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Notes on the EPISTLE to the PISOS
Notes
I have referred the Notes to this place, that the reader might be left to his genuine feelings, and the natural impression on reading the Epistle, whether adverse or favourable to the idea I ventured to premise, concerning its Subject and Design. In the address to my learned and worthy friends I said little more than was necessary so open my plan, and to offer an excuse for my undertaking. The Notes descend to particulars, tending to illustrate and confirm my hypothesis; and adding occasional explanations of the original, chiefly intended for the use of the English Reader. I have endeavoured, according to the best of my ability, to follow the advice of Roscommon in the lines, which I have ventured to prefix to these Notes. How far I may be entitled to the poetical blessing promised by the Poet, the Publick must determine: but were I, avoiding arrogance, to renounce all claim to it, such an appearance of Modesty would includes charge of Impertinence for having hazarded this publication. Take pains the genuine meaning to explore!
There sweat, there strain, tug the laborious oar:
Search ev'ry comment, that your care can find;
Some here, some there, may hit the Poet's mind:
Yet be not blindly guided by the Throng;
The Multitude is always in the Wrong.
When things appear unnatural or hard,
Consult your author, with himself compar'd!
Who knows what Blessing Phoebus may bestow,
And future Ages to your labour owe?
Such Secrets are not easily found out,
But once discoverd, leave no room for doubt.
truth stamps conviction in your ravish'd breast,
And Peace and Joy attend the glorious guest.
Essay on Translated Verse ART of POETRY, an EPISTLE, &c.
Q. HORATII FLACCI EPISTOLA AD PISONES.
The work of Horace, now under consideration, has been so long known, and so generally received, by the name of The Art of Poetry, that I have, on account of that notoriety, submitted this translation to the Publick, under that title, rather than what I hold to be the true one, viz. Horace's Epistle to The Pisos. The Author of the English Commentary has adopted the same title, though directly repugnant to his own system; and, I suppose, for the very same reason.
The title, in general a matter of indifference, is, in the present instance, of much consequence. On the title Julius Scaliger founded his invidious, and injudicious, attack. De arte quares quid sentiam. Quid? eqvidem quod de arte, sine arte traditâ. To the Title all the editors, and commentators, have particularly adverted; commonly preferring the Epistolary Denomination, but, in contradiction to that preference, almost universally inscribing the Epistle, the Art of Poetry. The conduct, however, of Jason De Nores, a native of Cyprus, a learned and ingenious writer of the 16th century, is very remarkable. In the year 1553 he published at Venice this work of Horace, accompanied with a commentary and notes, written in elegant Latin, inscribing it, after Quintilian, Q. Horatii Flacci Liber De Arte Poetica. [Foot note: I think it right to mention that I have never seen the 1st edition, published at Venice. With a copy of the second edition, printed in Paris, I was favoured by Dr. Warton of Winchester.] The very-next year, however, he printed at Paris a second edition, enriching his notes with many observations on Dante and Petrarch, and changing the title, after mature consideration, to Q. Horatii Flacii EPISTOLA AD PISONES, de Arte Poeticâ. His motives for this change he assigns in the following terms.
Quare adductum me primum sciant ad inscriptionem operis immutandam non levioribus de causis,& quod formam epistolae, non autem libri, in quo praecepta tradantur, vel ex ipso principio prae se ferat, & quod in vetustis exemplaribus Epistolarum libros subsequatur, & quad etiam summi et praestantissimi homines ita sentiant, & quod minimè nobis obstet Quintiliani testimonium, ut nonnullis videtur. Nam si librum appellat Quintilianus, non est cur non possit inter epistolas enumerari, cum et illae ab Horatio in libros digestae fuerint. Quod vero DE ARTE POETICA idem Quintilianus adjangat, nihil commaveor, cum et in epistolis praecepta de aliquâ re tradi possint, ab eodemque in omnibus penè, et in iis ad Scaevam & Lollium praecipuè jam factum videatur, in quibus breviter eos instituit, qua ratione apud majores facile versarentur.
