Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/101

Rh 1705, we find him compoſing a paſtoral to ſoften the grief of that illuſtrious family, which he addreſſed to the lord treaſurer Godolphin.

About the ſame time, the extraordinary ſucceſs of the duke of Marlborough’s arms, furniſhed him with materials for an Ode to Queen Anne. In another Pindaric Ode he celebrates the lord Godolphin; taking occaſion from that nobleman’s delight in horſe-racing to imitate the Greek Poet in his favourite manner of writing, by an elegant digreſſion; to which he added a criticiſm oh that ſpecies of poetry.

As in the early part of his life, Mr. Congreve had received favours from people of a leſs exalted ſtation, ſo of theſe he was highly ſenſible, and never let ſlip any opportunity of ſhewing his gratitude. He wrote an Epilogue to his old friend Southern’s Tragedy of Oroonoko; and Mr. Dryden has acknowledged his aſſiſtance in the tranſlation of Virgil: He contributed by his Verſion of the eleventh Satire of Juvenal, to the tranſlation of that poet, publiſhed alſo by Mr. Dryden, to whom Mr. Congreve wrote a copy of Verſes on his Tranſlation of Perſius. He wrote likewiſe a Prologue for a Play of Mr. Charles Dryden’s, full of kindneſs for that young gentleman, and of reſpect for his father.

But the nobleſt teſtimony he gave of his filial regard to the memory of his poetical father, Mr. John Dryden, was the Panegyric he wrote upon his works, contained in the dedication of Dryden’s plays to the duke of Newcaſtle.

Mr. Congreve tranſlated the third Book of Ovid’s Art of Love; ſome favourite paſſages from the Iliad, and writ ſome Epigrams, in all which he was not unſucceſsful, though at the ſame time he has been exceeded by his cotemporaries in the ſame attempts.

The author of the elegant Letters, not long ago publiſhed under the name of Fitz Oſborne, has taken ſome pains to ſet before his readers the