when they began to have their true and genuine effect. His compofitions are therefore more natural and correct, although inferior, as there are few but are fo, in point of fublimity to Dante. Mr. Warton has been particularly attentive to the works of these two poets, not only on account of their intrinfic merit, but also from their being the models which Spencer and Milton afterwards Studied with great attention.

During this reign feveral critical and rhetorical works were published, and the cultivation of our language began to be attended to by men of learning.-The pedantry of treating all fubjects in the Latin tongue was first broke through by the ToxOPHILUS of Roger Afkam in English, and by fome regular fyftems of logic and rhetoric in the fame language, by Thomas Wilfon, in 1553, tutor to Henry and Charles Brandon, Dukes of Suffolk, afterwards fecretary of state and privy counfellor. We fhall not attempt to follow our author through a regular account of the writers of these times, contenting ourfelves with remarking only upon the more grand and decifive periods of the improvement of our poetry.

In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign appeared the play of GORDOBUC, written by the fame Lord Buckhurst we have before fpoken of. As this is the firft regular tragedy in our language, our author has given it an attention beyond what it claimed as forming a part of his fyftem: the character he gives of it is as follows.

"That this tragedy was never a favourite among our ancestors, and has long fallen into general

oblivion, is to be attributed to the nakedness and unintersting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the fpeeches, the want of a difcrimination of character, and almoft a total abfence of pathetic or critical fituations. It is true that a mother kills her own fon. But this act of barbarous and unnatural impiety, to fay nothing of its almoft unexampled atrocity in the tender fex, proceeds only from a brutal principle of fudden and impetuous revenge. It is not the confequence of any deep machination, nor is it founded in a proper preparation of previous circumftances. She is never before introduced to our notice as a wicked or defigning character. She murthers her fon Porrex, becaufe in the commotions of a civil diffenfion, in felf-defence, after repeated provocations, and the ftrongest proofs of the bafeft ingratitude and treachery, he had flain his rival brother, not without the deepeft compunction and remorfe for what he had done. mother murthering a fon is a fact which must be received with horror; but it required to be complicated with other motives, and prompted by a co-operation of other caufes, to roufe our attention, and work upon our paffions. I do not mean that any other motive could have been found, to palliate a murther of fuch a nature. Yet it was poffible to heighten and to divide the diftrefs, by rendering this bloody mother, under the notions of human frailty, an object of our compaflion as well as of our abhorrence. But perhaps thefe artifices were not yet known or wanted. The general flory of the play is great in

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its political confequences; and the leading incidents are important, but not fufficiently intricate to awaken our curiofity, and hold us in fufpence. Nothing is perplexed and nothing unravelled. The oppofition of interefts is such as does not affect our nicer feelings. In the plot of a play, our pleasure arifes in proportion as our expectation is excited.

Yet it must be granted, that the language of GORDOBUC has great purity and perfpicuity; and that it is entirely free from that tumid phrafeology, which does not feem to have taken place till play-writing had become a trade, and our poets found it their intereft to captivate the multitude by the falfe fublime, and by thofe exaggerated imageries and pedantic metaphors, which are the chief blemishes of the fcenes of Shakefpeare, and which are at this day mistaken for his capital beauties by too many readers. Here alfo we perceive another and a strong reafon why this play was never popular."

This tragedy, coming out of the hands of a man of fuch reputation and abilities as Lord Buckhurft, was immediately followed by English translations of the Jocafta of Euripedes, by George Gafcoign and Francis Kilwen

merfh, both of Grays-Inn, and of the Ten Tragedies of Seneca,: by different hands. The antient drama was by these means introduced and laid open to our anceftors,, and it must be confeffed that many parts of their translations, if we may judge from the quotations Mr. Warton has given us, appear to have confiderable merit. Befides the antient drama, almost all the claffical poets whether Greek or Roman were tranflated into our language during this reign. The verfions of Homer, Mufæus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Martial appeared in English before the year 1580; thefe, fays our author, "while they contributed to familiarize the ideas of the antient poets to English readers, improved our language and verfification; and that in a general view they ought to be confidered as valuable and important acceffions to the stock of our poetical literature. Thefe were the claffics of Shakespear."

From amongst the various extracts Mr. Warton has given us of the tranflations in queftion, we beg leave to lay before our reader the following one from the transformation of Athamas and Ino in the fourth book of Ovid, by Arthur Golding.

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fault: but he has by no means reprefented the dignity or the fimplicity of Homer. He is fometimes paraphraftic and redundant, but more frequently retrenches or impoverishes what he could not feel and exprefs. In the mean time, he labours with the inconvenience of an aukward, in harmonious, and unheroic meafure, impofed by cuftom, but difguftful to modern ears. Yet he is not always without ftrength or spirit. He has enriched our language with many compound epithets, fo much in the manner of Homer, fuch as the filver-footed Thetis, the filverthroned Juno, the triple-feathered helme, the high-walled Thebes, the faire-haired boy, the filver. Howing floods, the hugely-peopled towns, the Grecians navy-bound, the frong-winged lance, and many more which might be collected. Dryden reports, that Waller never could read Chapman's Homer without a degree of tranfport. Pope is of opinion, that Chapman covers his defects" by a daring fiery fpirit that animates his tranflation, which is fomething "like what one might imagine "Homer himself to have writ "before he arrived to years of "difcretion." But his fire is too frequently darkened, by that fort of fuftian which now disfigured the ciction of our tragedy." Chapman alfo, in the year 1614,

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published the Odyffea, which he dedicated to Carr Earl of Somerset.

In addition to the antient authors of Greece and Rome, translations of moft of the Italian poets into English took place towards the clofe of this century. Ariofto, the tales of Boccace, Bandello, and of other Italian authors, were tranflated into our language, and became the foundation of many of the works of Shakespear, Dryden and others. Whatever could enrich, or furnish with matter our future poets, was now fhowered down upon them with uncommon exuberance.. Our language was confiderably improved, the beauties of antient literature were ftudied and copied with fuccefs, the works of the modern claffics, if I may fo call them, were laid open to our ancestors et in medium proferuntur, and finally our poetry was arrived at that point, when he had neither contracted the feverity of age, nor was fo much a child as to be pleafed moft with what was most strange and unnatural.

As a confiderable part of the laft fection of this volume, containing a general view and character of the poetry of Queen Elizabeth's age, is inferted in another part of our Regifter for this year*, we shall not touch upon it here.

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