Our Author anfwers, That the Moderns do not admire the Ancients, because they invented, but be caufe they perfected. Homer is not efteemed by them, as being the firft Poet, fince there were other Poets before him; but because they believe he hasoncarried Epick Poetry to the highest Degree of Perfection. Thus (continues Mr. Gacon) we admire the Stephens, and the Elzeviers, not as being the Inventers of Printing, but because they publi ed feveral Mafter Pieces of that Noble and Useful Art.

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Mr. de Fontenelle oblerves, That the Moderns cannot always exceed the Ancients, unless the Nature of the thing allows of it. Eloquence and Poetry (fays be) do not require a great Knowledge of o ther Arts, and chiefly depend upon a lively Imagination. Men might eafily get a fufficient Knowledge of those Arts in few Ages; and a lively Imagination does not want a long Series of Experiments, nor a great Number of Rules, to have all the Perfection that it is capable of. The fame Author fays in another Place, That Eloquence and Poetry, which have occafioned the warmeft Difpute, are not very Important in themfelves and believes the Ancients might carry them to their Perfection, because it may be attained to in few Ages. However, he owns that Eloquence was a ready way to Preferment among the Greeks and the Romans, and that it was then as great an Advantage to be born with the Talent of Speaking well, as it would be now-a-days to be born with a vaft Eftare. As for Poetry, he fays it never was good for any thing under any Sort of Government.

3 Mr Gacon refers us to the firft Part of his Dif fertation, where he makes an Apology for Poetry. He wondersi Mr. de Fontenelle fhould be one of those, who defpife that noble Art, fince his Poetical Performances are far from being contemptible. Ir

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were a great Miftake, fays he, to pretend that Poetry is of no ufe, because it feldom raifes the For tune of those who apply themselves to it; for Glo ry, rather than Gain, moves great Poets to produce thofe excellent Works, which are the Admiration of all Ages,d75 Dador Auto these Tods T

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Our Author, denies that the Ancients carried Eloquence to a greater Degree of Perfection than Poetry, and maintains that Demofthenes and Cicero are not fo perfect in their Kind as Homer and Virgil in theirs. Nature (fays he) having a great Share in the Production of a Poet, and Art contributing very much to that of an Orator'tis no furprifing thing that the former fhould exceed the latter, as true Fruits are more perfect than painted ones. go and M. & Silupar son uf) viedi fons em krogub vitoida bac parisiens Mr. de Fontenelle afcribes the blind Admiration of the Moderns for the Ancients to the great Influence of the Commentators, the most fuperftitious Men of all those who worship Antiquity. Is there any beautiful Woman, fays be, that would not think "herself Happy, if he could infpire her Lover with a Paffion as foft and lively, as that with which a Greek or Latin Author infpires his re fpectful Interpreter "2

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In answer to that Raillery, the Author fays it concerns only thofe long and tedious Commentators, for whom he has no great Efteem; and then he goes on in the following Words If an Admirer of Epictetus pays a great Price for the Lamp of that Philofopher; if another is more fond of a Medal of Homer, or Anacreon, than of their own "Works: Can fuch a ridiculous Zeal leffen the Merit of thofe great Men? If a Commentator upon Homer endeavours to make us believe, that that Poet is Solomon; that the moft abftrufe, Sciences, and even the Philofophers-Stone, are to be f found in his Poem is Homer answerable f

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fuch Extravagancies? We are willing that fuch Admirers of the Ancients fhould be banter'd and ridiculed; but we have an Efteem for thofe wife Interpreters, who laying afide Gram"matical Trifles, make it their Bufinefs to find out 66 the Sense of the Ancients, and to discover their true Genius

-SCMr. Gacon owns that there are fome Imperfecti ons in the Works of the Ancients that are moft efteemed; but he maintains that notwithstanding those Imperfections their Works are inimitable, or at leaft have not been equalled by any Modern Author. He denies that the Ancients have been guilty of any Impertinence, and affirms that whoever confiders their Religion, their Government, their Climates, and their Cuftoms, will eafily clear them from fuch an Imputation.

The Moderns boaft of their Works relating to Galantry, and pretend to be more nice than the Ancients in their way of treating of Love. Mr. Gacon is of a contrary Opinion and believes that the Moderns difcover no Delicacy, bur in as much as they conform themselves to the. Works of the Ancients. "The bare Syftem of Cu pid and Venus (fays he) is fufficient to fhew that

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the Ancients were Mafters of the Art of Love. And "indeed can any thing be more ingenious? The "Gracefulness, the fmiling Conntenance, the Wan❝tonnefs, the Wings, the Torch, the Darts, and "the Vail of Cupid; in a Word, all the Fables, wherein the Ancients fet forth in fuch a pompous

Manner the Triumphs of that little God, are as "many Proofs that they knew him perfectly. How "could they be ignorant of him, when they knew "his Mother fo well?

The Author acknowledges, that fome Writers of our Time speak naturally of Love, without affecting a falfe Delicacy; but he thinks they are indebted

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for it to the Ingenious Performances of the Latins, whom they have imitated. Catullus, (fays he) Pros pertius, Tibullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, have afforded them an infinite Number of fine Thoughts? And in deed Voiture, Sarafin, Segrais, la Fontaine, Corneille, Racine, Madam Ville-Dieu, and Madam Des-Houlieres, never durft deny that they took from the Writings of thofe Great Men the Charms, which procured them fo great a Reputation. pas de d

Mr. Gacon makes a Judicious Reflexion upon the Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucault. Het obferves, That this Author has everal unnatural and far fetched Thoughts. Mr. la Bruyere (lays he) hás justly blamed him for making himself unintelligible in feveral Places by too much refining, as it appears by this 'Maxim, Gravity is a Mystery of the Body, in vented to conceal the Imperfections of the Mind, and many others.

Our Author obferves, That the Fables of la Fontainė are very much above his Tales. Which is fotrue, that we have fome other Tales as good as his ; whereas no body has been able to imitate his Fables. But (continues the Author) tho' they be never: fo fine; they do not exceed those of Phædrus.

I omit feveral other Obfervations; that will not be unacceptable to the Readers.t

3. The Author proceeds to the Third Part of his Differtation, wherein he undertakes to fhew, That the Poems of the Ancients may be better tran flated into Verfe than into Profe. He acknowledges, as Madam Dacier does, that a Tranflation of a Poet into Profe is like the Mummy of a beautiful Woman, in which no Body will fee thofe Sparkling Eyes, that Complexion animated with the most natural and lively Colours, that Gracefulness and those Charms, which kindled the Love of the Beholders, and made an Impreffion even upon old-Age.

But he

he denies, that any one can perceive in that Mum my the Beauty and Regularity of the Features, the Bignels of the Eyes, the Smalnefs of the Mouths and a Noble and Majeftick Shape. He denies, that the Imagination being ftruck with those precious Remains, as Madam Dacier calls them, can form an Idea of a Beauty not much unlike that, which the Imagination can conceive by itself, and without the Sight of a dead Body, tho never fo well em balmed.

Mr. Gacon, in order to prove the Affertion, which makes the Subject of this Third Part of his Preface, ufes the very Arguments alledged by Madam Dacier, without any Alteration but that of the Word Poetry instead of the Word Profe. In the next Place, he brings in feveral Examples to thew, how the moftfimple, the cleareft, and the nobleft Poetical Ideas are ftretched out, and darkened, and lofe their Beauty by a Profaick Translation. At the fame Time he inferts a Tranflation in Verfe, to convince the Readers, that nothing but a Poetical Verfion can be a true Copy of a Poetical Original.

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