to turn off from his sorrows for the sake of a pretty | writers in both tongues are on a level, we see how reflection? O utinam nostro secedere corpore possem! Votum in amante novum; vellem, quod amamus, J. abesset. None, I suppose, can be much grieved for one that is so 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 speaks all the ingenious things that can be said on the subject, rather than those which are particularly proper to the person and circumstances of the speaker. FABLE VIL. P.558.col.2.1.13. When Pentheus thus] There is a great deal of spirit and fire in this speech of Pentheus, but I believe none besides Ovid would have thought of the transformation of the serpent's teeth for an incitement to the Thebans' courage, when he desires them not to degenerate from their great forefather the dragon, and draws a parallel between the behaviour of them both. Este, precor, memores, quâ sitis stirpe creati, FABLE 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 sailors' characters and manners. But the short speeches scattered up and down in it, which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear so well in our language, which is much more stubborn and unpliant; and therefore are but as so many rubs in the story, that are still turning the narration out of its proper course. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beautiful. FABLE IX. Ovid has two very good similes on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former story, and to a war-horse in the present, far Virgil has excelled all who have written in the same way with him. There has been abundance of criticism spent on Virgil's Pastorals and Æneids; but the Georgics are a subject which none of the critics have sufficiently taken into their consideration; most of them passing it over in silence, or casting it under the same head with pastoral; a division by no means proper, unless we suppose the style of a husbandman ought to be imitated in a georgic, as that of a shepherd is in a pastoral. But though the scene of both these poems lies in the same place, the speakers in them are of quite a different character, since the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the simplicity of a ploughman, but with the address of a poet. No rules therefore that relate to pastoral, can any way affect the Georgies, since they fall under that class of poetry, which consists in giving plain and direct instructions to the reader; whether they be moral duties, as those of Theognis and Pythagoras; or philosophical speculations, as those of Aratus and Lucretius; or rules of practice, as those of Hesiod and Virgil. Among these different kind of subjects, that which the Georgics go upon is, I think, the meanest and least improving, but the most pleasing and delightful. Precepts of morality, bel sides the natural corruption of our tempers, which makes us averse to them, are so abstracted from ideas of sense, that they seldom give an oppor tunity for those beautiful descriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. Natural philosophy has indeed sensible 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 disputes. But this kind of poetry I am now speaking of, addresses itself wholly to the imagination: it is altogether con versant among the fields and woods, and has the most delightful part of nature for its province. It raises in our minds a pleasing variety of scenes and landscapes, whilst it teaches us; and makes the dryest of its precepts look like a description, "A georgic therefore is some part of the science of husbandry put into a pleasing dress, and set off with all the beauties and embellishments of poetry." Now since this science of husbandry is of a very large extent, the poet shows his skill in singling out such precepts to proceed on as are useful, and at the same time most capable of ment. Virgil was so well acquainted a this secret, that to set off his first Georgic, he has run into a set of precepts, which are almost foreign to his subject, in that beautiful account he gives us of the signs in nature, which precede the changes of the weather. AN ESSAY ON VIRGIL'S GEORGICS. VIRGIL may be reckoned the first who introduced three new kinds of poetry among the Romans, which be copied after three of the greatest masters of Greece: Theocritus and Homer have And if there be so much art in the choice of fit still disputed for the advantage over him in pas- precepts, there is much more required in the treats toral and heroics, but I think all are unanimous ing of them; that they may fall in after cach in giving him the precedence to Hesiod in his other by a natural unforced method, and show Georgics. The truth of it is, the sweetness and themselves in the best and most advantageous, rusticity of a pastoral cannot be so well expressed light. They should all be so finely wrought to in any other tongue as in the Greek, when rightly gether in the same piece, that no coarse seam may mixed and qualified with the Doric dialect; nor discover where they join; as in a curious brede of can the majesty of an heroic poem any where needlework, one colour falls away by such just appear so well as in this language, which has a na-degrees, and another rises so insensibly, that we tural greatness in it, and can be often rendered more deep and sonorous by the pronunciation of the Ionians. But in the middle style, where the see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appear ance of the other. Nor is it sufficient 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 pleasantest of these ways, is that which chiefly distinguishes poetry from prose, and makes Virgil's rules of husbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the prose writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the poet often conceals the precept in a description, and represents his countryman performing the action in which he would instruct his reader. Where the one sets out, as fully and distinctly as he can, all the parts of the truth, which he would communicate to us; the other singles out the most pleasing circumstance of this truth, and so conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the understanding. I shall give one instance out of a multitude of this nature that might be found in the Georgics, where the reader may see the different ways Virgil has taken to express the same thing, and how much pleasanter every manner of expression is, than the plain and direct mention of it would have been. It is in the second, Georgic, where he tells us what trees will bear grafting on each other, Et sæpe alterius ramos impune videmus Here we see the poet considered all the effects of this union between trees of different kinds, and took notice of that effect which had the most surprise, and by consequence the most delight in it, to express the capacity that was in them of being thus united. This way of writing is every where much in use among the poets, and is particularly practised by Virgil, who loves to suggest a truth indirectly, and, without giving us a full and open view of it, to let us see just so much as will naturally lead the imagination into all the parts that fie concealed. This is wonderfully diverting to the understanding, thus to receive a precept, that enters as it were through a by-way, and to apprehend an idea that draws a whole train after it. For here the mind, which is always delighted with its own discoveries, only takes the hint from the poet, and seems to work out the rest by the strength of her own faculties. 