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It was this elogium that gave occasion to the reply taken notice of in Bayles Dictionary which Waller made to King Charles II This king to whom Waller had a little before as is usual with bards and monarchs presented a copy of verses embroidered with praises reproached the poet for not writing with so much energy and fire as when he had applauded the Usurper meaning Oliver Sir replied Waller to the king we poets succeed better in fiction than in truth This answer was not so sincere as

that which a Dutch ambassador made who when the same monarch complained that his masters paid less regard to him than they had done to Cromwell Ah sir! says the Ambassador Oliver was quite another man It is not my intent to give a commentary on Wallers character nor on that of any other person for I consider men after their in no other light than as they were writers and wholly disregard everything else I shall only observe that Waller though born in a court and to an estate of five or six pounds sterling a year was never so proud or so indolent as to lay aside the happy talent which Nature had indulged him The Earls of Dorset and Roscommon the two Dukes of Buckingham the Lord Halifax and so many other noblemen did

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not think the reputation they obtained of very great poets and illustrious writers any way derogatory to their quality They are more glorious for their works than for their titles These cultivated the polite arts with as much assiduity as though they had been their whole dependence LETTER XXIION MR POPE AND SOME OTHER FAMOUS POETS I intended to treat of Mr Prior one of the most amiable English poets whom you saw Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary at Paris in I also designed to have given you some idea of the Lord Roscommons and the Lord Dorsets muse but I find that to do this I should be obliged to write a large volume and that after much pains and trouble you would have but an imperfect idea of all those works Poetry is a kind of music in which a man should have some knowledge before he pretends to judge of it When I give you a translation of some passages from those foreign poets I only prick down and that imperfectly their music but then I cannot express the taste of their harmony There is one English poem especially which I should despair of ever making you understand the title whereof is Hudibras The subject of it is the Civil War in the time of the grand rebellion and the principles and practice of the Puritans are therein ridiculed It is Don Quixote it is our Satire Menippee blended together I never found so much wit in one single book as in that which at the same time is the most difficult to be translated Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind and where we meet with more sentiments than words should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator But the reason of this is almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule which is understood but by few among the laity To explain this a commentary would be requisite and humour when explained is no longer humour Whoever sets up for a commentator of smart sayings and repartees is himself a blockhead This is the reason why the works of the ingenious Dean Swift who has been called the English Rabelais will never be well understood in France This gentleman has the honour in common with Rabelais of being a priest and like him laughs at everything but in my humble opinion the title of the English Rabelais which is given the dean is highly derogatory to his genius The former has interspersed his unaccountablyfantastic and unintelligible book with the most strokes of humour but which at the same time has a greater proportion of impertinence He has been vastly lavish of erudition of smut and insipid raillery An agreeable tale of two pages is purchased at the expense of whole volumes of nonsense There are but few persons and those of a grotesque taste who pretend to understand and to esteem this work for as to the rest of the nation they laugh at the pleasant and diverting touches which are found in Rabelais and despise his book He is looked upon as the prince of buffoons The readers are vexed to think that a man who was master of so much wit should have made so wretched a use of it he is an intoxicated philosopher who never wrote but when he was in liquor Dean Swift is Rabelais in his senses and frequenting the politest company The former indeed is not so as the latter but then he possesses all the delicacy the justness the choice the good taste in all which particulars our giggling rural Vicar Rabelais is wanting The poetical numbers of Dean Swift are of a singular and almost inimitable taste true humour whether in prose or verse seems to be his peculiar talent but whoever is desirous of understanding him perfectly must visit the island in which he was born It will be much easier for you to form an idea of Mr Popes works He is in my opinion the most elegant the most correct poet and at the same time the most harmonious a circumstance which redounds very much to the honour of this muse that England ever gave birth to He has mellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of the flute His compositions may be easily translated because they are vastly clear and perspicuous besides most of his subjects are general and relative to all nations His Essay on Criticism will soon be known in France by the translation which lAbbe de Resnel has made of it Here is an extract from his poem entitled the of the Lock which I just now translated with the latitude I usually take on these occasions for once again nothing can be more ridiculous than to translate a poet literally Methinks I now have given you specimens enough from the English poets I have made some transient mention of their philosophers but as for good historians among them I dont know of any and indeed a Frenchman was forced to write their history Possibly the English genius which is either languid or impetuous has not yet acquired that unaffected eloquence that plain but majestic air which history requires Possibly too the spirit of party which exhibits objects in a dim and confused light may have sunk the credit of their historians One half of the nation is always at variance with the other half I have met with people who assured me that the Duke of Marlborough was a coward and that Mr Pope was a fool just as some Jesuits in France declare Pascal to have been a man of little or no genius and some Jansenists affirm Father Bourdaloue to have been a mere babbler The Jacobites consider Mary Queen of Scots as a pious heroine but those of an opposite party look upon her as a prostitute an adulteress a murderer Thus the English have memorials of the several reigns but no such thing as a history There is indeed now living one Mr Gordon the public are obliged to him for a translation of Tacitus who is very capable of writing the history of his own country but Rapin de Thoyras got the start of him To conclude in my opinion the English have not such good historians as the French have no such thing as a real tragedy have several delightful comedies some derful passages in certain of their poems and boast of philosophers that are worthy of instructing mankind The English have reaped very great benefit from the writers of our nation and therefore we ought since they have not scrupled to be in our debt to borrow from them Both the English and we came after the Italians who have been our instructors in all the arts and whom we have surpassed in some I cannot determine which of the three nations ought to be honoured with the palm but happy the writer who could display their various merits LETTER XXIIION THE REGARD THAT OUGHT TO BE SHOWN TO MEN OF LETTERS