a child. The aged of both sexes concluded the procession. In short, he had recomposed the whole in his own way; and, upon a third paper, he had placed the heads of children on the bodies of old men, and affixed those of young persons to the bodies of old women, while a Croat, with uplifted sword, appeared, perhaps, with the face of a modest damsel, and a plundering officer with the head of a spirited horse. In this manner, he transformed a single piece into a whole gallery, the third division of which, in particular, was not unlike some of Hogarth's caricatures. It may easily be supposed that his father, who prized this piece very highly, bestowed on him no very agreeable reward for his pains.

Not long after this, black clouds one day announced an approaching thunder-storm. Flashes of lightning began to dart through the atmosphere. Inquiry was made for the boy, but he was nowhere to be found. The tempest, meanwhile, came nearer and nearer; the thunder rolled awfully, and lightnings burst from the bosom of the murky clouds. The anxiety of the parents, on account of the child, increased with every clap. The whole family was employed in seeking him. He was at length found,

just at the moment of descending from the top of a very tall lime-tree near the house. "For God's sake," cried his father, in the greatest alarm, "where have you been?" "I only

wanted to see," replied the fearless and inqui"where all that fire came from."

sitive boy,

HOOLE'S "TASSO."

By far the best-known translation of the "Jerusalem Delivered," of Tasso, is Mr. Hoole's. It has appeared, and still appears, in editions of all sizes; and is gathered, as a matter of course, into collections of the British Poets. The sole reason of this is, not that Mr. Hoole translated the work, but that his original was Tasso. It is the name of Tasso, solely, that has carried him on from generation to generation, like a corpse attached to the immortal spirit of the Italian, and making it dull with the burden.

The re-publication, in various quarters, of the finer translation by Fairfax, will doubtless help to detach one idea from the other; but as Mr. Hoole's version has also been often reprinted of late, and as Fairfax himself presents some difficulties in the way of popularity, a few observa

tions on the two works may not be useless in furthering the public interests of poetry.

Hoole is a singular example of the popularity which a man may obtain, by taking up a great author to translate, with whom he has nothing in common, and merely subserving to the worst taste of the times. It was lucky for this gentleman, that he had the period he wrote in, almost all to himself. There was not a single real poet surviving, except Cowper.-Gray, Armstrong, Akenside, Collins, Churchill, every body was gone who was likely to detect him publicly; and the age, in every respect, was then in the fulness of its poetical emptiness. The French school was in its last weedy exuberance. The apprentices and their mistresses, in their pretty transparent Acrostic masks, walked forth by hundreds to meet each other in Poet's Corner in the magazines; and as nobody knew any thing about poetry, except that it had to repeat " ingenious" common-places, to rhyme upon heart, improve, love, prove, &c., and to pause, as Pope did, upon the fourth and fifth syllables, every body could write poetry, and admit it in others: Pope, whose real merits they

did not understand after all, was the greatest poet that ever lived; next to him were Goldsmith, and Collins, and Gray; the two latter, however, were very little understood: then, or, perhaps, before them, was Dr. Johnson, whom our master at school gave us as a poetical model: then came, in their respective circles, though at due distance, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Tomkins, or Mr. Hopkins, who wrote lines on the beautiful Miss Y. of Bristol, or the charming Miss Z. of Fish Street Hill; and nothing was wanting to make such a person as Mr. Hoole a great and popular writer with those gentlemen and ladies, but that he should write a great quantity of verses; which he accordingly did.

That Dr. Johnson should speak a good word for Mr. Hoole, much less write a Dedication for him, is not surprising; though what a poet must he be, who goes to another to write a Dedication for him! Johnson was in the habit of writing Dedications for those who were conscious of not being good turners of a prose paragraph, and who wished to approach the great with a proper one; and Mr. Hoole, it seems, was among these modest persons, though he did not scruple to approach Tasso and Ariosto with his poetry.

VOL. I.

G

2

The Dedication, which is to the late Queen, and which expresses a wish that Tasso had lived in a happier time, and experienced from the descendants of the House of Este, "a more liberal and potent patronage," is elegant and to the purpose. The good word is a mere word, and very equivocal besides. Johnson, who is now pretty generally understood not to have been so good a critic in poetry, as he was strong in general understanding, and justly eminent in some respects, might have been very capable of applauding a translation upon Mr. Hoole's principles; but it is more than to be suspected, that he would have desired a higher order of workmanship out of the manufactory. Hoole was a pitch too low for his admiration, though it appeared he had private qualities sufficient to secure his good wishes; and even those, there is good reason to conclude, could not have prevented a feeling of contempt for a translator of great poets, who could come to him for a Dedication. When Boswell, in one of his maudlin fits of adulation, affected to consider something with Goldsmith's name to it as supplied by the Doctor, the latter could not restrain his scorn; and said, that Goldsmith would no more come