throughout Europe about the beginning of the prefent century, had the courage, during the life of Defpreaux, to communicate to him fome of his objections to Homer. "I remember (fays he) in mentioning to him one day the ludicrous and indecent manner in which the bard had employed his divinities, that he difdained to have recourfe to allegories in defending him; but confided to me a very fingular idea, which feems peculiar to himself, though, however perfuaded he may have been of its truth, he never ventured to publish it: he supposed that Homer, fearing to tire with an uninterrupted tiffue of tragical events, in the defcription of battles, and the fatal effects of buman paffions, had enlivened his poem at the expence of the gods themselves, by affigning to them the comic characters in the interludes with which he had furnished his fable for the amufement of his readers between the acts."

Though this folution of the difficulty was far from fatisfying La Motte, he did not venture to publish either his own Iliad, or his criticisms on Homer, and the ancients in general, till after the death of Boileau; and he then had the critical Amazon, Madame Dacier, to encounter, who attacked him with fo much acrimony, that the moft zealous admirers of the ancients were afhamed of her violence, and exclaimed,

You injure our caufe by fanatic excess ;

'You'd have ferv'd'it much more by defending it lefs.

Perrault, La Motte, and Fontenelle, the modern chiefs, had more wit than talents for poetry. But talents and taste are different attributes. A man of taste may discover defects in a picture or a poem, without being able to use a pencil, or produce good verfes. Indeed, after the death of Boileau, the moderns feem to have had all the wit on their fide in France, while the ancients, however good their caufe, were but awkwardly defended. Boileau himself was too much enlightened not to allow that the apologifts for antiquity were not always worthy either of the gods to whom they facrificed, or the chiefs under whofe banners they fought. He laughed at the fanaticism of Dacier, a mere tranflator and pedant. "By depreciating the ancients (fays he) you debafe the only coin in his coffers." He had not more refpect for another enthufiaft, who, in the heat of the difpute concerning the Iliad, had made a vow to read every day two thousand verfes of Homer, as a reparation for the injuries which he had received from infidels, and as an amende honorable to appease his manes.

Dacier, in receiving M. de Boze into the French Academy as fucceffor to Fenelon, attacked thofe who had refused adoration to the ancients with great heat, in his official difcourfe. La Motts anfwered him at the fame meeting with his fable of the Crabfif Philofopher, who advifes his companions to try to move forward,

Jike other animals, that their limbs might have the benefit of their eyes. But he was treated with the utmost contempt by the old Crabs for making so abfurd a propofition:

The fage was hiff'd from place to place,
By all who gloried in the grace

And ease of backward motion;
For ev'ry counter-marching blade
Thought all advancement retrograde,
Was wisdom and devotion.
From ancient errors let's withdraw
All blind and fuperftitious awe,
And fift whate'er is new;
Excefs in both will lead aftray,
But reafon never loft her way;
Let's keep her full in view.

The fables of La Motte have neither the wit nor the original humour which abound in those of La Fontaine; but they are replete with good fenfe, knowlege of mankind, and philofophical maxims; many of which are become proverbial in France. Such as: It is fafer to pleafe than to ferve mankind.—L'Ennui is the child of uniformity-Hatred is watchful, friendship drowsy. Whoe'er corrects and gives no pain

Of head and heart, may well be vain.-
Contempt provokes the meaneft elf;
No clown but feels its fting:

For ev'ry one is fond of felf,
And is, in pride, a king.

On Alexander the Great, after his conquests:
As yet you pow'r alone can plead ;
Govern us well, you're king indeed.
In conq'ring, all his time was spent,
He had none to spare for government.
So have I feen an infant cry
Because he was not fix feet high;
But on a table plant the dunce,-
He thinks himself a man at once.-

At the dress of a fage the Grand Turk made a pother;
Yet the one was a man, and a puppet the other.

His fables, however, were feverely criticifed, even on the ftage, by Fufilier, in a comedy called Momus turned Fabulift. This piece ran 30 nights when it firft came out, though it was little noticed on its revival in 1745, long after the death of La Motte. But, fays M. D'ALEMBERT, the occafion was forgotten, and public malignity had no living victim to facrifice.'

La Motte is faid to have been the beft profe writer of all the French poets, except Voltaire. The politeness with which he anfwered Mad. Dacier's abufive addrefs, gave occafion to the faying, that he had been treated à la Grecque, and the lady, à la Françoife. His prefaces are regarded as matter-pieces of elegance;

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and his Eloge on Lewis XIV. which he pronounced in the French Academy after the death of that Prince, is the only one of all his funeral orations that has not been long forgotten; though all the pulpits in the kingdom refounded with the fame praises of this monarch at his death, with which he had been intoxicated when living.

La Motte had the peculiar art of reading his works in fo captivating a manner at the French Academy, or rather reciting them (for when between 30 and 40 years old he loft his fight), that those productions which were afterward the moft feverely criticised, were heard with rapture. His enemies applied to him, on these occafions, an epigram which had been made on St. Amand, who probably read his bad verfes in the fame feducing manner as that with which La Motte had transformed medio, crity into excellence.

Thy verses, pronounc'd by thyfelf, are enchanting;
Without thee, they're nonfenfe indeed;

As thy arts of recital fo often are wanting,

Write fomething which others can read.

His memory was fo tenacious, that when a young author had read to him a new tragedy for his approbation, he told him that his piece abounded with beauties, but he was forry to say that the fineft fcene in it was ftolen. The poet, extremely furprifed and hocked at this charge, begged him to authenticate his affertion; when La Motte, after a fhort enjoyment of the author's aftonishment, cried out, "Come, come, do not be difcouraged; your fcene was fo beautiful, that I could not help getting it by heart."

