Num vernant humiles in aprico colle myrice?

Ne malus bas oculus, ne mala lædat hyems!
An mea Alegiades, dulciffima turba, puellæ
Curant, an zephyris irrita vota dabunt?
An viridem faliunt, nullo venante, per hortum
Hinnuleique citi, capreolique leves?
Vifamne umbriferos, loca dilectiffima, faltûs,
Ducit ubi facilem læta Noama chorum?
Num Daregi ripas patulâ tegit arbutus umbrâ,
Ah! quoties lacrymis humida faɛta meis ?
Grata quis antra colit, nobis absentibus, Amri,
Antra puellarum quàm benè nota gregi?
Forfan amatores Meccanâ in valle reductos
Abfentis Solim commeminiffe juvat.
Tempus erit, levibus quo pervigilata cachinnis
Nox dabit unanimi gaudia plena choro;
Quo dulces juvenum fpirabit cœtus amores,
Et lætos avidâ combibet aure modos.

Our English Readers would hardly think us excufable, if we did not, in fome form or other, give them a tranflation of this beautiful

ARABIAN ELEGY.

Are these heaven's lightnings that illume the day?
Or are they LEILA's lovely looks, more gay?
Frem burning groves do thefe bright fplendors rife ?
Or are they beams from SOLYMA's fair eyes?
From HAGER'S nard, from MECCA's violets flow
These sweets? Or thefe do Azza's locks bestow?
O memory dear! that former fcenes explores,
Loft in long exile, and on foreign fhores!
Where now the loves that languish'd in the shade?
The fond appointment, and the faithful maid?
Secure, while o'er the mountain's murm'ring head
The long, flow voice of distant thunders fled;
Secure, while down that mountain's wounded fide,
In the ftrong torrent roll'd the showery tide.
As late, when morning led the glowing day,
My thirft, O AZIB, fhall thy fprings allay?
O plains belov'd! to joys that once ye knew
Sad, fweet remembrance fighs her last adieu!
Shall NAGID's groves, fhall TUDA's paftures hear
The amorous fhepherd's hope, the fhepherd's fear?
From SALA's vale does no companion fend,
TO CADEM's hills, fond wishes for his friend?
Yet fmile your myrtles, unrepreft by cold?
Yet blooms your lotus, where it bloom'd of old ?
Love your low tam'risks yet their funny hills?
Far be each eye that blasts, each storm that kills!

C.4

Still

Still are we dear to foft ALEGIA's fair?
Still wafte they wishes on the empty air?
Still, unpurfued, along the flowery lawn
Leaps the light kid, and flies the bounding fawn?
Thofe Sylvan wilds fhall I behold again,
Where gay NOAMA leads her happy train?
Still deign your banks the arbutus to rear,
Ye ftreams of DAREG, fwell'd with many a tear?
Who now shall near your lov'd retreats repair,
Ye fhades of AMRI, favour'd of the fair?
Yet fhall ye, fwains of Mecca's happier vale,
Not long your abfent SOLYMA bewail!
Gay youth again fhall form the festive choir,
Lead the light dance, and wake the sprightly lyre;
Again fhall love our gentle cares employ,

And mufic breathe the living strains of joy.

For the many other curious particulars contained in this volume we muft refer the Reader to the work itself.

IN

ART. VI. Lord Chesterfield's Letters, concluded.

N the fecond volume of this pleafing, this feducing collection, we find a letter to Monf. de Voltaire. it is dated Aug. 27, 1752, and we shall infert it for the fake of a paffage relating to a little piece of Swift's, which (we believe) is not to be found in any edition of the Dean's works.

As a moft convincing proof how infinitely I am interested in every thing which concerns Mr. Stanhope, who will have the honour of prefenting you this letter, I take the liberty of introducing him to you. He has read a great deal, he has feen a great deal; whether or not he has made a proper use of that knowledge, is what I do not know he is only twenty years of age. He was at Berlin fome years ago, and therefore he returns thither; for at prefent people are attracted towards the north, by the fame motives which but lately drew them to the south.

