Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/228

218 engaged in a periodical paper, there was a fair occaſion of doing it, and accordingly in one of his Spectators he quotes the following couplet, which he is pleaſed to call humorous, but which however is a tranſlation from Boileau.

The citation of this couplet Mr. Dennis imagined, was rather meant to affront him, than pay a compliment to his genius, as he could diſcover nothing excellent in the lines, and if there was, they being only a tranſlation, in ſome meaſure abated the merit of them. Being fired with reſentment at this affront, he immediately, in a ſpirit of fury, wrote a letter to the Spectator, in which he treated him with very little ceremony, and informed him, that if he had been ſincere in paying a compliment to him, he ſhould have choſen a quotation from his poem on the Battle of Ramellies; he then points out a particular paſſage, of which he himſelf had a very high opinion, and which we ſhall here inſert as a ſpecimen of that performance.

A cœleſtial ſpirit viſits the duke of Marlborough the night before the battle, and after he has ſaid ſeveral other things to him, goes on thus, A wondrous victory attends thy arms, Great in itſelf, and in its ſequel vaſt; Whoſe ecchoing ſound thro’ all the Weſt ſhall run, Tranſporting the glad nations all around, Who oft ſhall doubt, and oft ſuſpend their joy, And oft imagine all an empty dream; The conqueror himſelf ſhall cry amaz’d, ’Tis not our work, alas we did it not; The hand of, the hand of is here! For