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LETTER I.

Mr. WALSH to Mr. WYCHERLEY.

April 20, 1705.

Return you the + Papers you favour'd me with, and

had fent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you last night myself. I have read them over feveral times with great fatisfaction. The Preface is very judicious and very learned; and the Verfes very tender and eafy. The Author feems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken very freely from the ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to say, that Virgil had written nothing fo good at his age. I fhall take it as favour if you will bring me acquainted with him; and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my houfe, I fhall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him

* Of Abberley in Worcestershire, a Gentleman of the Horfe in Queen Anne's reign, Author of several beautiful pieces in Profe and Verfe, and in the opinion of Mr. Dryden (in his Postscript to Virgil) the best Critic of our Nation in his time.

+ Mr. Pope's Paftorals. Sixteen.

Tt 2

my

my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this letter. I am, Sir, etc.

LETTER II.

Mr. WALSH to Mr. POPE.

June 24, 1706, Receiv'd the favour of your letter, and fhall be very glad of the continuance of a correspondence by which I am like to be fo great a gainer. I hope, when I have the happiness of seeing you again in London, not only to read over the verfes I have now of yours, but more that you have written fince; for I make no doubt but any one who writes fo well, muft write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the best: I believe the contrary is rather true. I mention'd fomewhat to you in London of a Paftoral Comedy, which I should be glad to hear you had thought upon fince. I find Menage in his obfervations upon Taffo's Aminta, reckons up fourfcore paftoral plays in Italian: and in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many pastoral and pifcatory plays, which, I suppose, Menage reckons together. Į find alfo by Menage, that Taffo is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before him which he himself had never feen, nor indeed have I. But as the Aminta, Paftor Fido, and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli are the three beft, fo, I think, there is no difpute but Aininta is the beft of the three: not but that the difcourfes in Paftor Fido are more entertaining and copious in several people's opinion, tho' not so proper for paftoral : and the fable of Bonarelli more furprizing. I do not remember many in other languages, that have written in this kind with fuccefs. Racan's Bergeries are much inferior to his lyric poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the design of paftoral plays to be taken from the Cyclops of Euripides. I am fure there is nothing of this kind in English worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourself. You

fee

fee I write to you without any

fort of constraint or me

thod, as things come into my head, and therefore use the fame freedom with me, who am, etc.

I

LETTER III.

To Mr. WALSH.

Windfor Foreft, July 2, 1706.

Cannot omit the first opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing thofe papers of mine. You have no less right to correct me, than the fame hand that rais'd a tree has to prune it. I am convinced as well as you, that one may correct too much; for in poetry, as in painting, a man may lay colours one upon another, till they stiffen and deaden the piece. Befides, to bestow heightening on every part is monftrous: fome parts ought to be lower than the reft; and nothing looks more ridiculous than a work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, feem all on a level: 'tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grafs, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undiftinguish'd. I believe to that fometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first fqueezing of the grapes makes the fineft and richest

wine.

I have not attempted any thing of a Paftoral comedy, because, I think, the tafte of our age will not relish a poem of that fort. People feek for what they call wit, on all fubjects, and in all places; not confidering that nature loves truth fo well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing : Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needlefs, but impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majefty in fimplicity, which is far above all the quaintnefs of wit: infomuch that the critics have excluded wit from the loftieft poetry, as well as the loweft, and forbid it to the Epic no less than the Paftoral. I should certainly displease all those who are charm'd

with Guarini and Bonarelli, and immirate Taffo not only in the fimplicity, of his Thoughts, but in that of the Fable too. If furprising difcoveries fhould have place in the story of a Paftoral comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make them the effects of chance than of defign; intrigue not being very confiftent with that innocence, which ought to conftitute a fhepherd's character. There is nothing in all the Aminta (as I remember) but happens by mere accident; unless it be the meeting of Aminta with Sylvia at the fountain, which is the contrivance of Daphne; and even that is the most fimple in the world: the contrary is obfervable in Pastor Fido, where Corifca is fo perfect a mistress of intrigue, that the plot could not have been brought to pass without her. I am inclined to think the Paftoral comedy has another disadvantage, as to the manners: its general defign is to make us in love with the innocence of a rural life, fo that to introduce shepherds of a vicious character must in fome measure debase it; and hence it may come to pass, that even the virtuous characters will not fhine fo much, for want of being oppos'd to their contraries. These thoughts are purely my own, and therefore I have reason to doubt them: but I hope your judgment will fet me right.

I would beg your opinion too as to another point: iț is, how far the liberty of borrowing may extend? I have defended it fometimes by faying, that it feems not so much the perfection of sense *, to say things that had never been faid before, as to express those best that have been said ofteneft; and that writers, in the cafe of borrowing from others, are like trees which of themselves would produce only one fort of fruit, but by being grafted upon others may yield variety. A mutual commerce makes poetry flourish; but then poets, like merchants, should repay with fomething of their own what they take from others; not, like pyrates, make prize of all they meet.

He fhould rather have faid, the perfection of conception.

1 defire

I defire you to tell me fincerely, if I have not ftretch'd this licence too far in these Pastorals? I hope to become. a critic by your precepts, and a poet by your example. Since I have feen your Eclogues, I cannot be much pleas'd with my own; however, you have not taken away all my vanity, fo long as you give me leave to profefs myfelf Yours, etc.

LETTER IV.

From Mr. WALSH,

July 20, 1706.

I Had fooner return'd you thanks for the favour of your letter, but that I was in hopes of giving you an account at the fame time of my journey to Windfor; but I am now forced to put that quite off, being engaged to go to my corporation of Richmond in Yorkshire. I think you are perfectly in the right in your notions of Paftoral: but I am of opinion, that the redundancy of wit you mention, tho' 'tis what pleases the common people, is not what ever pleases the best judges. Paftor Fido indeed has had more admirers than Aminta; but I will venture to fay, there is a great deal of difference beween the admirers of one and the other. Corifca, which is a character generally admir'd by the ordinary judges, is intolerable in a Paftoral; and Bonarelli's fancy of making his fhepherdefs in love with two men equally, is not to be defended, whatever pains he has taken to do it. As for what you ask of the liberty of Borrowing; 'tis very evident the beft Latin Poets have extended this very far; and none so far as Virgil, who is the best of them. As for the Greek Poets, if we cannot trace them so plainly, 'tis perhaps because we have none before them; 'tis evident that most of them borrowed from Homer, and Homer has been accus'd of burning those that wrote before him, that his thefts might not be discover'd. The best of the modern Poets in all languages, are thofe that have the neareft copied the An

cients.

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