Desprez, the Dauphin Editor, retains both titles, but says, inclining to the Epistolary, Attamen artem poeticam vix appellem cum Quintiliano et aliis: malim vero epistolam nuncupare cum nonnullis eruditis. Monsieur Dacier inscribes it, properly enough, agreable to the idea of Porphyry, Q. Horatii Flacci DE ARTE POETICA LIBER; feu, EPISTOLA AD PISONES, patrem, et filios._
Julius Scaliger certainly stands convicted of critical malice by his poor cavil at the supposed title; and has betrayed his ignorance of the ease and beauty of Epistolary method, as well as the most gross misapprehension, by his ridiculous analysis of the work, resolving it into thirty-six parts. He seems, however, to have not ill conceived the genius of the poem, in saying that it relished satire. This he has urged in many parts of his Poeticks, particularly in the Dedicatory Epistle to his son, not omitting, however, his constant charge of Art without Art. Horatius artem cum inscripsit, adeo sine ulla docet arte, ut satyrae propius totum opus illud esse videatur. This comes almost home to the opinion of the Author of the elegant commentaries on the two Epistles of Horace to the Pisos and to Augustus, as expressed in the Dedication to the latter: With the recital of that opinion I shall conclude this long note. "The genius of Rome was bold and elevated: but Criticism of any kind, was little cultivated, never professed as an art, by this people. The specimens we have of their ability in this way (of which the most elegant, beyond all dispute, are the two epistles to Augustus and the Pisos) are slight occasional attempts, made in the negligence of common sense, and adapted to the peculiar exigencies of their own taste and learning; and not by any means the regular productions of art, professedly bending itself to this work, and ambitious to give the last finishing to the critical system."
[Translated from Horace.] In that very entertaining and instructive publication, entitled An Essay on the Learning and Genius of Pope, the Critick recommends, as the properest poetical measure to render in English the Satires and Epistles of Horace, that kind of familiar blank verse, used in a version of Terence, attempted some years since by the Author of this translation. I am proud of the compliment; yet I have varied from the mode prescribed: not because Roscommon has already given such a version; or because I think the satyrical hexameters of Horace less familiar than the irregular lambicks of Terence. English Blank Verse, like the lambick of Greece and Rome, is peculiarly adapted to theatrical action and dialogue, as well as to the Epick, and the more elevated Didactick Poetry: but after the models left by Dryden and Pope, and in the face of the living example of Johnson, who shall venture to reject rhime in the province of Satire and Epistle?
9.—TRUST ME, MY PISOS!] Credite Pisones!
Monsieur Dacier, at a very early period, feels the influence of the personal address, that governs this Epistle. Remarking on this passage, he observes that Horace, anxious to inspire _the Pisos _with a just taste, says earnestly _Trust me, my Pisos! Credite Pisones! _an expression that betrays fear and distrust, lest _the young Men _should fall into the dangerous error of bad poets, and injudicious criticks, who not only thought the want of unity of subject a pardonable effect of Genius, but even the mark of a rich and luxuriant imagination. And although this Epistle, continues Monsieur Dacier, is addressed indifferently to Piso the father, and his Sons, as appears by v. 24 of the original, yet it is _to the sons in particular _that these precepts are directed; a consideration which reconciles the difference mentioned by Porphyry. Scribit ad Pisones, viros nobiles disertosque, patrem et filios; vel, ut alii volunt, ad pisones fratres.
Desprez, the Dauphin Editor, observes also, in the same strain, Porro _scribit Horatius ad patrem et ad filios Pisones, _praesertim vero ad hos.
The family of the Pisos, to whom Horace addresses this Epistle, were called Calpurnii, being descended from Calpus, son of Numa Pompilius, whence, he afterwards stiles them of the Pompilian Blood. Pompilius Sanguis!
10.—THE VOLUME SUCH] Librum persimilem. Liber, observes Dacier, is a term applied to all literary productions, of whatever description. This remark is undoubtedly just, confirms the sentiments of Jason de Nores, and takes off the force of all the arguments founded on Quintilian's having stiled his Epistle LIBER de arte poetica.
Vossius, speaking of the censure of Scaliger, "de arte, sine arte," subsoins sed fallitur, cum [Greek: epigraphaen] putat esse ab Horatio; qui inscipserat EPISTOLAM AD PISONES. Argumentum vero, ut in Epistolarum raeteris, ita in bâc etiam, ab aliis postea appositum fuit.
19.–OFT WORKS OF PROMISE LARGE, AND HIGH ATTEMPT.] Incaeptis gra- nibus plerumque, &c. Buckingham's Essay on Poetry, Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, as well as the Satires, and Art Poetique of Boileau, and Pope's Essay on Criticism, abound with imitations of Horace. This passage of our Author seems to have given birth to the following lines of Buckingham.
