Our author has likewise published four volumes of sermons, and a volume of lectures on poetry, written in Latin.
Before we mention his other poetical compositions, we shall consider him as the translator of Virgil, which is the most arduous province he ever undertook. Dr. Trapp, in his preface, after stating the controversy, which has been long held, concerning the genius of Homer and Virgil, to whom the superiority belongs, has informed us, that this work was very far advanced before it was undertaken, having been, for many years, the diversion of his leisure hours at the university, and grew upon him, by insensible degrees, so that a great part of the Aeneis was actually translated, before he had any design of attempting the whole.
He further informs us, 'that one of the greatest geniuses, and best judges, and critics, our age has produced, Mr. Smith of Christ Church, having seen the first two or three hundred lines of this translation, advised him by all means to go through with it. I said, he laughed at me, replied the Dr. and that I should be the most impudent of mortals to have such a thought. He told me, he was very much in earnest; and asked me why the whole might not be done, in so many years, as well as such a number of lines in so many days? which had no influence upon me, nor did I dream of such an undertaking, 'till being honoured by the university of Oxford with the public office of professor of poetry, which I shall ever gratefully acknowledge, I thought it might not be improper for me to review, and finish this work, which otherwise had certainly been as much neglected by me, as, perhaps, it will now be by every body else.'
As our author has made choice of blank verse, rather than rhime, in order to bear a nearer resemblance to Virgil, he has endeavoured to defend blank verse, against the advocates for rhime, and shew its superiority for any work of length, as it gives the expression a greater compass, or, at least, does not clog and fetter the verse, by which the substance and meaning of a line must often be mutilated, twisted, and sometimes sacrificed for the sake of the rhime.
'Blank verse (says he) is not only more majestic and sublime, but more musical and harmonious. It has more rhime in it, according to the ancient, and true sense of the word, than rhime itself, as it is now used: for, in its original signification, it consists not in the tinkling of vowels and consonants, but in the metrical disposition of words and syllables, and the proper cadence of numbers, which is more agreeable to the ear, without the jingling of like endings, than with it. And, indeed, let a man consult his own ears.
Him th'Almighty pow'r
Hurl'd headlong, flaming from the ætherial sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell
In adamantine chains, and penal fire;
Who durst defy th'Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquish'd, rowling in the fiery gulph,
Confounded, tho' immortal
Who that hears this, can think it wants rhime to recommend it? or rather does not think it sounds far better without it? We purposely produced a citation, beginning and ending in the middle of a verse, because the privilege of resting on this, or that foot, sometimes one, and sometimes another, and so diversifying the pauses and cadences, is the greatest beauty of blank verse, and perfectly agreeable to the practice of our masters, the Greeks and Romans. This can be done but rarely in rhime; for if it were frequent, the rhime would be in a manner lost by it; the end of almost every verse must be something of a pause; and it is but seldom that a sentence begins in the middle. Though this seems to be the advantage of blank verse over rhime, yet we cannot entirely condemn the use of it, even in a heroic poem; nor absolutely reject that in speculation, which. Mr. Dryden and Mr. Pope have enobled by their practice. We acknowledge too, that in some particular views, what way of writing has the advantage over this. You may pick out mere lines, which, singly considered, look mean and low, from a poem in blank verse, than from one in rhime, supposing them to be in other respects equal. For instance, the following verses out of Milton's Paradise Lost, b. ii.
Of Heav'n were falling, and these elements—
Instinct with fire, and nitre hurried him—
taken singly, look low and mean: but read them in conjunction with others, and then see what a different face will be set upon them.