since the
opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make
bold to ask the gentlemen their sentiments of two or three lines (to
pass over a thousand other instances) which they may meet with in that
work. The fourth Aeneid says of Dido, after certain effects of her
taking shelter with Aeneas in the cave appear,

_Conjuijium vocat, hoc proetexit lomine culpam,_ V. 172,

which Mr. Dryden renders thus:

She called it marriage, by that specious name
To veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.

Nor had he before less happily rendered the 39th verse of the second
Aeneid:

_Scinditur in certum studia in contraria vulgus._

The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise, say nothing, and in parts divide.

"If these are the lines which they call flat and spiritless, I wish mine
could be flat and spiritless too! And, therefore, to make short work, I
shall only beg Mr. Dryden's leave to congratulate him upon his admirable
flatness, and dulness, in a rapture of poetical indignation:

Then dares the poring critic snarl? And dare
The[21a] puny brats of Momus threaten war?
And can't the proud perverse Arachne's fate
Deter the[21a] mongrels e'er it prove too late?
In vain, alas! we warn the[21a] hardened brood;
In vain expect they'll ever come to good.
No: they'd conceive more venom if they could.
But let each[21a] viper at his peril bite,
While you defy the most ingenious spite.
So Parian columns, raised with costly care,
[21a] Vile snails and worms may daub, yet not impair,
While the tough titles, and obdurate rhyme,
Fatigue the busy grinders of old Time.
Not but your Maro justly may complain,
Since your translation ends his ancient reign,
And but by your officious muse outvied,
That vast immortal name had never died.

"[21a] I desire these appellations may not seem to affect the parties
concerned, any otherwise than as to their character of critics."

[22] Preface to the Fables, vol. xi.

[23] See several extracts from these poems in the Appendix, vol. xviii.,
which I have thrown together to show how much Dryden was considered as
sovereign among the poets of the time.

[24] This I learn from _Honori Sacellum_, a Funeral Poem, to the Memory
of William, Duke of Devonshire, 1707:

"'Twas so, when the destroyer's dreadful dart
Once pierced through ours, to fair Maria's heart.
From his state-helm then some short hours he stole,
T'indul