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 last Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not so 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 fcarce 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 description, for he seems to have been in a sweat at the writing of it: -O quis me gelidis fub montibus Hæmi "Siftat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra !" and is every where mentioning, among his chief pleafures, the coolness 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 horse 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 scarce 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 fee what fuccefs he had, he may find it at large in Scaliger. But Virgil feems no where fo 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 noife and hurry in the battles of Æneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two fwarms. 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 thofe 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 defcribing the mock-grandeur of an infect with fo good a grace. There is more pleasantness 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 some few parts in it that are not so beautiful as the reft, I fhall 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 firft Georgic was probably burlesqed in the author's lifetime; for we ftill find in the fcholiafts a verfe 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 discovered 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 fo indirectly, and fingling out the particular circumstance of sowing and plowing naked, to suggest to us that these employments are proper only in the hot season of the year. I shall not here compare the ftyle 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 Æneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but thos● of the Georgic are more exquifite. 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 K ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING. NELLER, with filence and furprize We fee Britannia's monarch rife, O may I live to hail the day, Paffing in progrefs o'er the land! Each heart fhall bend, and every voice. The The image on the medal plac'd, With its bright round of titles grac'd, Thou, Kneller, long with noble pride, Thy pencil has, by monarchs fought, The kings of half an age display'd. Here fwarthy Charles appears, and there 0 The laft, the happiest British king, agree, Whom thou shalt paint, or I fhall fing! |