Permit me, Sir, to return you thanks for the pleasure and inftruction I have received from your History of Lewis the XIV. I have as yet read it but four times, because I wish to forget it a little before I read it a fifth; but I find that impoffible: I fhall therefore only wait till you give us the augmentation which you promised: let me intreat you not to defer it long. I thought myself pretty converfant in the Hiftory of the Reign of Lewis the XIV. by means of thofe innumerable hiftories, memoirs, anecdotes, &c. which I had read relative to that period of time. You have convinced me that I was mistaken, and had upon that fubject very confused ideas in many respects, and very falfe ones in others. Above all, I cannot but acknowledge the obligation we have to you, Sir, for the light which you have thrown upon the follies and outrages of the different fects; the weapons you employ against thofe madmen, or thofe impoftors, are the only fuitable ones; to make ufe of any others would be imitating them; they must be attacked by ridicule,

and

and punished with contempt. A propos of thofe fanatics; I fend you here inclosed, a piece upon that fubject, written by the late Dean Swift: I believe you will not diflike it. You will eafily guess why it never was printed: it is authentic, and I have the original in his own band-writing. His Jupiter, at the day of judgment, treats them much as you do, and as they deferve to be treated.

Give me leave, Sir, to tell you freely, that I am embarrassed upon your account, as I cannot determine what it is that I wish from you. When I read your last hiftory, I am defirous that you should always write hiftory; but when I read your Rome Sauvée (although ill printed and disfigured) yet I then with you never to deviate from poetry: however, I confefs that there ftill remains one history worthy of your pen, and of which your pen alone is worthy. You have long ago given us the history of the greatest and most outrageous Madman (I ask your pardon if I cannot fay the greatest Hero) of Europe; you have given us latterly the history of the greatest King; give us now the history of the greatest and most virtuous Man in Europe; I fhould think it degrading to call him King. To you this cannot be difficult, he is always before your eyes; your poetical invention is not neceffary to his glory, as that may fafely rely upon your hiftorical candour. The firft duty of an hiftorian is the only one he need require from his, Ne quid falfi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. Adieu, Sir, I find that I must admire you every day more and more; but I alfo know that nothing ever can add to the esteem and attachment with which I am actually,

Your most humble, and moft obedient fervant,

CHESTERFIELD.' The performance alluded to in the foregoing letter, is not inferted in the volume before us; but we conclude that it can be no other than the following little poem, entitled, The Day of Judgment; of which, fome time ago, an incorrect copy found its way into one of the public papers. We give it to our Readers as a curiofity, and as a key to the Dean's religious character; which was oddly compounded of the oppofite principles of Freethinking and Bigotry:

The DAY of JUDGMENT.
With a whirl of thought opprefs'd,

I funk from reverie to rest.
An horrid vision seiz'd my head,
I faw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrors bursts the skies,
And thunder roars, and lightning flies!
Amaz'd, confus'd, its fate unknown,
The world ftands trembling at his throne!
While each pale finner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, fhook the heavens, and faid,
"Offending race, of human kind,
"By nature, reafon, learning blind;
"You who through frailty ftep'd afide,
"And you who never fell,-through pride;
"You who in different fects were fhamm'd,
"And come to fee each other damn'd;

"

" (So

"(So fome folks told you, but they knew
"No more of Jove's defigns than you)

The world's mad business now is o'er,

"And I refent thefe pranks no more.

I to fuch blockheads fet my wit?

"I damn fuch fools!-Go, go, you're bit."

• Bit,' or a bite, a bite!" was once the fashionable cant wit and phrafe of the times; and Swift, we fee, condefcended to adopt it. It has fince given way to the hum, or humbug ; which, in its turn, has been fucceeded by a variety of kindred nonfenfe. Let us now return to our noble Author.

In Letter LXXI. we find his Lordfhip figuring away in the character of a reviewer; and we refpectfully veil our bonnets to our illuftrious Brother:

(Addreffed to Mr. S. at Berlin.)

O&. 4, 1752.

I confider you now as at the court of Auguftus, where, if ever the defire of pleafing animated you, it must make you exert all the means of doing it. You will fee there, full as well, I dare fay, as Horace did at Rome, how ftates are defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws. Nay, you have an Horace there, as well as an Auguftus; I need not name Voltaire qui nil molitur inepté, as Horace himself faid of another poet. I have lately read over all his works, that are published, though I had read them more than once before. I was induced to this by his Siecle de Louis XIV. which I have yet read but four times. In reading over all his works, with more attention I fuppofe than before, my former admiration of him is, I own, turned into aftonishment. There is no one kind of writing in which he has not excelled. You are fo fevere a Claffic, that I question whether you will allow me to call his Hen riade an Epic poem, for want of the proper number of Gods, Devils, Witches, and other abfurdities, requifite for the machinery: which machinery is (it seems) neceffary to conftitute the Epopée. But whether you do or not, I will declare (though poffibly to my own shame) that I never read any Epic poem with near fo much pleasure. I am grown old, and have poffibly loft a great deal of that fire, which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke: but now I muft have all fenfe, and cannot, for the fake of five righteous lines, forgive a thoufand abfurd ones.