'Tis not a slash of fancy, which sometimes,
Dazzling our minds, sets off the slighted rhimes;
Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done;
True Wit is everlasting, like the Sun;
Which though sometimes behind a cloud retir'd,
Breaks out again, and is the more admir'd.
The following lines of Pope may perhaps appear to bear a nearer resemblance this passage of Horace.
Some to Conceit alone their taste confine,
And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos, and wild heap of wit.
Essay on Criticism.
49.–Of th' Aemilian class ] Aemilium circa ludum—literally, near the Aemilian School; alluding to the Academy of Gladiators of Aemilius Lentulus, in whose neighbourhood lived many Artists and Shopkeepers.
This passage also is imitated by Buckingham.
Number and Rhime, and that harmonious found,
Which never does the ear with harshness wound,
Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;
For all in vain these superficial parts
Contribute to the structure of the whole
Without a Genius too; for that's the Soul:
A Spirit which inspires the work throughout
As that of Nature moves the world about.
Essay on Poetry.
Pope has given a beautiful illustration of this thought,
Survey THE WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
In wit, as Nature, what affects our hearts,
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome,
(The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!)
No single parts unequally surprise,
All comes united to th' admiring eyes;
No monstrous height, or breadth, or length appear;
THE WHOLE at once is bold and regular.
Essay on Criticism.
56.—SELECT, ALL YE WHO WRITE, A SUBJECT FIT] Sumite materiam, &c. This passage is well imitated by Roscommon in his Essay on Translated Verse.
The first great work, (a task perform'd by few)
Is, that yourself may to yourself be true:
No mask, no tricks, no favour, no reserve!
Dissect your mind, examine ev'ry nerve.
Whoever vainly on his strength depends,
Begins like Virgil, but like Maevius ends.
* * * * *
Each poet with a different talent writes,
One praises, one instructs, another bites.
Horace did ne'er aspire to Epick Bays,
Nor lofty Maro stoop to Lyrick Lays.
Examine how your humour is inclin'd,
And which the ruling passion of your mind:
Then, seek a Poet who your way does bend,
And chuse an Author as you chuse a friend.
United by this sympathetick bond,
You grow familiar, intimate, and fond;
Your thoughts, your words your stiles, your Souls agree,
No longer his interpreter, but He.
Stooping to Lyrick Lays, though not inapplicable to some of the lighter odes of Horace, is not descriptive of the general character of the Lyrick Muse. Musa dedit Fidibus Divas &c.
Pope takes up the same thought in his Essay on Criticism.
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
* * * * *
Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more:
Each might his servile province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
71.—A cunning phrase.] Callida junctura.
Jason de Nores and many other interpreters agree that Horace here recommends, after Aristotle, the artful elevation of style by the use of common words in an uncommon sense, producing at once an air of familiarity and magnificence. Some however confine the expression, callida junctura, to signify compound words. The Author of the English Commentary adopts the first construction; but considers the precept in both senses, and illustrates each by many beautiful examples from the plays of Shakespeare. These examples he has accompanied with much elegant and judicious observation, as the reader of taste will be convinced by the following short extracts.
"The writers of that time had so latinized the English language, that the pure English Idiom, which Shakespeare generally follows, has all the air of novelty, which other writers are used to affect by foreign phraseology.—In short, the articles here enumerated are but so many ways of departing from the usual and simpler forms of speech, without neglecting too much the grace of ease and perspicuity; in which well-tempered licence one of the greatest charms of all poetry, but especially of Shakespeare's poetry, consists. Not that he was always and every where so happy. His expression sometimes, and by the very means, here exemplified, becomes hard, obscure, and unnatural. This is the extreme on the other side. But in general, we may say, that He hath either followed the direction of Horace very ably, or hath hit upon his rule very happily."
76.—THE STRAIT-LAC'D CETHEGI.] CINCTUTIS Cethegis. Jason de Nores differs, and I think very justly, from those who interpret Cinctutis to signify loose, bare, or naked—EXERTOS & NUDOS. The plain sense of the radical word cingo is directly opposite. The word cinctutis is here assumed to express a severity of manners by an allusion to an antique gravity of dress; and the Poet, adds de Nores, very happily forms a new word himself, as a vindication and example of the licence he recommends. Cicero numbers M. Corn. Cethegus among the old Roman Orators; and Horace himself again refers to the Cethegi in his Epistle to Florus, and on the subject of the use of words.
