LETTER XLII.

TO MRS ELIZABETH THOMAS, JUN.[174]

MADAM, [Nov. 1699.]

The great desire which I observe in you to write well, and those good parts which God Almighty and nature have bestow’d on you, make me not to doubt, that, by application to study, and the reading of the best authors, you may be absolute mistress of poetry. ’Tis an unprofitable art to those who profess it; but you, who write only for your diversion, may pass your hours with pleasure in it, and without prejudice; always avoiding (as I know you will,) the licence which Mrs Behn[175] allow’d her self, of writeing loosely, and giveing, if I may have leave to say so, some scandall to the modesty of her sex. I confess, I am the last man who ought, in justice, to arraign her, who have been my self too much a libertine in most of my poems; which I shou’d be well contented I had time either to purge, or to see them fairly burn’d. But this I need not say to you, who are too well born, and too well principled, to fall into that mire.

In the mean time, I would advise you not to trust too much to Virgil’s Pastorals; for as excellent as they are, yet Theocritus is far before him, both in softness of thought, and simplicity of expression. Mr Creech has translated that Greek poet, which I have not read in English. If you have any considerable faults, they consist chiefly in the choice of words, and the placeing them so as to make the verse run smoothly; but I am at present so taken up with my own studies, that I have not leisure to descend to particulars; being, in the mean time, the fair Corinna’s

Most humble and most

faithful Servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

P.S. I keep your two copies[176] till you want them, and are pleas’d to send for them.