out knowing what they mean, or hardly ever citing any particulars of their conduct, or of their dicta.

I showed your proposed alteration in the Tristia to a very good judge, who approved of it very much. I confess, myself, that I like the old reading best, and think it more in Ovid's manner; but this, perhaps, is mere fancy. I have always been a great reader of him, and thought myself the greatest admirer he had, till you called him the first poet of antiquity, which is going even beyond me. The grand and spirited style of the Iliad; the true nature and simplicity of the Odyssey; the poetical language (far excelling that of all other poets in the world) of the Georgics, and the pathetic strokes in the Æneid, give Homer and Virgil a rank, in my judgment, clearly above all competitors; but next after them I should be very apt to class Ovid, to the great scandal, I believe, of all who pique themselves upon what is called purity of taste. You have somewhere compared him to Euripides, I think; and I can fancy I see a resemblance in them. This resemblance it is, I suppose, which makes one prefer Euripides to Sophocles; a preference which, if one were writing a dissertation, it would be very difficult to justify.

*

I cannot conceive upon what principle, or indeed from what motive, they have so restricted the intercourse between you and your family. My first impulse was, to write to lord Ilchester to speak to Mr. Frampton; but as you seem to suspect that former applications have done mischief, I shall do nothing. Did you, who are such a hater of war, ever read the lines at the beginning of the

second book of Cowper's Task? There are few things in our language superior to them, in my judgment. He is a fine poet, and has, in a great degree, conquered my prejudices against blank verse. I am, with great regard, sir, your most obedient servant,

C. J. FOX.

My hand is not yet so well as to give me the use of it, though the wound is nearly healed. The surgeon suspects there is more bone to come away. I have been here something more than a fortnight.

SIR,

LETTER LXII.

MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.

St. Anne's Hill, April 5, 1801. I AM exceedingly concerned to hear of the loss you have sustained, as well as of the additional suffering which your family has experienced (as of course they must), from your separation from them during so trying a calamity.

You mentioned to me before, your notion of reading lectures upon the Classics, but not as a point upon which you had fully determined. If I can be of any use in promoting your views, I will not fail to do so: for in proportion as classical · studies are an enjoyment to myself (and they are certainly a very great one), I wish them to be diffused as widely as possible.

LETTER LXIII.

MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.

SIR, St. Anne's Hill, April 13, 1801. I AM much obliged to you for your letter; and found immediately, from Kuster's index, the passage in question. It is in a note upon 'I, V. 1365. The verses you refer to in the 5th Æneid are indeed delightful; indeed I think that sort of pathetic is Virgil's great excellence in the Eneid, and that in that way he surpasses all other poets of every age and nation, except, perhaps (and only perhaps), Shakspeare. It is on that account that I rank him so very high; for surely to excel in that style which speaks to the heart is the greatest of all excellence. I am glad you mention the eighth book as one of those you most admire. It has always been a peculiar favourite with me. Evander's speech upon parting with his son is, I think, the most beautiful thing in the whole, especially the part from v. 574; and is, as far as I know, wholly unborrowed. What is more remarkable is that it has not, I believe, been often attempted to be imitated. It is so indeed in Valerius Flaccus, lib. i. v. 323, but not, I think, very successfully.

Dum metus est, nec adhuc dolor

goes too minutely into the philosophical reason to make with propriety a part of the speech. It might have done better as an observation of the poet's, in his own person; or still better, perhaps, it would have been, to have left it to the reader.

The passage in Virgil is, I think, beyond any

thing.

Sin aliquem infandum casum

is nature itself.

And then the tenderness in turn

ing towards Pallas,

Dum te, care puer! &c.

In short, it has always appeared to me divine. On the other hand, I am sorry and surprised, that, among the capital books, you should omit the fourth. All that part of Dido's speech that fol lows,

Num fletu ingemuit nostro ?—

is surely of the highest style of excellence, as well as the description of her last impotent efforts to retain Æneas, and of the dreariness of her situation after his departure.

I know it is the fashion to say Virgil has taken a great deal in this book from Apollonius; and it is true that he has taken some things, but not nearly so much as I had been taught to expect, before I read Apollonius. I think Medea's speech, in the fourth Argonaut. v. 356, is the part he has made most use of. There are some very peculiar breaks there, which Virgil has imitated certainly, and which I think are very beautiful and expressive: I mean, particularly, v. 382 in Apollonius, and ̧ v. 380 in Virgil. To be sure, the application is different, but the manner is the same: and that Vir gil had the passage before him at the time, is evi

dent from what follows:

• Μνησαιο δε και ποτ' εμοίο, στρευγόμενος καματοισί,

compared with

Supplicia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido

Sæpe vocaturum.

It appears to me upon the whole, that Ovid has taken more from Apollonius than Virgil.

I was interrupted as I was writing this on Sunday; and have been prevented since, by company, from going on.

I have dwelt the longer upon Virgil's pathetic, because his wonderful excellence in that particular has not, in my opinion, been in general sufficiently noticed. The other beauties of the eighth Æneid, such as the rites of Hercules, and the apostrophe to him, both of which Ovid has so successfully imitated in the beginning of the fourth Metamorphosis; the story of Cacus; the shield; and, above all, the description of Evander's town, and of the infancy of Rome, which appears to me, in its way, to be all but equal to the account of Alcinoüs in the Odyssey, have been, I believe, pretty generally celebrated; and yet I do not recollect to have seen the eighth book classed with the second, fourth, and sixth, which are the general favourites. I am, with great regard, sir, yours ever,

C. J. FOX.

SIR,

LETTER LXIV.

MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.

St. Anne's Hill, April 28, 1801

I AM much obliged to you for your caution about Heyne's Virgil; and if I purchase it at all, I will