Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

morning we received your letter of the 'feventeenth of Auguft, from cardinal Valenti. These are fo many kind actions, for which we acknowledge our obligations and thanks, affuring you, at the fame time, of the due esteem we entertain of your juftly-applauded merit.

When the abovementioned diftich was published at Rome, one of your countrymen is faid to have found fault with a word in it, in public converfation, asserting that the particle bic, fhould certainly have been long instead of being short, as it is in that distich.

We answered, that he must mistake, as the word bic may be either long or fhort, Virgil having made it fhort in this verse :

Solus hic inflexit fenfus animumque labantem,

And having made it long in this other line:

Hic finis priami fatorum, hic exitus illum.

We thought we anfwered his objection pretty well, confidering it is fifty years H 5

fince

fince we have read Virgil. Though this is, properly speaking, your own cause, yet we have fo good an opinion of your probity and candour, that we make you judge of this dispute between us and our adversary ; and we conclude with giving you our apostolic benediction.

Dated at Rome, this 19th of
September, 1745, and
of our exaltation the

fixth year.

A LET

A

LETT ER

To Pope BENEDICT the Fourteenth.

THE

HE features of your holiness are not better expreffed in the medals I have received from your great goodness, than your genius and mind in the letter which you deigned to honour me with, and for which I offer your holiness my most humble and fincere thanks.

Indeed I am obliged to acknowledge your infallibility in decifions of literature, as well as in things of a more serious nature: Your holiness is much better acquainted with the Latin, than the Frenchman whom you were pleased to correct; for my part, I admire how you can remember Virgil fo exactly. The popes have always been the moft diftinguished for learning among fovereign princes, and none of the popes have joined to fo much

eru

erudition*, fo many ornaments of polite learning:

Agnofco rerum dominos gentemque togatam,

If the Frenchman, who mistook in his criticifm, relative to the particle bic, had Virgil by heart as well as your holinefs, he might have quoted a verfe, in which it is both long and fhort in the fame line. This fine verfe feemed to me as a prefage of the favours conferred on me by your bounty. This is it:

Hic vir hic eft tibi quem promitti fæpius audis.

How muft Rome have rejoiced when Benedict the fourteenth was exalted to its fee! I kifs your facred feet with sentiments of the greatest reverence and gratitude, &c.

Benedict the fourteenth was a very laborious and ingenious writer. His printed works make] fifteen volumes in folio. He was remarkable, even before he was made pope, for his great knowledge in the canon law.

A LET

A

LETTER

From Mr. de VOLTAIRE,,

To the Marquifs SCIPIO MAFFEI,.

Author of the Italian Merope, and of several other celebrated performances.

SIR,

THE

HE ancient Greeks and Romans, from whom the moderns of all nations have borrowed almost every thing. they know, addreffed their works, without the vain form of compliment, to their friends, and to the learned.

It is under thefe titles that I offer you the homage of the french Merope.

The Italians, who have been the reftorers of many of the fine arts, and the inventors of fome, were the first that, under the infpection of pope Leo the tenth, revived tragedy. And in this age, in which, the art of Sophocles be

gan

« AnkstesnisTęsti »