de Venife. Les voici. C'eft dans la premiere Epistre à sa Majesté. Et nos voifins fruftrez de ces tributs ferviles, VIRGILE & Horace font divins en cela, auffi bien qu' Homere. C'est tout le contraire de nos Poëtes, qui ne difent que des chofes vagues, que d'autres ont déja dites avant eux, & dont les expreffions font trouvées. Quand ils fortent de là, ils ne sçauroient plus s'exprimer, & ils tombent dans une fechereffe qui eft encore pire que leurs larcins. Pour moy, je ne sçay pas fi j'y ay réuffi: mais quand je fais des vers, je fonge toûjours à dire ce qui ne s'eft point encore dit en noftre langue. C'est ce que j'ay principalement affecté dans une nouvelle epiftre, que j'ay faite à propos de toutes les Critiques, qu'on a imprimées contre ma derniere fatire. J'y conte tout ce que j'ay fait depuis que je fuis au monde, j'y rapporte mes defauts, mon âge, mes inclinations, mes mœurs. J'y dis de quel Pere & de quelle Mere je fuis né. J'y marque marque les degrés de ma fortune; com Mais aujourd'hui qu' enfin la Vieillesse venue, IL me femble que la Perruque eft affés heureusement frondée dans ces quatres vers. 28. O friend! 28. O friend! may each domeftic blifs be thine! THESE exquifite lines give us a very interesting picture of the exemplary filial piety of our author. There is a penfive and pathetic sweetness in the very flow of them. The eye that has been wearied and oppreft by the harsh and auftere colouring of fome of the preceding paffages, turns away with pleasure from thefe afperities, and reposes with complacency on the foft tints of domestic tenderness. We are naturally gratified to fee great men defcending • See a letter to Mr. Richardfon, defiring him to come to Twickenham, and take a sketch of his mother, just after she was dead, June 20, 1733. "It would afford, fays he, the finest image of a faint expired, that ever painting drew." Vol. viii. p. 233. + Ver. 406. For which also another truly great poet was remarkable. See Memoirs of Mr. Gray's Life, paffim; and fo alfo was Ariefte. 2 from from their heights, into the familiar offices of common life; and the sensation is the more pleasing to us, because admiration is turned into affection. In the very enter taining memoirs of the life of Racine (published by his fon) we find no paffage more amusing and interesting, than where that great poet fends an excufe to Mon'. the Duke, who had earnestly invited him to dine at the Hotel de Conde, because he had promised to partake of a great fish that his children had got for him, and he could not think of disappointing them. MELANCTHON appeared in an amiable light, when he was feen holding a book in one hand, and attentively reading, and with • Memoires fur la Vie de Jean Racine, p. 182, printed 1747 by the author of the didactic poems on Religion and Grace, of Reflections on Poetry, of Two Epifles on Man, and fome excellent Sacred Odes, particularly one from Ifaiah, c. xiv. He endeavours, but I fear in vain, to vindicate his father from the report of having had any connexion with the celebrated actress Chammelè, whom Racine taught to speak and declaim, and for whom it was thought he had a strong paffion; of which he afterwards repented, and became a remarkably good husband. the |