as they do his beauties in his own. Falfe criticks have been the plague of all ages; Milton himself, in a very polite court, has been compared to the rumbling of a wheel-barrow; he had been on the wrong fide, and therefore could not be a good poet. And this, perhaps, may be Mr. Philips's cafe. But I take generally the ignorance of his readers to be the occafion of their diflike. People that have formed their tafte upon the French writers, can have no relish for Philips they admire points and turns, and confequently have no judgement of what is great and majestick: he must look little in their eyes, when he foars fo high as to be almoft out of their view. I cannot therefore allow any admirer of the French to be a judge of Blenheim, nor any who takes Bouhours for a compleat critick. He generally judges of the ancients by the moderns, and not the moderns by the ancients; he takes thofe paffages of their own authors to be really fublime which come the nearest to it; he often calls that a noble and great thought which is only a pretty and fine one, and has more inftances of the fublime out of Ovid de Triftibus, than he has out of all Virgil. I fhall allow, therefore, only those to be judges of Philips, who make the ancients, and particularly Virgil, their standard. But, But, before I enter on this fubject, I fhall confider what is particular in the style of Philips, and examine what ought to be the ftyle of heroick poetry, and next inquire how far he is come up to that style. His ftyle is particular; because he lays afide rhyme, and writes in blank verfe, and ufes old words, and frequently postpones the adjective to the fubftantive, and the substantive to the verb; and leaves out little particles, a, and the; her, and his; and uses frequent appofitions. Now let us examine, whether thefe alterations of ftyle be conformable to the truc fublime. WALSH. |