, is in as great Reputation among the Poets and Criticks, as the mutilated Figure above-mentioned is among the Statuaries and Painters. Several of our Countrymen, and Mr.
Dryden
in particular, seem very often to have copied after it in their Dramatick Writings; and in their Poems upon Love.
Whatever might have been the Occasion of this Ode, the English Reader will enter into the Beauties of it, if he supposes it to have been written in the Person of a Lover sitting by his Mistress. I shall set to View three different Copies of this beautiful Original: The first is a Translation by
Catullus
, the second by Monsieur
Boileau
, and the last by a Gentleman whose Translation of the
Hymn to Venus