Le Chevalier was the name commonly given in courtesy by both parties to Prince Charles Edward in 1745.  Colonel Talbot says:  “’Well, I never thought to have been so much indebted to the Pretend—­’ ‘To the Prince,’ said Waverley, smiling.  ‘To the Chevalier,’ said the Colonel; ’it is a good travelling name which we may both freely use’” ("Waverley,” c. 55).]

A NEW EDITION OF LUCAN—­COMPARISON OF “PHARSALEA”—­CRITICISM ON THE POET, WITH THE AENEID—­HELVETIUS’S WORK, “DE L’ESPRIT."

TO THE REV.  HENRY ZOUCH.

ARLINGTON STREET, Dec. 9, 1758.

Sir,—­I have desired Mr. Whiston to convey to you the second edition of my Catalogue, not so complete as it might have been, if great part had not been printed before I received your remarks, but yet more correct than the first sketch with which I troubled you.  Indeed, a thing of this slight and idle nature does not deserve to have much more pains employed upon it.

I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father’s notes and emendations on the first seven books.  Perhaps a partiality for the original author concurs a little with this circumstance of the notes, to make me fond of printing, at Strawberry Hill, the works of a man who, alone of all the classics, was thought to breathe too brave and honest a spirit for the perusal of the Dauphin and the French.  I don’t think that a good or bad taste in poetry is of so serious a nature, that I should be afraid of owning too, that, with that great judge Corneille, and with that, perhaps, no judge Heinsius, I prefer Lucan to Virgil.  To speak fairly, I prefer great sense, to poetry with little sense.  There are hemistichs in Lucan that go to one’s soul and one’s heart;—­for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of uninteresting battles that don’t teach one even to fight, I know nothing more tedious.  The poetic images, the versification and language of the Aeneid are delightful; but take the story by itself, and can anything be more silly and unaffecting?  There are a few gods without power, heroes without character, heaven-directed wars without justice, inventions without probability, and a hero who betrays one woman with a kingdom that he might have had, to force himself upon another woman and another kingdom to which he had no pretensions, and all this to show his obedience to the gods!  In short, I have always admired his numbers so much, and his meaning so little, that I think I should like Virgil better if I understood him less.

Have you seen, Sir, a book which has made some noise—­“Helvetius de l’Esprit"[1]?  The author is so good and moral a man, that I grieve he should have published a system of as relaxed morality as can well be imagined:  ’tis a large quarto, and in general a very superficial one.  His philosophy may be new in France, but it greatly exhausted here.  He tries to imitate Montesquieu,[2] and has heaped common-places upon