April 9 [20 n.s.] 1724

…It is but this Week that I have been well enough in my head to read the Poem of the League with the attention it deserves.
Next to my obligation to Mr de Voltaire for writing it, is that I owe to you for sending it. I cannot pretend to judge with any exactness of the beauties of a foreign Language, which I understand but Imperfectly: I can only tell my thoughts in Relation to the design and conduct of the Poem, or the sentiments. I think the forming the Machines upon the Allegorical persons of Virtues and vices very reasonable; it being equally proper to Ancient and Modern subjects, and to all Religions and times: Nor do we look upon them so much as Heathen Divinities as Natural passions. This is not the Case when Jupiter, Juno &c. are introduc'd who tho' sometimes consider'd as Physical powers yet that sort of Allegory lies not open enough to the apprehension. We care not to Study, or Anatomize a Poem, but only to read it for our entertainment. It should certainly be a sort of Machinery, for the meaning of which one is not at a los for a Moment, without something of this Nature, his Poem wou'd too much resemble Lucan or Silius: and indeed the Subject being so modern, a more violent or remote kind of Fable or Fiction wou'd not suit it: if I have any thing to wish on this head, it were to have a little more of the Fictitious(I dare not say the Wonderful, for the reason just now given) yet that would give it a greater resemblance to the Ancient Epick Poem. He has help'd it much in my opinion by throwing so much of the Story into Narration, and entering at once into the middle of the Subject; as well as by making the Action single namely only the Siege of Paris. This brings it nearer the Model of Homer and Virgil; yet I can't help fancying if the fabulous part were a little more extended into descriptions and Speeches &c. it wou'd be of service: And from this very cause methinks that Book which Treats of the King's Love to Madam Gabrielle appears more of a Poem than the rest. Discord and Policy might certainly do and say something more, and so I judge of some other occasions for Invention and description which methinks are dropt too suddenly.

As to all the parts of the Work which relate to the actions or Sentiments of Men, or to Characters and Manners, they are undoubtedly excellent, and the Fort of the Poem. His Characters and Sentences are not like Lucans, too profess'd or formal and particularized, but full short and Judicious, and seem naturally to rise from an occasion either of telling what the Man was, or what he thought. It seems to me that his Judgment of Mankind, and his Observation of human Actions in a lofty and Philosophical view, is one of the principal Characteristicks of the Writer; who however is not less a Poet for being a Man of Sense, (as Seneca and his Nephew were). Do not smile when I add, that I esteem him for that honest principled Spirit of true Religion which shines thro' the whole; and from whence (unknown as I am to Mr de Voltaire) I conclude him at once a Free thinker and a Lover of Quiet; no Bigot, but yet no Heretick: one who honours Authority and National Sanctions without prejudice to Truth or Charity; One who has Study'd Controversy less than Reason, and the Fathers less than Mankind; in a word, one worthy from his rational temper of that share of Friendship & Intimacy with which you honour him….