he more honour." It must be very enterprising: it must, in Shakespeare's
style, have hairbreadth 'scapes; and often tread the very brink of error:
nor can it ever deserve the applause of the real judge, unless it renders
itself obnoxious to the misapprehensions of the contrary.

Such is Casimire's strain among the moderns, whose lively wit, and happy
fire, is an honour to them. And Buchanan might justly be much admired, if
any thing more than the sweetness of his numbers, and the purity of his
diction, were his own: his original, from which I have taken my motto,
through all the disadvantages of a northern prose translation, is still
admirable; and, Cowley says, as preferable in beauty to Buchanan, as Judaea
is to Scotland.

Pindar, Anacreon, Sappho, and Horace, are the great masters of lyric
poetry among Heathen writers. Pindar's muse, like Sacharissa, is a
stately, imperious, and accomplished beauty; equally disdaining the use of
art, and the fear of any rival; so intoxicating that it was the highest
commendation that could be given an ancient, that he was not afraid to
taste of her charms;

Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus;

a danger which Horace declares he durst not run.

Anacreon's Muse is like Amoret, most sweet, natural, and delicate; all
over flowers, graces, and charms; inspiring complacency, not awe; and she
seems to have good nature enough to admit a rival, which she cannot find.

Sappho's Muse, like Lady ----, is passionately tender, and glowing; like oil
set on fire, she is soft, and warm, in excess. Sappho has left us a few
fragments only; time has swallowed the rest; but that little which
remains, like the remaining jewel of Cleopatra, after the other was
dissolved at her banquet, may be esteemed (as was that jewel) a sufficient
ornament for the goddess of beauty herself.

Horace's Muse (like one I shall not presume to name) is correct, solid,
and moral; she joins all the sweetness and majesty, all the sense and the
fire of the former, in the justest proportions and degrees; superadding a
felicity of dress entirely her own. She moreover is distinguishable by
this particularity, that she abounds in hidden graces, and secret charms,
which none but the discerning can discover; nor are any capable of doing
full justice, in their opinion to her excellencies, without giving the
world, at the same time, an incontestable proof of refinement in their own
understandings.

But, after all