"concifæ, nam lacryma fubitò excrefcit, et difficile "eft Auditorem vel Lectorem in fummo animi affectu "diu tenere." Would any one in Narciffus's condi tion have cry'd out" Inopem me copia fecit ?” Or can any thing be more unnatural than to turn off from his forrows for the fake of a pretty reflexion? “O utinam nostro fecedere corpore possem ! "Votum in amante novum; vellem, quod amamus, "abeffet." None, I suppose, can be much grieved for one that is fo witty on his own afflictions. But I think we may every where observe in Ovid, that he employs his invention more than his judgment; and fpeaks all the ingenious things that can be faid on the fubject, rather than those which are particularly proper to the perfon and circumstances of the fpeaker. FA B. VII. P. 165. l. 22. When Pentheus thus] There is a great deal of spirit and fire in this speech of Pentheus, but I believe none befide Ovid would have thought of the transformation of the ferpent's teeth for an incitement to the Thebans courage, when he defires them not to degenerate from their great forefather the Dragon, and draws a parallel between the behaviour of them both. "Efte, precor, memores, quâ fitis ftirpe creati, FAB. FA B. VIII. The story of Acœtes has abundance of nature in all the parts of it, as well in the description of his own parentage and employment, as in that of the failors characters and manners. But the short speeches fcattered up and down in it, which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear fo well in our language, which is much more ftubborn and unpliant; and therefore are but as fo many rubs in the ftory, that are still turning the narration out of its proper courfe. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beau tiful. F A B. IX. Ovid has two very good. fimilies on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former ftory, and to a war-horfe in the prefent. AN Ο Ν AN ESSAY VIRGIL'S GEORGICS. VIRGIL may be reckoned the first who introduced three new kinds of poetry among the Romans, which he copied after three of the greatest mafters of Greece: Theocritus and Homer have still difputed for the advantage over him in Pastoral and Heroics, but I think all are unanimous in giving him the precedence to Hefiod in his Georgics. The truth of it is, the sweetnefs and rufticity of a Paftoral cannot be fo well expreffed in any other tongue as in the Greek, when rightly mixed and qualified with the Doric dialect; nor can the majefty of an heroic poem any where appear so well as in this language, which has a natural greatness in it, and can be often rendered more deep and fonorous by the pronunciation of the Ionians. But in the middle style, where the writers in both tongues are on a level, we fee how far Virgil has excelled all who have written. in the fame way with him. There has been abundance of criticifm fpent on Virgil's Paftorals and Æneids; but the Georgics are a fubject which none of the critics have sufficiently taken into their confideration; most of them paffing it over in filence, or casting it under the fame head with Pastoral; a divifion by no means proper, unless we fuppofe the style of a husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgic, as that of a fhepherd is in a Paftoral. But though though the scene of both these poems lies in the fame place; the speakers in them are of quite a different character, fince the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the simplicity of a ploughman, but with the addrefs of a poet. No rules therefore, that relate to Pastoral, can any way affect the Georgics, fince they fall under that class of poetry, which consists in giving plain and direct inftructions to the reader; whether they be moral duties, as thofe of Theognis and Pythagoras; or philofophical fpeculations, as thofe of Aratus and Lucretius; or rules of practice, as thofe of Hefiod and Virgil. Among these different kind of subjects, that which the Georgics go upon is, I think, the meaneft and leaft improving, but the most pleasing and delightful. Precepts of morality, befides the natural corruption of our tempers, which makes us averfe to them, are so abstracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give an opportunity for those beautiful defcriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. Naturak philofophy has indeed fenfible objects to work upon but then it often puzzles the reader with the intricacy of its notions, and perplexes him with the multitude of its difputes. But this kind of poetry I am now fpeaking of, addreffes itself wholly to the imagination : It is altogether converfant among the fields and woods, and has the most delightful part of nature for its province. It raises in our minds a pleafing variety of scenes and landskips, whilst it teaches us; and makes the dryeft of its precepts look like a description. "A Georgic therefore is fome part of the fcience of huf 66 bandry "bandry put into a pleafing dress, and set off with alf "the beauties and embellishments of poetry." Now fince this fcience of hufbandry is of a very large extent, the poet fhews his skill in fingling out fuch precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the fame time moft capable of ornament. Virgil was fo well acquainted with this fecret, that to fet off his firft Georgic, he has run into a set of precepts, which are almost foreign to his fubject, in that beautiful account he gives us of the figns in nature, which precede the changes of the weather. And if there be so much art in the choice of fit precepts, there is much more required in the treating of them; that they may fall-in after each other by a natural unforced method, and fhew themfelves in the best and most advantageous light. They should all be fo finely wrought together in the fame piece, that no coarse feam may difcover where they join; as in a curious brede of needle-work, one colour falls away by fuch just degrees, and another rifes fo infenfibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it fufficient to range and dispose this body of precepts into a clear and easy method, unless they are delivered to us in the most pleasing and agreeable manner; for there are feveral ways of conveying the fame truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleafanteft of these ways, is that which chiefly diftinguishes poetry from profe, and makes Virgil's rules of husbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the profe |