Obscurata diu papula bonus eruet, atque
Proseret in lucem speciosa vocabula rer*um;
***need a Latin speaker to check this out***
Quae priscis memorata CATONIBUS atque CETHEGIS,
Nunc situs informis premit & deserta vetustas;
Adsciscet nova quae genitor produxerit usus.
Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,
Bright thro' the rubbish of some hundred years;
Command old words that long have slept, to wake,
Words, that wife Bacon, or brave Raleigh spake;
Or bid the new be English, ages hence,
For Use will father what's begot by Sense.
POPE.
This brilliant passage of Pope is quoted in this place by the author of that English Commentary, who has also subjoined many excellent remarks on the revival of old words, worthy the particular attention of those who cultivate prose as well as poetry, and shewing at large, that "the riches of a language are actually increased by retaining its old words: and besides, they have often a greater real weight and dignity, than those of a more fashionable cast, which succeed to them. This needs no proof to such as are versed in the earlier writings of any language."—"The growing prevalency of a very different humour, first catched, as it should seem, from our commerce with the French Models, and countenanced by the too scrupulous delicacy of some good writers amongst ourselves, bad gone far towards unnerving the noblest modern language, and effeminating the public taste."—"The rejection of old words, as barbarous, and of many modern ones, as unpolite," had so exhausted the strength and stores of our language, that it was high time for some master-hand to interpose, and send us for supplies to our old poets; which there is the highest authority for saying, no one ever despised, but for a reason, not very consistent with his credit to avow: rudem esse omnino in nostris poetis, aut inertissimae nequitiae est, aut fastidii delicatissimi.– Cic. de fin. 1. i. c. 2.
[As woods endure, &c.] Ut silvae foliis, &c. Mr. Duncombe, in his translation of our Author, concurs with Monsieur Dacier in observing that "Horace seems here to have had in view that fine similitude of Homer in the sixth book of the Iliad, comparing the generations of men to the annual succession of leaves.
[Greek:
Oipaeer phyllon genehn, toiaede ch ahndron.
phylla ta mehn t anemohs chamahdis cheei, ahllah de thula
Taeletheasa phyei, earos depigigyel(*)ai orae
Oz andron genen. aemen phnei, aeh dahpolaegei.]
"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their turns decay;
So flourish these, when those are past away."
The translator of Homer has himself compared words to leaves, but in another view, in his Essay on Criticism.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
In another part of the Essay he persues the same train of thought with Horace, and rises, I think, above his Master.
Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let them live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When Patriarch-wits surviv'd a thousand years;
Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast;
Our sons their father's failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.
So when the faithful pencil has design'd
Some bright idea of the Master's mind,
Where a new world leaps out at his command,
And ready Nature waits upon his hand;
When the ripe colours soften and unite,
And sweetly melt into just shade and light;
When mellowing years their full perfection give,
And each bold figure just begins to live;
The treach'rous colours the fair art betray,
And all the bright creation fades away!
Essay an Criticism.
95.—WHETHER THE SEA, &c.] Sive receptus, &c.
This may be understood of any harbour; but it is generally interpreted to refer to the Portus Julius, a haven formed by letting in the sea upon the Lucrine Lake, and forming a junction between that and the Lake Avernus; a work, commenced by Julius Caesar, and compleated by Augustus, or Agrippa under his auspices. Regis opus! Both these lakes (says Martin) were in Campania: the former was destroyed by an earthquake; but the latter is the present Lago d'Averno. Strabo, the Geographer, who, as well as our Poet, was living at the time, ascribes this work to Agrippa, and tells us that the Lucrine bay was separated from the Tyrrhene sea by a mound, said to have been first made by Hercules, and restored by Agrippa. Philargyrius says that a storm arose at the time of the execution of this great work, to which Virgil seems to refer in his mention of this Port, in the course of his Panegyrick on Italy in the second Georgick.
An memorem portus Lucrinoque addita claustra,
Atque indignatem magnis strideribus aequor,
Julia qua ponto longe sonat unda refuso,
Tyrrbenusque fretis immittitur aeflut AVERNIS?
Or shall I praise thy Ports, or mention make
Of the vast mound, that binds the Lucrine Lake?
Or the disdainful sea, that, shut from thence,
Roars round the structure, and invades the fence;
There, where secure the Julian waters glide,
Or where Avernus' jaws admit the Tyrrhene tide?
DRYDEN.
98.—WHETHER THE MARSH, &c. Sterilisve Palus.]
