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is adopted from an old Latin elegy on the death of prince Henry.

In several parts of his writings, Pope feems to have formed himself on the model of Boileau; as might appear from a large deduction of particular paffages, almost literally translated from that nervous and fenfible fatirift.

Happily to fteer

From grave to gay, from lively to severe.

POPE.

-D'une voix legere

Paffer du grave au doux, du plaisant au severe !

BOILEAU.

Pride, madness, folly, against Dryden rose,
In various shapes of parfons, critics, beaus.

POPE.

L'ignorance, & l'erreur a fes naiffantes pieces,
En habits de marquis, en robbes de comteffes,
Venoient pour diffamer fon chef d'œuvre nouveau.
BOILEAU..

While I am tranfcribing thefe fimilarities, I feel great uneafinefs, left I should be accufed of vainly and impotently endeavouring to cast clouds over the repu. tation of this exalted and truly original genius, "whose "memory," to use an expreffion of Ben Johnson, " I "do honour, on this fide idolatry, as much as any;" and left the reader fhould be cloyed and difgufted with a cluster of quotations: it happens, however, fortunately, that each paffage I have produced, contain some

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important moral truth, or conveys fome pleasing image of the mind.

Critics feem agreed in giving greater latitude to the imitation of the ancients than of later writers. To enrich a compofition with the fentiments and images of Greece and Rome, is ever efteemed, not only lawful, but meritorious. We adorn our writings with their ideas, with as little fcruple, as our houses with their ftatues. And Pouffin is not accused of plagiarism, for having painted Agrippina covering her face with both her hands, at the death of Germanicus; though Timanthes had reprefented Agamemnon closely veiled at the facrifice of his daughter, judiciously leaving the Spectator to guess at a forrow inexpreffible, and that mocked the power of the pencil.

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No. LXIV. Saturday June 16. 175 3.

Notitiam primofque gradus vicinia fecit;

Tempore crevit amor.

OVID.

Acquaintance grew, th' acquaintance they improve
To friendship; friendship ripen'd into love.

Eufden.

SIR,

To the ADVENturer.

YOUR paper of laft Tuesday fe'nnight, which I did not read till to-day, determined me to fend you an account of my friend Eugenio, by whose distress my mind has been long kept in perpetual agitation: and perhaps, my narrative may not only illustrate your allegory, but contribute to recover opinion from her defection.

As Orgilio, the father of Eugenio, had no principles but those of a man of honour, he avoided alike both the virtues and vices which are incompatible with that character: religion he supposed to be a contrivance of priests and politicians, to keep the vulgar in awe; and used by thofe in the rank of gentleman who pretend to acknowledge its obligations, only as an expedient to conceal their want of fpirit. By a conduct regulated upon these principles, he gradually reduced a

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paternal eftate of two thousand pounds per annum, to five hundred. Befides Eugenio, he had only one child, a daughter: his wife died while they were infants. His younger brother, who had acquired a very confiderable fortune in trade, retired unmarried into the country: he knew that the paternal estate was greatly reduced; and, therefore, took the expence of his nephew's education upon himself: after some years had been spent at Westminster school, he fent him to' the university, and fupported him by a very genteel annuity.

Eugenio, though his temper was remarkably warm and fprightly, had yet a high relish of literature, and infenfibly acquired a strong attachment to a college life. His apartment adjoined to mine, and our acquaintance was foon improved into friendship. I found in him great ardour of benevolence, and a sense of generofity and honour, which I had conceived to confift only in romance. With refpect to Christianity, indeed, he was as yet a fceptic: but I found it easy to obviate general objections; and, as he had great penetration and fagacity, was fuperior to prejudice, and habituated to no vice which he wished to countenance by infidelity, he began to believe as foon as he began to enquire: the evidence for Revelation at length appeared inconteftible; and without bufying himself with the cavils of fubtility against particular doctrines, he determined to adhere inviolably to the precepts as a rule of life, and to truft in the promises as the foundation of hope. The fame ardour and firmness, the fame generofity and honour, were now exercised: with more exalted views, and upon a more perfect plan. He confidered me as his preceptor, and I confidered

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fidered him as my example: our friendship increased every day; and I believe he had conceived a defign to follow me into orders. But when he had continued at college about two years, he received a command from his father to come immediately to town: for that his earnest defire to place him in the army was now accomplished, and he had procured him a captain's commiflion. By the fame poft he received a letter from his uncle, in which he was ftrongly urged to continue at college, with premifes of fucceeding to his whole eftate; his father's project was zealously condemned, and his neglect of a brother's concurrence refented. Eugenio, though it was greatly his defire to continue at college, and his intereft to oblige his uncle, yet obeyed his father without the least hesitation.

When he came to town, he discovered that a warm altercation had been carried on between his uncle and his father upon this fubject: his uncle, not being able to produce any effect upon the father, as a laft effort had written to the fon; and being equally offended with both, when his application to both had been equally ineffectual, he reproached him with folly and ingratitude; and dying foon after by a fall from his horse, it appeared, that in the height of his resentment, he had left his whole fortune to a diftant relation, in Ireland, whom he had never feen.

Under this misfortune Eugenio comforted himself by reflecting, that he had incurred it by obedience to his father; and though it precluded hopes that were dearer than life, yet he never expreffed his difpleasure either by invective or complaint.

Orgilio had very early in life contracted an intimacy with Agreftis, a gentleman whofe character and prin

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