poraries, there are at least fewer faults. Nor is this his highest praife; for Mr. Pope has celebrated him as the only moral writer of King Charles's reign:

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 in the preface to his Miscellanies :

"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 following his rules, and "of reducing the fpeculation into practice. "For many a fair precept in poetry is like a "feeming demonftration in mathematicks,

66

66

very fpecious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation. I think I have "generally obferved his inftructions: I am fure my reafon is fufficiently convinced "both of their truth and usefulness; which, ❝ in other words, is to confefs no lefs a vanity "than to pretend that I have, at least in fome "places, made examples to his rules."

This declaration of Dryden will, I am 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 eafy to discover how they can qualify their reader for a better performance of translation than might have been attained by his own reflections.

He that can abftract his mind from the elegance of the poetry, and confine it to the fense of the precepts, will find no other direction than that the author fhould be fuitable to the tranflator's genius; that he should be fuch as may deserve a tranflation; that he who intends to tranflate him should endeayour to understand him; that perfpicuity fhould be ftudied, and unufual and uncouth names fparingly inferted; and that the style of the original should be copied in its elevation and depreffion. These 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 deserved his praises, had they YA been

been given with defcernment, and bestowed not on the rules themselves, but the art with which they are introduced, and the decorations with which they are adorned,

The Effay, though generally excellent, is not without its faults. The story 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 spoke.

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 fupposes, he certainly had no knowledge.

His interpofition of a long paragraph of blank verfes is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets might as well have introduced a series of jambicks among their he roicks.

His next work is the tranflation of the Art of Poetry; which has received, in my opinion, not lefs praise than it deferves. Blank verse, left merely to its numbers, has little operation either on the ear or mind: it can hardly support itself without bold figures and striking images. A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is fo near to profe, that the reader only fcorns it for pretending to be verfe.

Having difentangled himself from the difficulties of rhyme, he may juftly be expected to give the fenfe of Horace with great exact nefs, and to fupprefs no fubtilty of fentiment for the difficulty of expreffing it. This demand, however, his tranflation will not fatisfy; what he found obfcure, I do not know that he has ever cleared.

Among his smaller works, the Eclogue of Virgil and the Dies Ira are well translated ; though the best line in the Dies Ira is borrowed from Dryden. In return, fucceeding poets have borrowed from Rofcommon.

In the verses on the Lap-dog, the pro nouns thou and you are offenfively confounded; and the turn at the end is from Waller,

His verfions of the two odes of Horace are made with great liberty, which is not recompenfed by much elegance or vigour.

His political verfes are spritely, and when they were written must have been very popu lar.

Of the scene of Guarini, and the prologue to Pompey, Mrs. Phillips, in her letters to Sir Charles Cotterel, has given the history.

"Lord Rofcommon," fays fhe, " fays fhe, "is certainly one of the most promifing young “noblemen in Ireland. He has paraphrased a "Pfalm admirably, and a scene of Paftor "Fido very finely, in fome places much "better than Sir RichardFanfhaw. This was "undertaken merely in compliment to me, "who happened to say that it was the best "scene in Italian, and the worft in English.

"He