P. 119. 1. 19. The earth at length, &c.] We have here a speech of the Earth, which will doubtless seem very unnatural to an English reader. It is I believe the boldeft Profopopoeia of any in the old Poets; or, if it were never so natural, I cannot but think she speaks too much in any reason for one in her condition. ON EUROPA's RAPE. P. 144. 1. 17. The dignity of empire, &c.] This story is prettily told, and very well brought in by those two serious lines, "Non bene conveniunt, nec in unâ fede morantur, "Majeftas et Amor. Sceptri gravitate relictâ, &c." without which the whole fable would have appeared very prophane. P. 145. 1. 27. The frighted nymph looks, &c.] This confternation and behaviour of Europa, "-Elufam defignat imagine tauri "Europen: verum taurum, freta vera putaras. "Ipfa videbatur terras spectare relictas, "Et comites clamare fuos, tactumque vereri "Affilientis aquæ, timidafque reducere plantas," is better described in Arachne's picture in the Sixth Book, than it is here; and in the beginning of Tatius's Clitophon and Leucippe, than in either place. It is indeed ufual among the Latin Poets (who had more art and reflexion than the Grecian) to take hold of all opportunities to describe the picture of any place or action, which they generally do better than they could the place or action itfelf; because in the description of a picture you have a double subject before you, either to describe the picture itself, or what is represented in it. ON THE STORIES IN THE THIRD BOOK. FAB. I. THERE is fo great a variety in the arguments of the Metamorphofes, that he who would treat of them rightly, ought to be a mafter of all ftiles, and every different way of writing. Ovid indeed fhows himself most in a familiar ftory, where the chief grace is to be easy and natural; but wants neither ftrength of thought nor expreffion, when he endeavours after it, in the more fublime and manly fubjects of his poem. In the present fable, the serpent is terribly described, and his behaviour very well imagined; the actions of both parties in the encounter are natural, and the language that represents them more ftrong and masculine than what we usually meet with in this Poet: if there be any faults in the narration, they are these, perhaps, which follow: P. 149. 1. 8. Spire above fpire, &c.] Ovid, to make his ferpent more terrible, and to raise the character of his champion, has given too great a loose to his imagination, and exceeded all the bounds of probability. He tells us, that when he raised up but half his body, he over-looked a tall forest of oaks, and that his whole body was as large as that of the serpent in the skies. None but a madman would have attacked fuch a monster as this is described to be; nor can we have any notion of a mortal's standing against him. Virgil is not ashamed of making Æneas fly and tremble at the fight of a far less formidable foe, where he gives us the description of Polyphemus, in the Third Book; he knew very well that a monster was not a proper enemy for his hero to encounter: but we should certainly have feen Cadmus hewing down the Cyclops, had he fallen in Ovid's way: or if Statius's little Tydeus had been thrown on Sicily, it is probable he would not have spared one of the whole brotherhood. "Phœnicas, five illi tela parabant, "Sive fugam, five ipfe timor prohibebat utrumque, "Occupat:-"” P. 149. 1. 15. In vain the Tyrians, &c.] The Poet could not keep up his narration all along, in the grandeur and magnificence of an heroic stile: he has here funk into the flatness of profe, where he tells us the behaviour of the Tyrians at the fight of the ferpent: "-Tegimen direpta leoni "Pellis erat; telum fplendenti lancea ferro, "Et jaculum; teloque animus præftantior omni ;" and in a few lines after lets drop the majefty of his verse, for the sake of one of his little turns. How does he languish in that which feems a laboured line! "Triftia fanguineâ lambentem vulnera lin "guâ." And what pains does he take to express the ferpent's breaking the force of the stroke, by fhrinking back from it! ❝Sed leve vulnus erat, quia fe retrahebat ab itu, P. 152. 1. 6. And flings the future, &c.] The description of the men rifing out of the ground is as beautiful a paffage as any in Ovid. It strikes the imagination very ftrongly; we see their motion in the first part of it, and their multitude in the "Meffis virorum" at laft. Ibid. 1. 11. The breathing harveft, &c.] "Mef"fis clypeata virorum." The beauty in these words would have been greater, had only "Meffis "virorum" been expreffed without "clypeata;" for the reader's mind would have been delighted with two fuch different ideas compounded together, but can scarce attend to fuch a complete image as is made out of all three. This way of mixing two different ideas together in one image, as it is a great furprize to the reader, is a great beauty in poetry, if there be fufficient ground for it in the nature of the thing that is defcribed. The Latin Poets are very full of it, especially the worst of them; for the more correct use it but fparingly, as indeed the nature of things will feldom afford a juft occafion for it. When any thing we defcribe has accidentally in it fome quality that seems repugnant to its nature, or is very VOL. XXX. extraordinary and uncommon in things of that fpecies, fuch a compounded image as we are now speaking of is made, by turning this quality into an epithet of what we describe. Thus Claudian, having got a hollow ball of cryftal with water in the midst of it for his fubject, takes the advantage of confidering the crystal as hard, ftony, precious water, and the water as foft, fluid, imperfect cryftal; and thus sports off above a dozen Epigrams, in fetting his words and ideas at variance among one another. He has a great many beauties of this nature in him; but he gives himself up fo much to this way of writing, that a man may eafily know where to meet with them when he fees his fubject, and often strains fo hard for them that he many times makes his defcriptions bombastic and unnatural. What work would he have made with Virgil's Golden Bough, had he been to describe it? We should certainly have feen the yellow bark, golden fprouts, radiant leaves, blooming metal, branching gold, and all the quarrels that could have been raised between words of fuch different natures: when we fee Virgil contented with his " Auri frondentis ;” and what is the same, though much finer expreffed-Frondefcit virga "metallo." This compofition of different ideas is often met with in a whole fentence, where circumstances are happily reconciled that seem wholly foreign to each other; and is often found among the Latin Poets (for the Greeks wanted art for it), |