DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0032
6
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
affected to despise these authors *, and, for
what reason it is difficult to discover, un-
dervalued their latinity. But men of equal
discernment, Atterbury, Pope, and John-
son, entertained a very different opinion
of their merit, and not only read but some-
* The contempt which the French critics generally
shew for modern Latin poetry may, perhaps, arise from a
consciousness of their own deficiency in this respect.
Cardinal Polignac, Vaniere, Rapin and Santeuil *, are
the only Latin poets, if I recollect well, of any consider-
ation that France has produced, and though they are not
without merit, yet they betray in the effort with which they
advance and in the very art which they display, somewhat
of the latent barbarian. Even in Latin prose the French
do not seem to have succeeded better. There is always
an appearance of study and constraint in their style, very
different from the easy, unaffected flow of Italian authors.
The latter only have either preserved or recovered the
certa vox Romani generis, urbisque propria, in qua nihil
qffendi, nihil displicere, nihil animadverti possit, nihil
sonar e, aut olere peregrimijn. ( Cicero de Or.)
Hence Mr. Roscoe has reason to mention these poets
with partiality, under the appellation of the rivals of
Virgil and Horace.
* This last author is inferior to the others, because more
affected. His hymns, though inserted in the Parisian Breviary,
and much admired by French critics, are quite disfigured by
conceit and antithesis.
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
affected to despise these authors *, and, for
what reason it is difficult to discover, un-
dervalued their latinity. But men of equal
discernment, Atterbury, Pope, and John-
son, entertained a very different opinion
of their merit, and not only read but some-
* The contempt which the French critics generally
shew for modern Latin poetry may, perhaps, arise from a
consciousness of their own deficiency in this respect.
Cardinal Polignac, Vaniere, Rapin and Santeuil *, are
the only Latin poets, if I recollect well, of any consider-
ation that France has produced, and though they are not
without merit, yet they betray in the effort with which they
advance and in the very art which they display, somewhat
of the latent barbarian. Even in Latin prose the French
do not seem to have succeeded better. There is always
an appearance of study and constraint in their style, very
different from the easy, unaffected flow of Italian authors.
The latter only have either preserved or recovered the
certa vox Romani generis, urbisque propria, in qua nihil
qffendi, nihil displicere, nihil animadverti possit, nihil
sonar e, aut olere peregrimijn. ( Cicero de Or.)
Hence Mr. Roscoe has reason to mention these poets
with partiality, under the appellation of the rivals of
Virgil and Horace.
* This last author is inferior to the others, because more
affected. His hymns, though inserted in the Parisian Breviary,
and much admired by French critics, are quite disfigured by
conceit and antithesis.