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FA B. VIII.

The ftory of Acœtes has abundance of nature in all the parts of it, as well in the defcription of his own parentage and employment, as in that of the failors characters and manners. But the short speeches scattered up and down in it, which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear fo well in our language, which is much more stubborn and unpliant; and therefore are but as fo many rubs in the story, that are ftill turning the narration out of its proper courfe. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beautiful.

FA 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.

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 masters of Greece: Theocritus and Homer have ftill 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 fo 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 ip 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 fufficiently taken into their confideration; moft of them paffing it over in filence, or cafting it under the fame head with Paftoral; a divifion by no means proper, unless we fuppofe the ftyle 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 fimplicity of a ploughman, but with the addrefs of a poet. No rules therefore, that relate to Pastoral, can any way affect the Georgics, since they fall under that clafs of poetry, which confifts in giving plain and direct instructions 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 meanest 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 fo abftracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give an opportunity for those beautiful defcriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. Natural 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 raifes in our minds a pleafing variety of fcenes and landskips, whilst it teaches us; and makes the dryeft of its precepts look like a description. "A 66 Georgic therefore is some part of the science of huf.

"bandry

"bandry put into a pleafing dress, and set off with all "the beauties and embellishments of poetry." Now fince this fcience of husbandry is of a very large extent,. the poet fhews his fkill in fingling out fuch precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the fame time most capable of ornament. Virgil was fo well acquainted with this fecret, that to fet off his first Georgic, he has run into a fet 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 fo 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 themselves 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 several ways of conveying the same truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleasanteft of these ways, is that which chiefly diftinguishes poetry from profe, and makes Virgil's rules of hufbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the

profe

profe writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the poet often conceals the precept in a description, and reprefents his countryman performing the action in which he would inftruct his reader. Where the one fets out, as fully and distinctly as he can, all the parts of the truth, which he would communicate to us; the other fingles out the most pleasing circumftance of this truth, and fo conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the understanding. I fhall give one inftance out of a multitude of this nature that might be found in the Georgics where the reader may fee the different ways Virgil has taken to exprefs the fame thing, and how much pleasanter every manner of expreffion is, than the plain and direct mention of it would have been. It is in the fecond Georgic, where he tells us what trees will bear grafting on each other. "Et fæpe alterius ramos impune videmus "Vertere in alterius, mutatamque infita mala "Ferre pyrum, et prunis lapidofa rubefcere corna. Steriles platani malos geffere valentes,

"Caftaneæ fagos, ornufque incanuit albo “Flore pyri : glandemque fues fregere sub ulmis. Nec longum tempus : & ingens

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"Exiit ad coelum ramis felicibus arbos;
"Miraturque novas frondes et non fua poma."

Here we fee the Poet confidered all the effects of this union between trees of different kinds, and took notice of that effect which had the most furprize, and by confequence the most delight in it, to exprefs the capacity that was in them of being thus united. This way of writing

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