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to advance it were equal, and I have as often trembled for it in her hands, as fhe could in mine. It was one of the many reasons I had to wish the longer life of this Lady, that I must certainly have regained her good opinion, in fpite of all mifreprefenting tranflators whatever. I could not have expected it on any other terms than being approved as great, if not as paffionate, an admirer of Homer as herself. For that was the firft condition of her favour and friendship; otherwise not one's tafte alone, but one's morality had been corrupted, nor would any man's religion have been unfufpected, who did not implicitly believe in an Author whofe doctrine is fo conformable to holy Scripture. However, as different people have different ways of expreffing their belief, fome purely by public and general acts of worship, others by a reverend fort of reasoning and inquiry about the grounds of it; it is the fame in admiration, fome prove it by exclamations, others by refpect. I have obferved that the loudeft huzza's given to a great man in triumph, proceed not from his friends, but the rabble; and as I have fancied it the fame with the rabble of critics, a defire to be distinguished from them has turned me to the more moderate, and, I hope, more rational method. Though I am a Poet, I would not be an enthusiast; and though I am an Englishman, I would not be furiously of a party. I am far from thinking myself that genius, upon whom, at the end of thefe re

marks,

marks, Madam Dacier congratulates my country : One capable of "correcting Homer, and confe"quently of reforming mankind, and amending "this conftitution." It was not to Great Britain this ought to have been applied, fince our nation has one happiness for which the might have preferred it to her own; that as much as we abound in other miferable misguided fects, we have, at least, none of the blafphemers of Homer. We stedfastly and unanimously believe both this Poem and our Conftitution to be the best that ever human wit invented that the one is not more incapable of amendment than the other; and (old as they both are) we despise any French or Englishman whatever, who fhall prefume to retrench, to innovate, or to make the leaft alteration in either. Far therefore from the genius for which Madam Dacier mistook me, my whole defire is but to preferve the humble character of a faithful translator, and a quiet fubje&t a.

This compofition has great beauty and force. The criticisms are in general as juft and discriminating, as the language is elegant. To the manly fentiments in the conclufion, every Englishman muft affent with cordiality. It were only to be wifhed, that the writer had never given us reason to doubt his own fincerity.

APPEN

APPENDIX.

pors fays, in the Epilogue to the Satires, in this volume, line

99, that he never

"Din'd with the Man of Rofs."

A few more particulars, which I have accidentally met with, concerning this extraordinary man, and his mode of living, to which Pope probably alludes, may be here admitted, though too long and unimportant for a Note on the place. These were sent to an Editor of a newspaper, 1787, but they bear the evident marks of authenticity.

"To the PRINTER.

"Sir, I fend you a few anecdotes relative to Mr. John Kirle, the Man of Rofs, which I picked up the other day in that town. He kept a public table on the Thursday of every week, and had always twelve perfons to dine with him on that day. The dinner confifted of a furloin of beef, a loin of veal, a leg of mutton, (all bought at Rofs market,) and a plain pudding. What remained of this was given away in the afternoon. His hour of dinner was at two o'clock. Cyder, perry, and ale, were the only liquors drank at his table. His Sunday dinner confifted of a rump of beef; the remains of which were given away to the poor. His houfehold establishment confifted of two maids, a boy, and an upper fervant. He was fkilled in architecture; and once, on a vifit to fee fome building near Benson in Oxfordshire, was taken up as an highwayman, and carried before a juftice, to whom he said he was the Man of Rofs. This, however, did not avail him completely; for three perfons of confequence in the neighbourhood went in their coaches and fix to bail him. He raised the spire of Rofs upwards of one hundred feet. He made a causeway on the Monmouth road, for the use of foot paffengers. He inclofed within a ftone-wall, ornamented with two elegant entrances, a space of ground of near half an acre, in the center of which he funk a bafon, as a reservoir for water for the ufe of the inhabitants of

Rofs.

Rofs. Over one of the door cafes of the entrance, there are ftill remaining his coat of arms cut out in ftone. He used to fend many old and infirm poor perfons of Rofs into the woods and fields, to pick up felf fown oaks, afhes, &c. to embellish the hedge-rows of his walks and eftate. He had an elder brother, I believe, who was not reckoned very wife, and from whom he inhe rited. After his death (which happened at the age of 90), in 1724, his body lay in ftate in his best parlour for fix weeks. The eftate is now divided into parcels, belonging to feveral perfons; one of them, however, belongs to a female collateral defcendant. She is at prefent unmarried, and I hope when the changes her fituation, and becomes a mother, she will give the name of Kyrll to be prefixed to the firname of her firft fon or daughter. Mr. Ball, the owner of the King's Arms at Rofs, the house Mr. Kyrll lived in, has got an original painting of him; it represents him as a man of 60 years, fair in complexion, and grave in aspect. Permiffion, I fancy, can be obtained to have an engraving made from it, which would be a great acquifition to our collections of English portraits; and there is the more reason for defiring this to be done speedily, as one of our young military men, fome years in a fit of anger at his hair-dreffer, took the curling irons in his hand, and made two holes with them in the picture. There is now living at Rofs, a female defcendant of his, who, from a proper regard to the memory of her illuftrious ancestor, is now repairing and embellishing a favourite feat of his, known by the name of "Kyrll's feat."

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

Strahan and Preston, New-Street Square, London.

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