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We must allow of Rofcommon, what Fenton has not mentioned fo diftinctly as he ought, and, what is yet very much to his honour, that he is perhaps the only correct writer in verfe before Addifon; and that, if there are not fo many or fo great beauties in his compofitions as in thofe of fome contemporaries, there are at leaft fewer faults. Nor is

this his highest praife; for Mr. Pope has celebrated him as the only moral writer of king Charles's reign:

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Unhappy Dryden! in all Charles's

days,

Rofcommon only boafts unfpotted

lays.

His great work is his Effay on tranflated Verfe; of which Dryden writes

thus

thus in the preface to his Mifcella

nies :

"It was my lord Rofcommon's Effay "on tranflated Verfe," fays Dryden, "which made me uneafy, till I tried "whether or no I was capable of fol"lowing his rules, and of reducing the

fpeculation into practice. For many "a fair precept in poetry is like a "feeming demonftration in mathema"ticks, very fpecious in the diagram, "but failing in the mechanick opera"tion. I think I have generally ob"ferved his inftructions: I am fure my "reason is fufficiently convinced both of "their truth and ufefulness; which, in "other words, is to confefs no less a vanity than to pretend that I have, at "leaft

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leaft in fome places, made examples

"to his rules."

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This declaration of Dryden will, Tam afraid, be found little more than one of those curfory civilities which one author pays to another; for when the fum of lord Rofcommon's precepts is collected, it will not be easy to difcover how they can qualify their reader for a better performance of tranflation than might have been attained by his own reflections..

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He that can abftract his mind froin' the elegance of the poetry, and confine it to the fenfe of the precepts, will find' no other direction than that the author should be suitable to the tranflator's genius; that he fhould be fuch as may deferve

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deserve a tranflation; that he who intends to tranflate him fhould endeavour to understand him; that perfpicuity fhould be ftudied, and unusual and uncouth names fparingly inferted; and that the ftile of the original fhould be copied in its elevation and depreffion. Thefe are the rules that are celebrated as fo definite and important, and for the delivery of which to mankind fo much honour has been paid. Rofcommon has indeed deferved his praises, had they been given with difcernment, and bestowed not on the rules themfelves, but the art with which they are introduced, and the decorations with which they are adorned.

The

The Effay, though generally excellent, is not without its faults. The ftory of the Quack, borrowed from Boileau, was not worth the importation : he has confounded the British and Saxon mythology:

I grant that from fome moffy idol oak, In double rhymes, our Thor and Woden fpoke.

The oak, as I think Gildon has obferved, belonged to the British druids, and Thor and Woden were Saxon deities. Of the double rhymes, which he fo liberally suppofes, he certainly had no knowledge.

His interpofition of a long paragraph of blank verfes is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets might as well have introc 3

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