THE colloquial and burlesque style and measure of Swift here adopted did not suit the genius and manner of our author, who frequently falls back, as was natural, from the familiar into his own more laboured, high, and pompous manner. See particularly line 125, and also 189: "Tell how the moon-beam," &c. And this difference of style is more striking and perceivable, from the circumstance of their being immediately subjoined to the lighter and less ornamental verses of Swift. The four epistles which Mr. Pitt translated; namely, the 19th, 4th, 10th, and 18th, of the first book, and which are inserted in the 43d volume of the Works of English Poets, if they were carefully and candidly inspected, will be found really equal to any of Pope's Imitations, and are executed with a dignified familiarity and ease, in the very manner of Horace. After all that has been said of Horace by so many critics, ancient and modern, perhaps no words can describe him so exactly and justly as the following of Tully, spoken on another subject (Lib. I. de Oratore): "Accedit lepos quidam, facetiæque, et eruditio libero digna, celeritasque et brevitas respondendi et lacessendi, subtili venustate et urbanitate conjuncta.” EPISTOLA VII. QUINQUE dies tibi pollicitus me rure futurum, Si me vivere vis sanum recteque valentem; Dum pueris omnis pater, et matercula pallet; Non, quo more pyris vesci Calaber jubet hospes, Tu me fecisti locupletem. Vescere sodes. |