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It is not, however, to be concealed that all critics are not equally 

 favourable. Rapin terms him dry. " Nicander est dur, Oppian 

 est sec." Little credit can be attached to such sweeping criticism. 

 It is scarcely to be imagined that the taste which has a true relish 

 for the didactic style of the Georgics, could coincide iu the senti- 

 ments of the French critic. The curse of Tantalus must have been 

 upon him, when he pronounced Oppian dry. 



The learned Gilbert Wakefield, in a letter to Fox, says of Op- 

 pian, that " he is very puerile, and writes in a false style ; but his 

 descriptions are entertaining and exact. He alone, of all the an- 

 tients, delineates the cameleopard very accurately, and from na- 

 ture. He will recompense the trouble of perusal." Something 

 warmer might have been expected from the admirer and editor of 

 Lucretius. If it be conceded that there are instances of false taste 

 in Oppian, they are comparatively few ; not so many, perhaps, 

 in proportion to the number of his lines, as may be found in 

 Ovid, whom Wakefield considered as " the first poet of all antiquity." 

 The great abhorrence felt by the critic for field sports, may have 

 given an unfavourable bias to his judgment of the author of the 

 Cynegetics. 



To the mere English reader the works of Oppian have been made 

 known, but very partially and imperfectly, by a translation of the Ha- 

 lieutics, edited at Oxford in 1 722. The two first books were traiisi 

 lated by Mr. Diaper, and the remaining three by Mr. Jones. The 

 latter speaks with the zeal of friendship of Mr. Diaper's translation > 

 and though he allows that he has somewhat paraphrased the author, 

 believes " that he has no where deviated from his sense and intention." 

 The great fauU of the translation is undoubtedly its verbiage, under 

 which the beauty and spirit of the original are buried. In one passage 

 twelve lines are employed to render three of the original ; and 



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