more, would have been inconsistent with our designed brevity.

We have likewise fince feen what your opponent has writ in praise of the one, and derogation of the other, and think you have fufficiently confuted him, and with respect to us, he has been fo far from giving us any cause to retract what we had formerly faid, that it has administered an occafion to us of vindicating it, as we have lately done by fome critical notes on your excellent Johnston, which we communicated foon after to Mr. A. B, who was pleafed to give them a place in his laft edition of him, and which we doubt not you have feen long ago. How they have been relifhed among you we know not, but with us they have been thought fufficient to prove what we have advanced, as well as to direct the attentive reader to discover new inftances of your author's exactnefs and elegance, in every page, if not almost in every line.

We gratefully accept of the books, and kind compliments you were pleased to tranfmit to us by Mr. Strahan, and had long fince returned you our thanks, but for the many avocations which the great work you know us to be engaged in doth of neceffity bring upon us; obliging us, or fome at leaft of our fociety, to make from time to time an excurfion to one or other of our two learned univerfities, and confulting them upon the best method of carrying on this work to the greatest advantage to the public. This has been fome confiderable part of our employment for these twelve months paft; and we flatter ourselves, that we have, with their affiftance and approbation, made fuch confi

derable improvements on our original plan, as will fcarcely fail of being acceptable to the learned world. They will shortly appear in print, to convince the world that we have not been idle, though this fixth volume is like to appear fomewhat later in the year than was ufual with our former ones. We shall take the liberty to tranfinit fome copies of our new plan to you as foon as they are printed. All we have left to wish, with refpect to your excellent countryman and his version is, that it may always meet with fuch powerful and impartial advocates, and that it may be as much efteemed by all candid judges, as it is by,

Learned SIR,

Your fincere Well-wishers and humble Servants,

The AUTHORS of the Univerfal History.

A LETTER from the Learned Mr. ROBERT AINSWorth, Author of the Latin and English Dictionary, to Mr. LAUDER.

Learned and worthy SIR,

HESE wait on you to thank you for the honour

ΤΗ

you have done a perfon, equally unknown as undeferving, in your valuable prefent, which I did not receive till feveral weeks after it was fent: and fince I received it, my eyes have been fo bad, and my hand so unftable, that I have been forced to defer my duty, as defirous to thank you with my own hand. I my own hand. I congratu

late

late to your nation the just honour afcribed to it by its neighbours and more diftant countries, in having bred two fuch excellent poets as your Buchanan and Johnston, whom to name is to commend; but am concerned for their honour at home, who being committed together, seem to me both to fuffer a diminution, whilft juftice is done to neither. But at the fame time I highly approve your nation's piety in bringing into your fchools facred instead of profane poefy, and heartily wish that ours, and all Christian governments, would follow your example herein. If a mixture of utile dulci be the best composition in poetry, (which is too evident to need the judgment of the niceft critic in the art) furely the utile fo tranfcendently excels in the facred hymns, that a Chriftian must deny his name that doth not acknowledge it : and if the dulce seem not equally to excel, it must be from a vitiated taste of those who read them in the original, and in others at fecond-hand from translations. For the manner of writing in the East and Weft are widely diftant, and which to a paraphraft must render his task exceeding difficult, as requiring a perfect knowledge in two languages, wherein the idioms and graces of speech, caused by the diverfity of their religion, laws, customs, &c. are as remote as the inhabitants, wherein notwithftanding your poets have fucceeded to admiration.

Your main conteft feems to me, when ftript of perfons, whether the easy or fublime in poefy be preferable; if fo,

Non opis eft nofira tantam componere litem :

L 2

nor

nor think I it in your cafe material to be decided. Both these have their particular excellencies and graces, and youth ought to be taught wherein (which the matter ought chiefly to determine) the one hath place, and where the other. Now fince the hymns of David, Mofes, and other divine poets intermixt with them, (infinitely excelling those of Callimachus, Alcæus, Sappho, Anacreon, and all others) abound in both these virtues, and both your poets are acknowledged to be very happy in paraphrafing them, it is my opinion both of them, without giving the least preference to either, should be read alternately in your schools, as the tutor fhall direct. Pardon, learned Sir, this fcribble to my age and weakness, both which are very great, and command me wherein I may ferve you, as,

Learned SIR,

Your obliged, thankful, and obedient Servant,

Spitalfields, Sept. 1741.

ROBERT AINSWORTH.

A LETTER from the Authors of the Universal History to Mr. Auditor BENSON.

SIR,

IT.

T is with no finall pleasure that we fee Dr. Johnston's tranflation of the Pfalms revived in fo elegant a manner, and adorned with fuch a juft and learned difplay of its inimitable beauties. As we flatter ourselves that the character we gave it in our first volume of the Univerfal Hiftory, did in fome measure contribute to it,

we

we hope, that in juftice to that great poet, you will permit us to caft the following mites into your treasury of critical notes on his noble version. We always thought the palm by far this author's due, as upon many other accounts, fo especially for two excellencies hitherto not taken notice of by any critic, that we know of, and which we beg leave to tranfmit to you, and if you think fit, by you to the public, in the following obfervations. We beg leave to fubfcribe ourselves,

SIR, &c.

The Authors of the UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

Dr. Ifaac Watts, D. D. in his late Book, entitled, The Improvement of the Mind, Lond. 1741, p. 114.

PON the whole furvey of things, it is my opinion,

UPON

that for almost all boys who learn this tongue, [the Latin] it would be much fafer to be taught Latin poefy (as foon, and as far as they can need it) from those excellent translations of David's Pfalms, which are given us by Buchanan in the various measures of Horace; and the lower claffes had better read Dr. Johnston's tranflation of those Pfalms, another elegant writer of the Scots nation, instead of Ovid's Epiftles; for he has turned the fame Pfalms, perhaps with greater elegancy, into elegiac verfe, whereof the learned W. Benfon, Efq; has lately published a new edition; and I hear that these Pfalms are honoured with an increafing ufe in the fchools of Holland and Scotland. A ftanza, or a couplet of those