In this difpofition of mind, judge whether I can read all Homer through tout de fuite. I admire his beauties; but, to tell you the truth, when he flumbers I fleep. Virgil, I confefs, is all fenfe, and therefore I like him better than his model; but he is often languid, especially in his five or fix laft books, during which I am obliged to take a good deal of fnuff. Befides I profefs myfelf an ally of Turnus's, against the pious Eneas, who, like many foi difant pious people, does the most flagrant injuftice and violence, in order to execute what they impudently call the will of Heaven. But what will you fay, when I tell you truly, that I cannot poffibly read our countryman Milton through. I acknowledge him to have fome most fublime paffages, fome prodigious flashes of light; but then you muft acknowledge, that light is often followed by darkness visible,

to

to use his own expreffion. Befides, not having the honour to be acquainted with any of the parties in his Poem, except the Man and the Woman, the characters and fpeeches of a dozen or two of Angels, and of as many Devils, are as much above my reach as my entertainment. Keep this fecret for me; for if it fhould be known, I fhould be abused by every taftelefs Pedant, and every folid Divine in England.

Whatever I have faid to the disadvantage of these three Poems, holds much stronger against Taffo's Gierufalemme: it is true he has very fine and glaring rays of poetry; but then they are only meteors, they dazzle, then difappear, and are fucceeded by falfe thoughts, poor concetti, and abfurd impoffibilities; witnefs the Fith and the Parrot, extravagancies unworthy of an Heroic Poem, and would much better have become Ariofto, who profeffes le coglionerie.

I have never read the Lufiade of Camoens, except in a profe tranflation, confequently I have never read it at all, fo fhall fay nothing of it; but the Henriade is all fenfe from the beginning to the end, often adorned by the jufteft and livelieft reflections, the most beautiful descriptions, the nobleft images, and the fublimeft fentiments; not to mention the harmony of the verfe, in which Voltaire undoubtedly exceeds all the French poets: fhould you infift upon an exception in favour of Racine, I muft infift, on my part, that he at least equals him. What hero ever interested more than Henry. the Fourth, who, according to the rules of Epic poetry, carries on one great and long action, and fucceeds in it at laft? What defcription ever excited more horror than those, first of the Maffacre, and then of the Famine, at Paris? Was love ever painted with more truth and morbidezza than in the ninth book? Not better, in my mind, even in the fourth of Virgil. Upon the whole, with all your claffical rigour, if you will but fuppofe St. Louis a God, a Devil, or. a Witch, and that he appears in perfon, and not in a dream, the Henriade will be an Epic poem, according to the strictest statute laws of the Epopée; but in my court of equity it is one as it is..

I could expatiate as much upon all his different works, but that I should exceed the bounds of a letter, and run into a differtation. How delightful is his Hiftory of that Northern Brute, the King of Sweden! for I cannot call him a Man; and I fhould be forry to have him pafs for a Hero, out of regard to thofe true heroes; fuch as Julius Cæfar, Titus, Trajan, and the prefent King of Pruffa; who cultivated and encouraged arts and fciences; whofe animal courage was accompanied by the tender and focial fentiments of humanity; and who had more pleasure in improving, than in deflroying their fellowcreatures, What can be more touching, or more interesting; what more nobly thought, or more happily expreffed, than all his dramatic pieces? What can be more clear and rational than all his philofophical letters? And what ever was fo graceful, and gentle, as all his little poetical trifles? You are fortunately à portée of verifying, by your knowledge of the man, all that I have faid of his works.

Monfieur de Maupertuis (whom I hope you will get acquainted with) is, what one rarely meets with, deep in philofophy and mathematics, and yet bonnéte et amiable homme; Algarotti is young Fontenelle. Such men muft neceffarily give you the defire of pleafing

6

them;