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as fays the ingenious author of the UniDerfal Pafhon; a work that abounds in wit, obfervation on life, pleasantry, delicacy, urbanity, and the most well-bred raillery, without a single mark of spleen and illnature. These were the firft characteriftical fatires in our language, and are written with an cafe and familiarity of style, very different from this author's other works. The four firft were published in folio, in the year 1725*; and the fifth and fixth, incomparably the best, on the characters of women, in the year 1727, that is, eight years before this epistle of

• In thefe, the characters of Clarinda, of Zantippe the wielent lady, of Delia the chariot-driver, of Mäster Betty the huntress, of Daphne the critic, of Lemira the fick lady, of the female Philofopher, of the Theologist, of the languid lady, of Thaleftris the fwearer, of Lyce the old beauty, of Lavinia, of a nymph of Spirit, of Julia the manager, of Alicia the floven, of Clio the flanderer, of the affected Afturia, of the female Atheist, and of the female Gamefter; are all of them drawn with truth and fpirit. And the introductions to these two satires, particularly the address to the incomparable Lady Betty Germain, are perhaps as elegant as any thing in our language. After reading thefe pieces, fo full of a knowledge of the world, one is at a lofs to know what Mr. Porz could mean by saying, that though Young was a an of genius, yet that he wanted common sexfe.

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POPE. Dr. Young was one of the moft amiable and benevolent of men; moft exemplary in his life, and fincere in his religion. Nobody ever faid more brilliant things in converfation. The late Lord MELCOMBE informed me, that when he and Voltaire were on a vifit to his Lordship at Eastbury, the English poet was far fuperior to the French, in the variety and the novelty of his bon mots and repartees; and Lord Melcombe was himself a good judge of wit and humour, of which he himself had a great portion. If the friendship with which Dr. Young honoured me does not mislead me, I think I may venture to affirm, that many high strokes of character in his Zanga; many fentiments and

* Mr. Walter Harte affured me, he had seen the preffing letter that Dr. Young wrote to Mr. Pors, urging him to write something on the fide of Revelation, in order to take off the impreffions of those doctrines which the Effay on Man were supposed to convey. He alluded to this in the conclufion of his firft Night-thought.

O had he prefs'd his theme, purfu'd the track
Which
opens out of darkness into day!
O had he mounted on his wing of fire,
Soar'd where I fink, and fung immortal man!
How had he bleft mankind and refcu'd me!

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images in his Night-thoughts; and many strong and forcible descriptions in his paraphrafe on Job, mark him for a fublime and original genius. Though at the same time I am ready to confefs, that he is not a correct and equal writer *, and was too often turgid and hyperbolical.

15. See how the world its veterans rewards,
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their paffion, but their prize a fot,
Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot t.

THE antithefis, fo remarkably strong in these lines, was a very favourite figure with our poet he has indeed used it but in too

• So little fenfible are we of our own imperfections, that the very laft time I faw Dr. Young, he was feverely cenfuring and ridiculing the falfe pomp of fustian writers, and the naufeousness of bombast. I remember he said, that such torrents of eloquence were muddy as well as noify; and that these violent and tumultuous authors, put him in mind of a paffage in Milton, B. ii. v. 539.

Others, with vaft Typhæan rage more fell,

Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air In whirlwind. Hell fcarce holds the wild uproar, + Ver. 243.

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many parts of his works; pay, even in hir translation of the Iliad *; where it ought not to have been admitted: and which Dryden has but rarely used in his Virgil, Our author seldom writes many lines together without an antithefis. It must be allowed fometimes to add ftrength to a fentiment, by an oppofition of images;

• Voltaire fpeaks thus of La Motte: fo popular and acute a critic may, perhaps, be attended to.—Au-lieu d'échauffer fon génie en tâchant de copier les fublimes peintures d'Homére, il voulut lui donner de l'efprit; c'est la Manie de la plupart des François; une espéce de pointe qu'ils appellent un trait, une petite antithése, un lèger contrafte de mots leur fuffit.-The following lines are in, frances,:

On offenfe les dieux, mais par des facrifices
De ces dieux irrités on fait des dieux propices.
And again-

Tout le camp s'écria dans une joie extrême,

Que ne vaincra-t-il point, il s'eft vaincu lui meme.

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I muft only juft add, that La Motte, in all the famous dif pute about the ancients, never faid a thing fo ill-founded, and fo void of tafte, as the following words of the fame Voltaire: "Homere n' a jamais fait répandre de pleurs.' Affe&us quidem vel illos mites vel hos concitatos, nemo erit tam indoctus qui non in fuâ poteftate hunc auctorem habuiffe fateatur. Quintilian, lib. 10. cap. 1. Had Voltaire ever read Quintilian? or rather, had he ever read Homer-in the original? If Boileau, faid the Prince of Conti, does not write against Perrault, I will go myself to the Academy, and I will write upon his feat, Bridus, you are asleep.

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but,

Quinti

but, too frequently repeated, it becomes tirefome, and disgusting. Rhyme has almost a natural tendency to betray a writer into it. But the pureft authors have defpifed it, as an ornament pert, and puerile, and epigrammatic. Seneca, Pliny, Tacitus, and later authors, abound in it. lian has fometimes used it, with much fuccefs; as when he fpeaks of style; magna, non nimia; fublimis, non abrupta; severa, non triftis; læta, non luxuriofa ; plena, non tumida. And sometimes Tully; as, vicit pudorem libido, timorem audacia, rationem amentia. But these writers fall into this mode of speaking but seldom, and do not make it their conftant and general manner. Those moderns who have not acquired a true taste for the fimplicity of the best ancients *, have generally run into a frequent use of point, oppofition, and contraft. They who begin to ftudy painting, are struck at firft with the pieces of the most vivid colouring; they are almost

• See what Dionyfius fays of Ifocrates, p. 99, v. 2. Edit, Sylb. There are no antithefes in Demofthenes.

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