With Joy, great Sir, we viewed this pompous Show,
    While Heaven, that sate Spectator still ’till now,
    It self turn’d Actor, proud to Pleasure you. 
    And so ’tis fit, when_ Leo’s fires appear,
    That Heav’n it self should turn an Engineer;
    That Heav’n it self should all its Wonders show,
    And Orbs above consent with Orbs below.’

[Footnote 1:  Translated from the Latin in Strada’s Prolusions.]

* * * * *

No. 618.  Wednesday, November 10, 1714.

  ’—­Neque enim concludere versum
  Dixeris esse satis:  neque siquis scribat, uti nos,
  Sermoni propiora, putes hunc esse Poetam.’

  Hor.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

You having, in your two last Spectators, given the Town a couple of Remarkable Letters, in very different Styles:  I take this Opportunity to offer to you some Remarks upon the Epistolary way of writing in Verse.  This is a Species of Poetry by it self; and has not so much as been hinted at in any of the Arts of Poetry, that have ever fallen into my Hands:  Neither has it in any Age, or any Nation, been so much cultivated, as the other several Kinds of Poesie.  A Man of Genius may, if he pleases, write Letters in Verse upon all manner of Subjects, that are capable of being embellished with Wit and Language, and may render them new and agreeable by giving the proper Turn to them.  But in speaking, at present, of Epistolary Poetry, I would be understood to mean only such Writings in this Kind, as have been in Use amongst the Ancients, and have been copied from them by some Moderns.  These may be reduced into two Classes:  In the one I shall range Love-Letters, Letters of Friendship, and Letters upon mournful Occasions:  In the other I shall place such Epistles in Verse, as may properly be called Familiar, Critical, and Moral; to which may be added Letters of Mirth and Humour. Ovid for the first, and Horace for the Latter, are the best Originals we have left.

’He that is ambitious of succeeding in the Ovidian way, should first examine his Heart well, and feel whether his Passions (especially those of the gentler Kind) play easie, since it is not his Wit, but the Delicacy and Tenderness of his Sentiments, that will affect his Readers.  His Versification likewise should be soft, and all his Numbers flowing and querulous.

’The Qualifications requisite for writing Epistles, after the Model given us by Horace, are of a quite different Nature.  He that would excel in this kind must have a good Fund of strong Masculine Sense:  To this there must be joined a thorough Knowledge of Mankind, together with an Insight into the Business, and the prevailing Humours of the Age.  Our Author must have his Mind well seasoned with the finest Precepts of Morality, and