THE PONTINE MARSH, first drained by the Consul Cornelius Cethegus; then, by Augustus; and many, many years after by Theodorick.
102.—OR IF THE RIVER, &c.] Sen cursum, &c. The course of the Tyber, changed by Augustus, to prevent inundations.
110.—FOR DEEDS OF KINGS, &c.] Res gestae regumque, &c.
The ingenious author of the English Commentary, to whom I have so often referred, and to whom I must continue to refer, has discovered particular taste, judgement, and address, in his explication of this part of the Epistle. runs thus.
"From reflections on poetry, at large, he proceeds now to particulars: the most obvious of which being the different forms and measures of poetick composition, he considers, in this view, [from v. 75 to 86] the four great species of poetry, to which all others may be reduced, the Epick, Elegiack, Dramatick, and Lyrick. But the distinction of the measure, to be observed in the several species is so obvious, that there can scarcely be any mistake about them. The difficulty is to know [from v. 86 to 89] how far each may partake of the spirit of the other, without destroying that natural and necessary difference, which ought to subsist betwixt them all. To explain this, which is a point of great nicety, he considers [from v. 89 to 99] the case of Dramatick Poetry; the two species of which are as distinct from each other, as any two can be, and yet there are times, when the features of the one will be allowed to resemble those of the other.—But the Poet had a further view in choosing this instance. For he gets by this means into the main of his subject, which was Dramatick Poetry, and, by the most delicate transition imaginable, proceeds [from 89 to 323] to deliver a series of rules, interspersed with historical accounts, and enlivened by digressions, for the regulation of the Roman stage."
It is needless to insist, that my hypothesis will not allow me to concur entirely in the latter part of this extract; at least in that latitude, to which; the system of the writer carries it: yet I perfectly agree with Mr. Duncombe, that the learned Critick, in his observations on this Epistle, "has shewn, in general, the connection and dependence of one part with another, in a clearer light than any other Commentator." His shrewd and delicate commentary is, indeed, a most elegant contrast to the barbarous analysis of Scaliger, drawn up without the least idea of poetical transition, and with the uncouth air of a mere dry logician, or dull grammarian. I think, however, the Order and Method, observed in this Epistle, is stricter than has yet been observed, and that the series of rules is delivered with great regularity; NOT enlivened by digressions, but passing from one topick to another, by the most natural and easy transitions. The Author's discrimination of the different stiles of the several species of poetry, leads him, as has been already shewn, to consider the diction of the Drama, and its accommodation to the circumstances and character of the Speaker. A recapitulation of these circumstances carries him to treat of the due management of characters already known, as well as of sustaining those that are entirely original; to the first of which the Poet gives the preference, recommending known characters, as well as known subjects: And on the mention of this joint preference, the Author leaves further consideration of the diction, and slides into discourse upon the fable, which he continues down to the 152d verse.
Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.
Having dispatched the fable, the Poet proceeds, and with some Solemnity of Order, to the consideration of the characters; not in regard to suitable diction, for of that he has already spoken, but in respect to the manners; and, in this branch of his subject, he has as judiciously borrowed from the Rhetoricks of Aristotle, as in the rest of his Epistle from the Poeticks. He then directs, in its due place, the proper conduct of particular incidents of the fable; after which he treats of the chorus; from whence he naturally falls into the history of theatrical musick; which is, as naturally, succeeded by an account of the Origin of the Drama, itself, which the Poet commences, like master Aristotle, even from the Dithyrambick Song, and carries it down to the establishment of the New Greek Comedy; from whence he passes easily and gracefully, to the Roman stage, acknowledging the merits of the Writers, but pointing out their defects, and assigning the causes. He then subjoins a few general observations, and concludes his long discourse on the drama, having extended it to 275 lines. This discourse, together with the result of all his reflections on Poets and Poetry, he then applies in the most earnest and personal manner to the elder Piso; and with a long and most pathetick peroration, if I may adopt an oratorical term, concludes the Epistle.
116.—THE ELEGY'S SMALL SONG.] EXIGUOS Elegos.