La Motte was fo patient under abufe, that Gacon, the most virulent of all. his enemies, unable to extort a reply to any one, of the many fcurrilous pamphlets which he bad written againft him, told the poet's friends, that he would get nothing by his forbearance; for, fays he, "I am going to publish a work intitled, An anfwer to the filence of M. de la Motte."

Having received a flap on the face for treading on a man's toes in a crowd, he only faid, "Why do you put yourself in a paffion? I am blind." It was the determination of his friend Fontenelle, never to difpute. "Every body has his way of thinking, and every body is in the right." And as he was averfe to difputation, he was ftill more fo to quarrelling. "Men (fays he) are filly, vain, and fpiteful; but I am obliged to live with them, and I have long known on what conditions." La Motte lived in ftrict friendship with Fontenelle till the time of his death, in 1731, at 59 years of age.

We must now quit, with regret, M. D'ALEMBERT's agreeable work, though we have advanced no further than the 4th volume. Indeed the eminence and various talents of the per

fons celebrated, with the wit, good tafte, and found criticism of the author, who, though a great geometrician, did not despise and reject the affiftance of grace and elegance, have feduced us into an article of an unusual length, for which we fhall make no apology; for as Garth faid of his Preface to Ovid's Metamorphofes, "It is in every reader's power to make it as short as he pleases."

ART. XVI.

Aesthetische Gefpraeche, &c. i. e. An Enquiry into the great Poetical Prejudices, Rhyme, Metre, and Machinery. In Four Dialogues, 12mo. Breflaw and Leipzig.

TH

HE preface to this work points out its importance, and the author's fatisfaction in having accomplished it; as he expects nothing lefs from its influence than a total revolution in poetry.

In the firft Dialogue, he endeavours to fhew the abfurdity of introducing Beings into Poetry whofe exiftence is neither be lieved by the reader nor the writer. It is time, he thinks, to diveft ourselves of the ancient prejudice of Greek mythology, which is now fo worn-out, and childish, that even school-boys fhould be no longer plagued with it. The machinery of the Chriftian fyftem, of angels, and devils, but feldom applicable; nor can ghofts be often introduced, or long remain as agents in the bufinefs of a poem. But the chief part of what he fays on this fubject is borrowed from chap. I. vol. 8. of Tom Jones; however, he is fo candid as to allow, that "Fielding defends his opinion very ably." It is pity that Fielding did not know, when he was writing this chapter, the fervice he was rendering to a German author, and the honour that would accrue to him for it, forty years after !

In the Ild Dialogue, the author points all his artillery against Rhyme. His ammunition is chiefly furnished by Milton in the preface to his Paradife Loft. One argument in favour of his doctrine, he draws from the difficulty which a good actor finds in concealing the rhymes in which French, and many German plays are still written; and he fancies that our Garrick was equally embarraffed by them.

La Motte vainly tried in France to get rid of rhyme in tragedy; but either habit, or the want of dignity in the language, makes the French regard a tragedy in profe not only as unpleafing, but unnatural. If our Teutonic author had known how difrefpectfully Pope has treated rhyme, in a letter to one of his friends, he would have thought his triumph complete. "I fhould be forry and afhamed (fays our admirable countryman) to go on jingling to the laft ftep, like a waggoner's horse, in the

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fame road, and fo leave my bells to the next filly animal that will be proud of them. A man makes but a mean figure, in the eyes of reafon, who is meafuring fyllables and coupling rhymes." But this was written in an ungrateful and fplenetic fit, in 1714, before the bard had been fo completely abfurd as to produce his best works.

In the IIId Dialogue, the writer having, as he thinks, difpatched the rhyming throng, and left them fprawling, proceeds to attack the metrical tribe. We have often met with rhyme without reason, and reafon without rhyme, but never with nominal poetry, without measure. In a drama he thinks blank verfe as great an enemy to probability, and good declamation, as rhyme. Dr. Johníon has faid, in his Lives of the Poets, that

the variety of paufes fo much boafted by the lovers of blank verfe, changes the measure of an English poet to the periods of declamation." And on this text our author feems to preach. He allows, however, that rhythm may have its ufe in mufic, in phrafing the melody, and rendering it more fymmetric.

In the IVth Dialogue, he pretends to have difcovered that the English language is totally unfit for metrical verfe; and he builds his opinion on the following paffage of Dr. Johnfon:

Poetry may fubfift without rhyme, but will not often please; nor can rhyme be fafely fpared except when the fubject is able to fupport itself. Blank verfe makes fome approach to that style which is called the Lapidary Style, but has neither the ease of profe nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance." This teftimony, and the ill fuccefs of Sir Philip Sidney in endeavouring to render English verfe fubfervient to the feet and metrical laws of the ancient Greek and Latin poetry, convince him that his new fpecies of poetry will be particularly applicable to the English language.

Befide the want of novelty in treating thefe fubjects, the author's perfect felt-complacence in the midft of pedantry and an affected ftyle, place this work in that numerous clafs which, for our many-fold fins, we are obliged to read, and in which we derive our chief pleafure from the final period.

At the end of the book we are prefented with specimens of the author's new-invented poetry, which is literally profe run mad. We will endeavour to tranflate a part, to fhew our readers how well it fuits the English language.

Ode to the High Priests of the German Lyre.

Powerful finging magicians!
Another name I do not give ye,
Ye high priests of German harps!
Ye, whofe words of thunder,
Singing of battles,

Sounding jubilees,

Shake