for those which are the most known and the most receiv'd, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinc'd of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the preface to his works: That wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for us who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art or science, which have not been touch'd upon by others; we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing, and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire."
Longinus, in his Reflexions, has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them: I cannot but take notice that our English author has after the same manner exemplify'd several of the precepts in the very precepts themselves." He then produces some instances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with saying, that "there are three poems in our tongue of the same nature, and each a master-piece in its kind; The Essay on Translated Verse; the Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criticism."
Of Windsor Forest, positive is the judgment of the affirmative
Mr. John Dennis,
"[1]That it is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in emulation of the Cooper's Hill of Sir John Denham: The author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous[2]."
But the author of the Dispensary
in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion; "Those who have seen these two excellent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windsor Forest, the one written by Sir John Denham, the other by Mr. Pope, will shew a great deal of candour if they approve of this."
Of the Epistle of Eloisa, we are told by the obscure writer of a poem called Sawney, "That because Prior's Henry and Emma charm'd the finest