Commentators differ concerning the import of this expression—exiguos Elegos, the Elegy's small song. De Nores, Schrevelius, and Desprez, think it refers to the humility of the elegiack stile and subjects, compared with epick or lyrick sublimity. Monsieur Dacier rather thinks that Horace refers here, as in the words Versibus impariter junctis, "Couplets unequal," to the use of pentameter, or short verse, consisting of five feet, and joined to the hexameter, or long verse, of six. This inequality of the couplet Monsieur Dacier justly prefers to the two long Alexandrines of his own country, which sets almost all the French poetry, Epick, Dramatick, Elegiack, or Satyrick, to the tune of Derry Down. In our language, the measures are more various, and more happily conceived. Our Elegy adopts not only unequal couplets, but alternate rhymes, which give a plaintive tone to the heroick measure, and are most happily used in Gray's beautiful _Elegy in a Country Church yard.
135.—THY FEAST, THYESTES!] Caena Thyestae.
The story of Thyestes being of the most tragick nature, a banquet on his own children! is commonly interpreted by the Criticks, as mentioned by Horace, in allusion to Tragedy in general. The Author of the English Commentary, however, is of a different opinion, supposing, from a passage of Cicero, that the Poet means to glance at the Thyestes of Ennius, and to pay an oblique compliment to Varius, who had written a tragedy on the same subject.
The same learned Critick also takes it for granted, that the Tragedy of Telephus, and probably of Peleus, after-mentioned, point at tragedies of Euripedes, on these subjects, translated into Latin, and accomodated to the Roman Stage, without success, by Ennius, Accius, or Naevius.
One of this Critick's notes on this part of the Epistle, treating on the use of pure poetry in the Drama, abounds with curious disquisition and refined criticism.
150.—They must have passion too.] dulcia sunto. The Poet, with great address, includes the sentiments under the consideration of diction.
—Effert animi motus interprete lingua. Forces expression from the faithful tongue.
Buckingham has treated the subject of Dialogue very happily in his Essay on Poetry, glancing, but not servilely, at this part of Horace.
Figures of Speech, which Poets think so fine,
Art's needless varnish to make Nature shine,
Are all but Paint upon a beauteous face,
And in Descriptions only claim a place.
But to make Rage declaim, and Grief discourse,
From lovers in despair fine things to force,
Must needs succeed; for who can chuse but pity
A dying hero miserably witty?
201.–BE NOT YOUR OPENING FIERCE!] Nec sic incipies, Most of the Criticks observe, that all these documents, deduced from the Epick, are intended, like the reduction of the Iliad into acts, as directions and admonition to the Dramatick writer. Nam si in EPOPaeIA, que gravitate omnia poematum generae praecellit, ait principium lene esse debere; quanto magis in tragoedia et comoedia, idem videri debet? says de Nores. Praeceptum de intio grandiori evitaado, quod tam epicus quam tragicus cavere debet; says the Dauphin Editor. Il faut se souvenir qu' Horace appliqae à la Tragedie les regies du Poeme Epique. Car si ces debuts eclatans sont ridicules dans la Poeme Epique, ils le sont encore plus dans la Tragedie: says Dacier. The Author of the English Commentary makes the like observation, and uses it to enforce his system of the Epistle's being intended as a Criticism on the Roman drama. [ xviii] 202–Like the rude ballad-monger's chant of old] ut scriptor cyclicus olim.] Scriptor cyclicus signisies an itinerant Rhymer travelling, like Shakespeare's Mad Tom, to wakes, and fairs, and market-towns. 'Tis not precisely known who was the Cyclick Poet here meant. Some have ascribed the character to Maevius, and Roscommon has adopted that idea.
Whoever vainly on his strength depends,
Begins like Virgil, but like Maevius ends:
That Wretch, in spite of his forgotten rhimes,
Condemn'd to live to all succeeding times,
With pompous nonsense, and a bellowing sound,
Sung lofty Ilium, tumbling to the ground,
And, if my Muse can thro' past ages fee,
That noisy, nauseous, gaping fool was he;
Exploded, when, with universal scorn,
The Mountains labour'd, and a Mouse was born.
Essay on Translated Verse.
The pompous exordium of Statius is well known, and the fragments of Ennius present us a most tremendous commencement of his Annals.
horrida romoleum certamina pango duellum!
this is indeed to split our ears asunder
With guns, drums, trumpets, blunderbuss, and thunder!
211.—Say, Muse, the Man, &c.] Homer's opening of the Odyssey. his rule is perhaps no where so chastely observed as in the Paradise Lost. Homer's [Greek: Maenin aeide thea]! or, his [Greek: Andra moi ennepe,Mgsa]! or, Virgil's Arma, Urumque cano! are all boisterous and vehement, in comparison with the calmness and modesty of Milton's meek approach,
