These blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd:
For never can I deem him less than God.
The tender firstlings of my woolly breed
Shall on his holy altar often bleed.
He gave my kine to graze the flowry plain:
And to my pipe renew'd the rural strain.
DRYDEN.
Dr. Trapp towards the conclusion of his Preface to the Aeneid, has treated Dryden with less reverence, than might have been expected from a man of his understanding, when speaking of so great a genius. The cause of Trapp's disgust to Dryden, seems to have been this: Dryden had a strong contempt for the priesthood, which we have from his own words,
"Priests of all professions are the same."
and takes every opportunity to mortify the usurping superiority of spiritual tyrants. Trapp, with all his virtues (for I think it appears he possessed many) had yet much of the priest in him, and for that very reason, perhaps, has shewn some resentment to Dryden; but if he has with little candour of criticism treated Mr. Dryden, he has with great servility flattered Mr. Pope; and has insinuated, as if the Palm of Genius were to be yielded to the latter. He observes in general, that where Mr. Dryden shines most, we often see the least of Virgil. To omit many other instances, the description of the Cyclops forging Thunder for Jupiter, and Armour for Aeneas, is elegant and noble to the last degree in the Latin; and it is so to a great degree in the English. But then is the English a translation of the Latin?
Hither the father of the fire by night,
Thro' the brown air precipitates his flight:
On their eternal anvil, here he found
The brethren beating, and the blows go round.
The lines are good, and truely poetical; but the two first are set to render
Hoc tunc ignipotens caelo descendit ab alto.
There is nothing of caelo ab alto in the version; nor by night, brown air, or precipitates his sight, in the original. The two last are put in the room of
Ferrum exercebant vasto Cylopes in antro,
Brontesque, Steropesque, & nudus membra Pyraemon.