more of art or judgment in the precepts he has given us; which are fown fo very thick, that they clog the Poem too much, and are often fo minute and full of circumstances, that they weaken and unnerve his verse. But, after all, we are beholden to him for the firft rough sketch of a Georgic: where we may ftill difcover fomething venerable in the antiqueness of the work; but, if we would fee the defign enlarged, the figures, reformed, the colouring laid on, and the whole piece finished, we muft expect it from a greater master's hand.

Virgil has drawn out the rules of tillage and planting into two Books, which Hefiod has difpatched in half a one; but has fo raised the natural rudeness and fimplicity of his fubject, with fuch a fignificancy of expreffion, fuch a pomp of verse, fuch variety of tranfitions, and fuch a folemn air in his reflexions, that, if we look on both Poets together, we fee in one the plainness of a downright countryman; and in the other, fomething of ruftic majefty, like that of a Roman dictator at the plough-tail. He delivers the meanest of his precepts with a kind of grandeur; he breaks the clods and toffes the dung about with an air of gracefulness. His prognoftications of the weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may fee how judiciously he has picked out thofe that are most proper for his husbandman's obfervation; how he has enforced the expreffion, and heightened the images which he found in the original.

The Second Book has more wit in it, and a greater boldness in its metaphors, than any of the reft. The Poet, with great beauty, applies oblivion, ignorance, wonder, defire, and the like, to his trees. The laft Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not fo daring as this; for human thoughts and paffions may be more naturally afcribed to a bee, than to an inanimate plant. He who reads over the pleasures of a country life, as they are defcribed by Virgil in the latter end of this Book, can scarce be of Virgil's mind in preferring even the life of a philofopher to it.

We may, I think, read the Poet's clime in his defcription, for he feems to have been in a fweat at the writing of it:

"O quis me gelidis fub montibus Hæmi

"Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra !" and is every where mentioning, among his chief pleafures, the coolnefs of his fhades and rivers, vales and grottoes, which a more Northern Poet would have omitted for the description of a funny hill, and fire-fide.

The Third Georgic feems to be the most laboured of them all; there is a wonderful vigour and spirit in the defcription of the horfe and chariot-race. The force of love is reprefented in noble inftances, and very fublime expreffions. The Scythian winter-piece appears fo very cold and bleak to the eye, that a man can fcarce look on it without fhivering. The murrain at the end has all the expreffiveness that words can give. It was here that the Poet ftrained hard to out-do Lucretius in the defcription of his plague; and

if the reader would see what fuccess he had, he may find it at large in Scaliger.

But Virgil feems no where so well pleased, as when he is got among his bees in the Fourth Georgic: and ennobles the actions of fo trivial a creature, with metaphors drawn from the most important concerns of mankind. His verfes are not in a greater noise and hurry in the battles of Æneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two swarms. And as in his

neis he compares the labours of his Trojans to thofe of bees and pifmires, here he compares the labours of the bees to those of the Cyclops. In fhort, the last Georgic was a good prelude to the Æneis; and very well fhewed what the Poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his describing the mock-grandeur of an infect with fo good a grace. There is more pleasantnefs in the little platform of a garden, which he gives us about the middle of this Book, than in all the fpacious walks and water-works of Rapin. The speech of Proteus at the end can never be enough admired, and was indeed very fit to conclude fo divine a work.

After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics, I fhould in the next place endeavour to point out its imperfections, if it has any. But though I think there are fome few parts in it that are not so beautiful as the rest, I shall not prefume to name them; as rather suspecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that Poem, which lay fo long under Virgil's correction, and had his last hand

put

put to it. The first Georgic was probably burlesqed in the author's lifetime; for we still find in the fcholiafts a verse that ridicules part of a line translated from Hefiod, "Nudus ara, fere nudus"-And we may easily guess at the judgment of this extraordinary critic, whoever he was, from his cenfuring this particular precept. We may be fure Virgil would not have tranflated it from Hefiod, had he not difcovered fome beauty in it; and indeed the beauty of it is what I have before obferved to be frequently met with in Virgil, the delivering the precept so indirectly, and fingling out the particular circumftance of sowing and plowing naked, to fuggeft to us that thefe employments are proper only in the hot season of the year.

I fhall not here compare the style of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may fee already done in the preface to the fecond volume of Mifcellany Poems*; but fhall conclude this Poem to be the most complete, elaborate, and finished piece of all antiquity. The Aneis indeed is of a nobler kind, but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind. The Aneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but those of the Georgic are more exquisite. In short, the Georgic has all the perfection that can be expected in a poem written by the greatest Poet in the flower of his age, when his invention was ready, his imagination warm, his judgment fettled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity.

The Collection published by Mr. Dryden.

P 2

MIS

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLE

ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.

KNELLER, with filence and furprize

We fee Britannia's monarch rife,

A godlike form, by thee difplay'd
In all the force of light and fhade;
And, aw'd by thy delufive hand,
As in the prefence chamber ftand.
The magic of thy art calls forth
His fecret foul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildness fhows,
His care of friends, and fcorn of foes:
In every ftroke, in every line,
Does fome exalted virtue fhine,
And Albion's happiness we trace
Through all the features of his face.

O may I live to hail the day,
When the glad nation fhall furvey
Their fovereign, through his wide command,

Paffing in progrefs o'er the land!

Each heart fhall bend, and every voice
In loud applauding shouts rejoice,
Whilft all his gracious afpect praise,
And crowds grow loyal as they gaze.