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for his weary months of solitude at Clogher or Finglas.

About this time Pope and his friends had formed themselves into a society which they called the Scriblerus Club, of which Parnell was a member. It appears from some MS. anecdotes left by Pope, that Parnell had a principal share in the origin of the sciences from the monkies in Ethiopia.'1 The life of Zoilus was intended as a satire on Dennis and Theobald, with whom the club waged eternal war.

The life of Homer prefixed to the translation of the Iliad was written by Parnell, and corrected by Pope, who assures us, that this correction was not effected without great labour. "It is still stiff, (he says) and was written still stiffer; as it is, I verily think it cost me more pains in the correcting, than the writing it would have done." That Parnell's prose, as Goldsmith says, is awkward and inharmonious, and that Pope would have written in a style more elegant and polished, may be well believed; but I question whether Pope

The origin of the sciences from the monkies of Ethiopia was written by me, Dean Parnell and Dr. Arbuthnot. Spence's Anecdotes, p. 201. 2 Dennis's self-conceit, vanity, and envy, certainly de served a heavy castigation: his preface to his Comical Gallants is a most extraordinary production of egotism and impudence; while the play itself is a mass of dulness and stupidity. The learning of Theobald might have shielded him from contempt.

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with his imperfect learning would have ventured on an original life of Homer, and whether it was not safer to leave it in Parnell's hands. Every page of Pope's Homer shows equally his poetical genius, and his want of scholarship. I have no doubt that he set a high value on Parnell's assistance, and that it was of essential service to him in understanding his author; but no assistance of friends, learned enough and anxious to assist him, could supply his own deficiencies in classical taste and knowledge; Pope was never wanting in vigilance and industry; he consulted the commentators as to what was difficult or doubtful, and he borrowed from the former translators when they were happy and successful in their expression; but he never caught the manner, or imbibed the spirit of his original; for he had never studied the language in which it was written.1 I consider Pope's

The difficulties attending a translation of Homer exist, though in a graduated scale, in the attempts to reflect in our language the style and character of the other Grecian poets. These principally arise from the different structure, and great inferiority of our language, by which a translator is placed between two difficulties. He must either endeavour to raise his poetical language to the power of the original, and emulate through the dull and horny medium of the Gothic, the transparent and crystal beauty of the Greek, which will lead him, as it did Pope, to superfluous and perhaps cumbrous embellishment; or if he attempts, like Cowper, to give a fac-simile of his original, he will find his own inferior language unable to support him,-what was plain, with him will become flat, the simple will be naked and bald,

general alteration of Homer's style to be a much greater fault, than the mistakes which he made in the meaning of particular passages. If I may so express myself, he was attempting to follow and imitate the flight of the Grecian poet, without possessing the same variety of movement, or equal flexibility of wing. 'Perhaps the greatest charm, (says a critic1 of much taste and knowledge) of the most sublime of all the ancient poets, is a variety and discrimination of manner and character in which Shakespeare is his only rival.' The friends of Pope were men of wit and humour, of admirable genius, and extensive information; but with the exception of Parnell and of Arbuthnot, he had no one to whom he could apply for information on subjects of Greek literature: and they were all so dazzled with the splendour of his trans

and the venerable and patriarchal majesty of the Grecian bard will descend from its illustrious elevation, to sit on the steps of the throne which it had once dignified and adorned. Pope's Homer, like Dryden's translation of Virgil, is exceedingly valuable as an English poem; in them united, is to be found, every curious modulation of rhythm, and every beautiful variety of expression that our heroic metre admits. Pope somewhere mentions that injudicious friends, for ten years, persecuted him with the most importunate persuasion to give a new translation of Virgil. What accurate estimation of his own powers, and what respect for Dryden, was included in the silent and steady refusal.

See Mr. Uvedale Price's essay on the Mod. Pronun. of the Auc. Languages, p. 186.

lation, and so delighted with its many acknowledged beauties; that they were more willing to expatiate on its merits, and unfold its charms, than compare it with an original which they themselves imperfectly understood. In addition to this, and speaking without any affectation of pedantry, a classical simplicity of taste was no more the characteristic excellence of that time, than solid and extensive learning. Amidst the general shout of approbation, old Bentley's sarcastic growl was heard with indifference or contempt; but Bentley was the only one among them who had studied or understood the subject of dispute; what he said was strictly true; it was not the effusion of envy or mean detraction: the bard of Twickenham was no rival of his; nor was Bentley ever unjust, where solid attainments or splendid talents could claim respect. He did not detract from the merits of Pope's translation as a poem; he did not enter into the subject of its original beauties; but he said it was not Homer, and he was right.

To return to Parnell, Goldsmith mentions that the Scriblerus1 Club, when the members were all in

1 The memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus rose from a happy thought, and were happily executed. They were the flower of that wit, and humour, and sagacity, of which the Dunciad was the strong and bitter root. In the editions of Pope, this part of his works does not seem to me to be faithfully edited. There is a chapter called "Annus Mirabilis," which should precede Stradling versus Styles,' that is omitted. The chapter called The Double

town, were seldom asunder, and often made excursions on foot, into the country. Swift was usually the butt of the company, and if a trick was played he was always the sufferer. The whole party once agreed to walk down to the house of Lord B——, who is still living, and whose seat is about twelve miles from town.2 As every one agreed to make the best of his way, Swift, who was remarkable for walking, soon left all the rest behind him, fully resolved upon his arrival to choose the very best bed for himself, for that was his custom. In the mean time Parnell was determined to prevent his intentions, and taking horse arrived at Lord B's by another way, long before him. Having apprized his lordship of Swift's design, it was resolved at any rate to keep him out of the house, but how to effect this was the question. Swift never had the small-pox, and was very much afraid of catching it. As soon therefore as he appeared striding along at some distance from the house, one of his lordship's servants was dispatched

Mistress has been translated, altered, and enlarged, the humour destroyed, and much gross ribaldry and vulgar indecency introduced by Pigault Le Brun, in his Mélanges Littéraires et Critiques, vol. ii. p. 73--144, called Cause Célébre; he has cantharadized the story; Warton is not consistent in his omissions, if they were regulated by an attention to decency and propriety.

2 By Lord B

presume, is meant Lord Bathurst. He had at that time a seat, or villa, somewhere beyond Twickenham, which he subsequently relinquished. v. Pope's Lett. to Swift, liv.

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