r aught I know,
is yet to be seen." In his "Battle of the Books," he tells us, "that
Dryden, who encountered Virgil, soothed the good ancient by the
endearing title of 'father,' and, by a large deduction of genealogies,
made it appear, that they were nearly related, and humbly proposed an
exchange of armour; as a mark of hospitality, Virgil consented, though
his was of gold, and cost an hundred beeves, the other's but of rusty
iron. However, this glittering armour became the modern still worse than
his own. Then they agreed to exchange horses; but, when it came to the
trial, Dryden was afraid, and utterly unable to mount." A yet more
bitter reproach is levelled by the wit against the poet, for his triple
dedication of the Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneid, to three several
patrons, Clifford, Chesterfield, and Mulgrave.[16] But, though the
recollection of the contemned Odes, like the _spretae injuria formae_ of
Juno, still continued to prompt these overflowings of Swift's satire, he
had too much taste and perception of poetry to attempt, gravely, to
undermine, by a formal criticism, the merits of Dryden's Virgil.

This was reserved for Luke Milbourne, a clergyman, who, by that
assurance, has consigned his name to no very honourable immortality.
This person appears to have had a living at Great Yarmouth,[17] which,
Dryden hints, he forfeited by writing libels on his parishioners; and
from another testimony, he seems to have been a person of no very strict
morals.[18] Milbourne was once an admirer of our poet, as appears from
his letter concerning "Amphitryon," vol. viii. But either poetical
rivalry, for he had also thought of translating Virgil himself,[19] or
political animosity, for he seems to have held revolution principles, or
deep resentment for Dryden's sarcasms against the clergy, or, most
probably, all these united, impelled Milbourne to publish a most furious
criticism, entitled, "Notes on Dryden's Virgil, in a Letter to a
Friend." "And here," said he, "in the first place, I must needs own
Jacob Tonson's ingenuity to be greater than the translator's, who, in
the inscription of his fine gay (title) in the front of the book, calls
it very honestly Dryden's Virgil, to let the reader know, that this is
not that Virgil so much admired in the Augustaean age, an author whom
Mr. Dryden once thought untranslatable, but a Virgil of another stamp,
of a coarser allay; a silly, impertinent, nonsensical writer, of a
various and