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it gives rife to many beautiful transitions from the sprightly to the ferious, and from the witty to the moral, which form the foul and beauty of an epiftolary intercourse.-We cannot deny our readers the pleasure of perufing the following specimens of the writers poetry.

• Dear HARRY,

fair, but the air is crifp, and I bathed to-day, and rejoice Refolution, to be fure, is a

The weather ftill continues the fea as cold as melting fnow. that 'tis the last of my penance. very good thing, but certainly 'tis a much better to have no farther occafion for it. This I hope, is my cafe, at prefent, for I think my rheumatism is quite cured.

I wrote the inclosed lines, this morning, with a pencil, on the wooden wall of my booth, juft before I equipt myfelf for my voyage. I cannot, I am forry for it, write as well as Prior, but I can do more than he could, I can fear to the truth of my song.

• Great Venus, offspring of the waves,
Oh! hear thy fuppliant, while fhe laves.
With humble modefty I fue,

And ask a boon that's fomething new.
To me thy choiceft gifts impart,
Not to enflave, but keep one heart,
Thy grace imparting zone, ah! lend,
To please my hufband, lover, friend;
Let me to his fond eyes appear,
For ever lovely, ever dear,
No other fwain I wish to charm,

No love but his, my breast can warm;

For his dear fake I thus explore

The chilling wave, and Health implore
To deck me with her rofy hue,

And still my paffing youth renew.

Here then, and grant thy votary's prayer,
With Hymen join'd, for once appear,
And though ten years of life have roll'd,

Since firft we lov'd, let it be told
Ages to come, that ftill thy power
Remains the fame as in that hour,

When firft our mutual vows were made,
When first thy precepts were obey'd.

Long may our loves this moral truth proclaim.
That Hymen chears, not damps the virtuous flame.

FRANCES."

Dear HARRY,

'I fhall go to town, to-morrow, to meet you, according to the advice of your last letter. As to the two particulars you fondly defire to be refolved about, I am, thank God, in perfect health, and our Arthur just as I defcribed him in my last.

I was shewn a poem this morning, which the perfon faid he did not know had ever appeared in print, and as it is upon the prefent fubject, and that I love arrefting pretty fugitive pieces, and laying them by, I fhall copy out and fend you, for your amufement on the road.

'An HYMN to HEALTH.

WRITTEN in SICKNESS.

Sweet as the fragrant breath of genial May,
O come, thou fair Hygeia, heavenly born,
More lovely than the fun's returning ray,

To northern regions or the half-year's morn.
Where fhall I feek thee? In the wholefome grot,
Where temperance her fcanty meal enjoys,
Or peace, contented with her humble lot,

Beneath her thatch th' inclement blaft defies.
Swept from each flower that fips the morning dew,
Thy wing befprinkles all the fcenes around,
Where-e'er thou flieft, the bloffoms blufh anew,
And purple violets paint the hallow'd ground.

Thy prefence renovated nature fhews,
Each fhrub with variegated hue is dy'd,
Each tulip with redoubled luftre glows,
And all creation fimiles with flowery pride.

But, in thy abfence, joy is feen no more,

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The landscape wither'd ev'n in fpring appears, The morn lowrs ominous o'er the dusky fhore, And evening funs fet half extinct in tears. Ruthless disease afcends when thou art gone, From the dark regions of the abyss below, With peftilence, the guardian of her throne, Breathing contagion from the realms of woe. In vain her citron groves Italia boasts,

Or Po the balfam of her weeping trees,

In vain Arabia's aromatic coafts,

Tincture the pinions of the paffing breeze.
D 2

Me,

Ma, abject me, with pale disease oppress'd,

Heal with the balm of thy prolific breath; Rekindle life within my clay-cold breast,

And shield my youth from canker worms of death. Then on the verdant turf, thy fav'rite shrine, Reftor'd to thee a votary I'll come,

Grateful to offer as a rite divine,

Each herb that grows round Æfculapius' tomb.'

Though we think this collection in fome measure atones for the many affected unnatural compofitions of the fame kind, yet we do not pretend to affert, that all these letters are equally interefting and entertaining. Every reader knows that

Ev'n nonfenfe may be eloquence in love:

This quotation, however, we would not be understood to apply to this performance; all we mean to infinuate is, that there are certain overflowings of affection between lovers which they only can feel, underftand, and be pleased with.

VI. The Iliad of Homer, Tranflated from the Greek into Blank Verfe. With Notes pointing out the peculiar Beauties of the Original, and the Imitations of it by fucceeding Poets. With Remarks on Mr. Pope's admired Verfion. Book 1. Being a Specimen of the Whole, which is to follow. By the Rev. Samuel Langley, D. D. Rector of Checkley, Staffordshire. 4to. Price 35. Dodfley.

of Homer is

writer has undertaken the task with uncommon refolution. He is indeed in all points a perfect knight-errant. When he fets out on this enterprize, he imagines himself actuated by an irresistible impulse.' The Homeric mufe is his Dulcinea. His predeceffors, in his opinion, have been only traitors and ruffians, who have attempted to violate this paragon of beauty; but he himself is an indefatigable champion in her defence; and engages to redress the injuries fhe has fuftained. He accordingly proves himself the flower of Parnaffus, and the mirrour of knighthood, by an air of intrepidity, a loftiness of expression, and a fingularity of mien and manner.

