It was the rare felicity of the poet, juft mentioned, to receive, in his life-time, this fure and pleafing augury of immortality.

81. INGENIIS NON ILLE FAVET, &c.] MALHERBE was to the French, pretty much what HORACE had been to the Latin, poetry. Thefe great writers had, each of them, rescued the lyric muse of their country out of the rude, ungracious hands of their old poets. And, as their talents of a good ear, elegant judgment, and correc expreffion, were the fame, they prefented her to the public in all the air and grace, and yet feverity, of beauty, of which her form was fufceptible. Their merits and pretenfions being thus far refembling, the reader may not be incurious to know the fate and fortune of each. hath very frankly told us, what befel himself from the malevolent and low paffions of his countrymen. Malherbe did not come off, with the wits and critics of his time, much better; as we learn from a learned perfon, who hath very warmly recommended his writings to the public. Speaking of the envy, which pursued him in his profe-works; but, fays he, "comme "il faifoit une particuliere profeffion de la poefie, "c'eft en cette qualité qu'il a de plus feveres "cenfeurs, et receu des injuftices plus fignalées.

Horace

Mais il me femble que je fermerai la bouche

“ à ceux,

à ceux, qui le blament, quand je leur aurai monftré, que fa façon d'escrire, eft excellente, quoiqu'elle s'eloigne un peu de celle des Nos << ANCIENS POETES, QU'ILS LOUENT PLUSTOT "PAR UN DEGOUST DES CHOSES PRESENTES, QUE PAR LES SENTIMENTS D'UNE VERITABLE ESTIME." [DISC. DE M. GODEAU SUR LES OEUVRES DE M. MALHERBE.]

97. SUSPENDIT MENTEM VULTUMQUE.] The expreffion hath great elegance, and is not liable to the imputation of harsh, or improper conftruction. For fufpendit is not taken, with regard either to mentem or vultum, in its literal, but figurative, fignification; and, thus, it becomes, in one and the fame fenfe, applicable to both.

Otherwife, this way of coupling two fubftantives to a verb, which does not, in ftrict grammatical ufage, govern both; or, if it doth, muft needs be conftrued in different fenses; hath given juft offence to the beft critics.

Mr. Pope cenfures a paffage of this kind, in the Iliad, with feverity; and thinks the taste of the antients was, in general, too good for those fooleries [f].

Mr. Addison is perfectly of the fame mind, as appears from his criticifm on that line in [f] B. ix. 641.

Ovid,

Ovid, Confiliis, non curribus atere noftris. "This

66

way of joining, fays he, two fuch different "ideas as chariot and counfel to the fame verb,

66

"is mightily used by Ovid; but is a very low "kind of wit, and has always in it a mixture of pun; because the verb must be taken in a dif"ferent fenfe, when it is joined with one of the "things, from what it has in conjunction with "the other. Thus, in the end of this ftory, he "tells you, that Jupiter flung a thunberbolt at "Phaëton: pariterque animaque rotisque expulit "aurigam: where he makes a forced piece of "Latin (animâ expulit aurigam) that he may "couple the foul and the wheels to the fame verb [g]."

Thefe, the reader will think, are pretty good authorities. For, in matters of taste, I know of none, that more deferve to be regarded. The mere verbal critic, one would think, fhould be cautious, how he oppofed himself to them. And yet a very learned Dutchman, who has taken great pains in elucidating an old Greek loveftory, which, with its more paffionate admirers, may, perhaps, país for the MARIANNE of antiquity, hath not fcrupled to cenfure this decifion of theirs very sharply [b].

[g] Notes on the ftory of Phaeton, line 23.

[b] JACOBI PHILIPPI D'ORVILLE Animadverfiones in CHARIT. APHROD. lib. iv. c. 4.

Having transcribed the cenfure of Mr. Pope, who, indeed fomewhat too haftily, fufpects the line in Homer for an interpolation, our critic fastens upon him directly. EN COR ZENODOTI, EN JECUR CRATETIS! But foul language and fair criticism are different things; and what he offers of the latter rather accounts for than justifies the former. All he fays on the subject, is in the good old way of authorities, which he diligently rakes together out of every corner of Greek and Roman antiquity. From all these he concludes, as he thinks, irrefiftibly, not that the paffage in queftion might be genuine (for that few would difpute with him) but that the kind of expreffion itself is a real beauty. Bona elocutio eft: honefta figura. Though, to the praise of his difcretion be it remembered, he does not even venture on this affertion, without his usual support of precedent. And, for want of a better, he takes up with old Servius. For fo, it feems, this grammarian hath declared himself, with respect to fome expreffions of the fame kind in Virgil.

But let him make the beft of his authorities. And, when he has done that, I fhall take the liberty to affure him, that the persons, he contends against, do not think themselves in the leaft concerned with them. For, though he believes it an undeniable maxim, Critici non effe inquirere, utrum relle autor quid fcripferit, fed an

I

omnino

emnino fic fcripferit [i]: yet, in the cafe before us, he muft not be furprized, if others do not fo conceive of it.

Indeed, where the, critic would defend the authenticity of a word or expreffion, the way of precedent is, doubtless, the very best, that common fenfe allows to be taken. For the evidence of fact, at once, bears down all suspicion of corruption or interpolation. Again; if the elegance of fingle words (or of entire phrafes, where the fufpicion turns on the oddity or uncommoness of the conftruction, only) be the matter in dispute, full and precife authorities muft decide it. For elegance, here, means nothing else but the practice of the beft writers. And thus far I would join iffue with the learned cenfurer; and fhould think he did well in prescribing this rule to himfelf in the correction of approved ancient authors.

But what have thefe cafes to do with the point. in queftion? The objection is made, not to words, which alone are capable of being justified by authority, but to things, which must ever be what they are, in fpite of it. This mode of writing is fhewn to be abundantly defective, for reafons taken from the nature of our ideas, and the end and genius of the nobler forms of compofition. And what is it to tell us, that great writers have overlooked or neglected them?

[i] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 325.