animals and objects introduced, speeches and actions inconfiftent with their feverál natures. An elephant can have nothing to do in a bookseller's fhop. They are greatly inferior to the fables of La Fontaine, which is perhaps the most unrivalled work in the whole French language. The Beggar's Opera has furely been extolled beyond it's merits; I could never perceive that fine vein of concealed fatire supposed to run through it; and though I should not join with a bench of Westminster Justices in forbidding it to be reprefented on the stage, yet I think pickpockets, ftrumpets, and highwaymen, may be hardened in their vices by this piece; and that Pope and Swift talked too highly of it's moral good effects. One undefigned and acci dental mischief attended it's fuccefs: it was the parent of that most monstrous of zhe Aminta or Paftor Fido. The paftorals were written to ridicule thofe of Philips, and confequently very acceptable to Pope. Polly, the fecond part of the Beggar's Operá, though it brought him a good deal of money, above-1200 pounds, being published by fubfcription, is not equal to the firft. all all! dramatic abfurdities, the Comic Opera. The friendship of two fuch excellent perfonages as the Duke and Dutchess of Queensberry, did, in truth, compensate poor Gay's want of penfion* and preferment. They behaved to him conftantly with that delicacy, and sense of seeming equality, as never to fuffer him for a moment to feel his state of dependence. Let every man of letters, who wishes for patronage, read D'Alembert's Essay on living "ith the Great, before he enters the house of a patron. And let him always remember the fate of Racine, who having drawn up, at Madame Maintenon's + fecret request, a memorial that ftrongly painted the diftreffes of the French nation, the • I was informed by Mr. Spence, that Addison, in his laft illness, sent to defire to speak with Mr. Gay, and told him he had much injured him; probably with respect to his gaining fome appointment from the court: but, faid he, if I recover, I will endeavour to recompenfe you. + The most exact account of the occasion on which Racine wrote his excellent Esther and Athaliab, at the request of Madame Maintenon, for the use of the St. Cyr, is to be found in, Les Souvenirs de Mad. De Cayyoung ladies at lar, p. 183. There also are fome very interesting and authentic particulars of the life of Mad. Maintenon. weight weight of their taxes, and the expences of the court, the could not refift the importunity of Lewis XIV. but thewed him her friend's paper: against whom the king immediately conceived a violent indignation, because a poet should dare to busy himself with politics. Racine had the weakness to take this anger of the king fo much to heart, that it brought on a low fever, which haftened his death. The Dutchess of Queensberry would not have fo betrayed her poetical friend Gay. 24. Curs'd be the verfe, how well foe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my fʊe, Give virtue fcandal, innocence a fear, Or from the foft-ey'd virgin fteal a tear * M. DESPREAUx s'applaudiffoit fort à l'age de foixante & onze ans, de n'avoir rien mis dans fes vers qui choquât les bonnes mœurs. C'est une confolation, difoit il, pour les vieux poetes, qui doivent bientôt rendre compte à Dieu de leurs actions. L. 2. Tom. v. 4. P. 18. HAPPY indeed was the poet, of whom his worthy and amiable friend could fo truly fay, that in all his works was not to be discovered One line, that dying, he could wish to blot! WOULD to God, faid AVERROES (regretting the libertinism of fome verses which he had made in his youth) I had been born old! FONTAINE and CHAUCER, dying, wifht unwrote 25. Let Sporus tremble-What! that thing of silk, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys ; In mumbling of the game they cannot bite. • Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to Thomson's CorioJanus. + Young's Epistle to Authors. Eternal Eternal fmiles his emptiness betray, As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way. And as the prompter breathes the puppet squeaks, Or fpite, or fmut, or rhymes, or blafphemics. Beauty that fhocks you, pride that none will truft, LANGUAGE cannot afford more glowing or more forcible terms to express the utmost bitterness of contempt. We think we are here reading MILTON against SAL It is but juftice (faid Pope in the firft advertisement, fince omitted) to own that the hint of Eve and the Serpent was taken from the verses to the Imitator of Horace When God created thee, one would believe He said the fame as to the snake of Eve; To human race antipathy declare, 'Twixt them and thee be everlasting war. But oh! the fequel of the fentence dréád, And whilst you bruife their heel, beware your + Ver. 305. head. MASIUS. |