Like another Phaeton, fays he, I am provoked to prove my presumed lineage from Phoebus, amidst this long dearth of genuine Parnaffians (to exert at large, exhibiting to the public eye, thofe poetical faculties that have now fluinbered fo long in my own bofom, and are at laft fully waked to undergo this fiery trial), ambitious to mount this imperial high-flying cha

riot of Homer (the fabulous car of Phoebus, the God of verse, or rather his true chariot), and to try my skill in guiding the reins in this already-harneffed thundering-vehicle; the fashion whereof is fo beautiful, for the body thereof is the pureft gold, and the running wheels are of everlasting adamant; where (to pursue the figure) I am to bring this pompous car as near earth, as its fixed course already determined admonishes me; and if I fall in this airy tour, through a groveling low-born (gravitating) principle, through want of ability and skill to rattle it swimmingly along the firmament; or, if I fly too high (impoffible in strictness, but in fancied excurfions of my own), leaving the middle path, and fuffer the courfers of Phoebus to gallop me out of breath, and overturn me, for want of commanding the reins, like the ambitious Phaeton I reprefent; by either extreme, I precipitate my own ruin, as a tranflator; at the fame time it must be acknowledged, it is fome praise to have dared nobly, and that the fall from fuch an height therefore was glorious.'

Yet, notwithstanding the dangers attending the adventure, I was determined, fays this valorous knight, to proceed with all my might; I was weary of burying my talent in the earth. I was prompted by an irresistible impulse; while I was mufing the fire kindled; my zeal burned within me, like a fire that had been finothered for many years, and provoked me, at laft, to launch out into the turbulent ocean of the prefs. I now expect that the tide will run high against me, and the billows of the Popian party dash in huge mountains against my naked version, like a weather-beaten bark floating in a wide and tempeftuous fea. I have put forth, launched, as I may say, in a storm; and a million to one, if I reach, without infinite perils, the defired haven. I care not yet, if I can but fcape fhipwreck. I muft ingenuoutly confefs my vessel is not infured; I ftand all on my own bottom, to fink or swim, as my deftiny chances. At the worst, I can throw all the blame on my ftars, in the old fuperftitious phrafe, and lament no better happened to govern at my birth.

What particularly inftigated our hero to this adventurous attempt, and, as he expreffes himself, roufed his choler in foulfelt zeal for the honour of the Grecian bard, was the temerity of his predeceffor. He has committed, he fays, the fouleft treafon against the majefty of the high-throned Homer. He has, in wantonnefs, made large rents in his royal purple, and attempted to repair them by rags of scarlet frize; he has tricked him up with peacock feathers; he has robbed him of his antique, his effential characteristic. As if Homer had been a writer of yesterday, he has given him, in his taudry verfion, a downright modern air, and finothered the native majesty of

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the original by oftentatious daub colouring. By almost always omitting those awful compound epithets, which the poet applies to the gods and heroes, he has given all readers of learning and taste, an indelible difguft. Nay, he has even prefumed to clip and deface the royal ftamp, and impofe on the public his own fplendid counters for Homer's gold; and evaporated the fpirit of the original in the beggarly glare of gilded words foreign to the fterling text!

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In the fame rambling ftile this writer proceeds to inform us, that an abfurd principle of vain conceit, engendered of pride, was what mifled his wandering, benighted predeceffor.

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but his eyes against the light of Homer's text, choofing rather to follow the ignis fatuus kindled from the fogs of his brain. Bit Homer's mufe foars too, fublimely, and flies too rapidly along the aerial road for a chicken of his wing to contend with or outftrip. As Icarus would needs outfly his more fteady-minded father Dadalus, and, by melting his wax, dropped into the deep, fo by quitting Homer's text, the beaten road, as he launched out at firft wantonly, fo he perished at last, as a tranflator, in a fea of errors.'

Such, we are told, was the end of Mr. Pope. But as it is a difputable point among the learned, whether Ariftotle died by fea or land, fo from this writer's representation it is equally uncertain, whether his predeceffor was drowned or broke his neck. For in another page he tells us, 'It fo turned out, that my predeceffor, affe&ting to fcale the very pinnacle of Parnaffus (where he might have ftood mercury-like in a ftatue ftill in triumph, had not his brain turned giddy with attempting the airy height) fell down from his own proper altitude, when he published his riotous verfion of Homer.'

But whether he broke his neck by the fall, or was drowned, as above, is of no confequence. It was in either cafe a fortunate event; for, according to the opinion of his fucceffor, he only misled the bulk of gentleman and lady readers to a wrong idea of the excellence of Homer, by the jingle of his rhymes; and the Turkish executions exhibited in the bloody Dunciad, ftrangling every thing in its birth, were attended with a bad effect, the deterring for ever the easily brow-beat modeft candidate from attempting to enter the borders of Parnaffus (free to all duly called) when fuch a barking foul-mouthed Cerberus kept the gates.'

From the following extract the learned reader will be able to form a judgment of this author's abilities as a tranflator.

Achilles' wrath fo deadly, Peleus' fon,
Refound, O Goddefs! fource to wretched Greece
Of endless woes, that to an early grave

Plung'd

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