Pit’s 1st AEneid.

I believe it will not be disputed, but that this Line is as full, as sonorous, and majestick as if the auxiliary Verb had been left out, and the Author had used compos’d instead of did compose.  The Expression is certainly more beautiful and more poetical; and the reason of it is, that it occasions suspence, which raises the attention; or in other Words the auxiliary Verb gives notice of something coming, before the principal thing itself appears, which is another Property of Majesty.  Mr. Dryden’s authority might likewise be added on this occasion; even in his celebrated Lines on Milton it is to be met with.

  “Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.

In his Translation of the AEneid there are many Instances of the same nature, one of which I will mention;

  “The Queen of Heav’n did thus her fury vent.

The Metre of this Line, as the Words are here rang’d, is not bad, as the Ear can judge; but it would have been extremely so, if he had writ it thus,

  “The Queen of Heaven her Fury thus did vent.[A]

[Footnote A: 
  His Heart, his Mistress and his Friends did share.
          
                                      Pope, on Voiture.]

From whence it appears that the auxiliary Verb is not to be rejected at all times; besides, it is a particular Idiom of the English Language:  and has a Majesty in it superior to the Latin or Greek Tongue, and I believe to any other Language whatsoever.

Many Instances might be brought to support this Assertion from Great Authorities.  I shall produce one from Shakespear.

  —­This to me
  In dreadful Secrecy impart they did.

The Auxiliary Verb is here very properly made use of; and it would be a great loss to English Poetry, if it were to be wholly laid aside.  In Translations from the Greek and Latin, I believe it wou’d sometimes be impossible to do justice to an Author without this Help:  I think the Passage in Homer before us, I mean the two first Lines of the Iliad, are an Instance of this kind.  They have been translated by many Persons of late, Dryden, Manwaring, Mr. Tickel, and by Mr. Pope twice, and not by any one of ’em, as I apprehend, in the Spirit of Homer.  As to Mr. Pope’s two Translations, I don’t understand why the latter ought to be preferr’d to the former.  Mr. Pope’s first Translation stood thus.

  The Wrath of Peleus’ Son, the direful Spring
  Of all the Grecian Woes, O Goddess sing.

Mr. Pope had reason to be dissatisfy’d with the O in the second Line, and to reject it; for Homer has nothing of it.  But now let us see how the Vacancy is supplied in Mr. Pope’s new Translation.