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And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu's 'tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions. Admirable connoisseur! And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?
This came pretty much to what Dr Johnson had maintained; though he goes farther, and contends that it is no better than such an epick poem as he could make from the song of Robin Hood; that is to say, that, except a few passages, there is nothing truly ancient but the names and some vague traditions. Mr M'Queen alledged that Homer was made up of detached fragments.
For here there is no generally received and fixed archetype to work after, but every one judges of common right, according to the extent and comprehension of his own idea; therefore he advises to labour and refit old characters and subjects, particularly those made known and authorised by the practice of Homer and the Epick writers.
Johnson had maintained ; though he goes farther, and contends that it is no better than such an epick poem as he could make from the song of Robin Hood ; that is to say, that, except a few passages, there is nothing truly ancient but the names and some vague traditions. Mr. M'Queen alleged that Homer was made up of detached fragments. Dr.
He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil was inaccurate. Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epick poem, and for many of his beauties. He told me that Bacon was a favourite authour with him ; but he had never read his works till he was compiling the English Dictionary, in which, he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted.
To be poor, in the epick language, is only not to command the wealth of nations, nor to have fleets and armies in pay. "Vanity has perhaps contributed to this impropriety of style. He that wishes to become a philosopher at a cheap rate easily gratifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches when he has already more than he enjoys.
ROBERTSON said, one man had more judgment, another more imagination. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; it is only, one man has more mind than another. He may direct it differently; he may, by accident, see the success of one kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. I am persuaded that, had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine epick poem.
Swift wrote to Pope on May 31, 1737: 'Pray who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the epick poem called Leonidas, which is reprinting here, and has great vogue? Swift's Works , xx. 121. Man. p. 902. Walpole coming in just afterwards, I told him how highly I had been pleased. He begged me to entreat for a repetition of it.
I have already, with as much satisfaction as Aeneas in a cloud heard Dido praise him, heard the Beaux-Criticks condemn this translation before they saw it, and with as much judgment as if they had: And after they had prophetically discover'd all the flaws in the turns of thought, the cadence of periods, and had almost brought in Epick and Drama, they supt their coffee, took snuff, and charitably concluded to send Briscoe the pye-woman to help off with his books.
He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him The Colombiade, an epick poem, by Madame du Boccage : 'Madam, there is not any thing equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode on the death of Captain Cook . On Sunday, June 27, I found him rather better.
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