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Letters concerning
much Pains and Trouble you wou'd have but an imperfect Idea of all thoſe Works. Poetry is a kind of Muſic, in which a Man ſhould have ſome Knowledge before he pretends to judge of it. When I give you a Tranſlation of ſome Paſſages from thoſe foreign Poets, I only prick down, and that imperfectly, their Muſic; but then I cannot expreſs the Taſte of their Harmony.
There is one Engliſh Poem eſpecially which I ſhould deſpair of ever making you underſtand, the Title whereof is Hudibras. The Subject of it is the Civil War in the Time of the Grand Rebellion; and the Principles and Practice of the Puritans are therein ridicul'd. 'Tis Don Quixot, 'tis our [1]Sa-
- ↑ A Species of Satyr in Proſe and Verſe written in France in 1594, againſt the Chiefs of the League at that Time. This Satyr which is alſo call'd Catholicon d'Eſpagne, was look'd upon as a Maſter-piece. Rapin, Le Roi, Pithou, Paſſerat, and Chrêtien, the greateſt Wits of that Age, are the Authors of it; and 'twas entitled Ménippêe, from Menippus, a cynical Philoſopher, who had written Letters fill'd with ſharp, ſatyrical Expreſſions, in Imitation of Varro, who compos'd Satyrs which he entitled Satyræ Menippeæ.