7. But, since the inculcating precept upon precept will at length prove tiresome to the reader, if he meets with no entertainment, the poet must take care not to encumber his poem with too much business; but sometimes to relieve the subject with a moral reflection, or let it rest awhile for the sake of a pleasant and pertinent digression. Nor is it sufficient to run out into beautiful and diverting digressions (as it is generally thought), unless they are brought in aptly, and are something of a piece with the main design of the georgic: for they onght to have a remote alliance at least to the subject, that so the whole poem may be more uniform and agreeable in all its parts. We should never quite lose sight of the 'we are! country, though we are sometimes entertained with a distant prospect of it. Of this nature are Virgil's description of the original of agriculture, of the fruitfulness of Italy, of a country life, and the like; which are not brought in by force, but naturally rise out of the principal argument and design of the poem. I know no one digression in the Georgics that may seem to contradict this observation, besides that in the latter end of the first book, where the poet launches out into a discourse of the battle of Pharsalia, and the actions of Augustus: but it is worth while to consider how admirably he has turned the course of his narration into its proper channel, and made his husbandman concerned even in what relates to the battle, in those inimitable lines: Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis Agricola incurvo terram molitus aratró, Exesa inveniet scabrâ rubigine pila: Ant gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, Grandiaque effossis mirabitur össa sepulchris. And afterwards, speaking of Augustus's actions, he still remembers that agriculture ought to be some way hinted at throughout the whole poem. Non ullus aratro 1 Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis: We now come to a style which is proper to a georgic; and indeed this is the part on which the poet must lay out all his strength, that his words may be warm and glowing, and that every thing he describes may immediately present itself, and rise up to the reader's view. He ought in particular to be careful of not letting his subject debase his style, and betray him into a meanness of expression; but every where to keep up his verse in all the pomp of numbers, and dignity of words. I think nothing which is a phrase or saying in common talk should be admitted into a serious poem: because it takes off from the solemnity of the expression, and gives it too great a turn of familiarity: much less ought the low phrases and terms of art, that are adapted to husbandry, have any place in such a work as the georgic, which is not to appear in the natural simplicity and nakedness of its subject, but in the pleasantest dress that poetry can bestow on it. Thus Virgil, to deviate from the common form of words, would not make use of tempore but sydere in his first verse; and every where else abounds with metaphors, græcisms, and circumlocutions, to give his verse the greater pomp, and preserve it from sinking into a plebeian style. And herein consists Virgil's masterpiece, who has not only excelled all other poets but even himself, in the language of his Georgics; where we receive more strong and lively ideas of things from his words, than we could have done from the objects themselves: and find our imaginations more affected by his descriptions, than they would have been by the very sight of what he describes. I shall now, after this short scheme of rules, consider the different success that Hesiod; and Virgil have met with in this kind of poetry, which may give us some further notion of the excellence of the Georgics. To begin with Hesiod; if we may guess at his character from his writings, he 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: quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! and is every where mentioning, among his chief pleasures, the coolness of his shades and rivers, vales and grottoes, which a more northern poet would have omitted for the description of a sunny hill, and fire-side. had much more of the husbandman than the poet metaphors, but not so daring as this; for human in his temper: he was wonderfully grave, discreet, thoughts and passions may be more naturally and frugal, he lived altogether in the country, and ascribed to a bee, than to an inanimate plant. was probably for his great prudence the oracle of He who reads over the pleasures of a country the whole neighbourhood. These principles of life, as they are described by Virgil in the latter good husbandry ran through his works, and di- end of this book, can scarce be of Virgil's mind rected him to the choice of tillage and merchan-in preferring even the life of a philosopher to it. dize, for the subject of that which is the most celebrated of them. He is every where bent on in- | struction, avoids all manner of digressions, and does not stir out of the field once in the whole georgic. His method in describing month after month, with its proper seasons and employments, is too grave and simple; it takes off from the surprise and variety of the poem, and makes the whole look but like a modern almanac in verse. The reader is carried through a course of weather; and may beforehand guess whether he is to meet with snow or rain, clouds or sunshine, in the next The third Georgic seems to be the most ladescription. His descriptions indeed have abun-boured of them all; there is a wonderful vigour dance of nature in them, but then it is nature in her simplicity and undress. Thus when he speaks of January, "The wild beasts," says he," run shivering through the woods with their heads stooping to the ground, and their tails clapt between their legs; the goats and oxen are almost flead with cold, but it is not so bad with the sheep, because they have a thick coat of wool about them. The old men too are bitterly pinched with. the weather; but the young girls feel nothing of it, who sit at home with their mothers by a warm fire-side." Thus does the "old gentleman give But Virgil seems no where so well pleased, as himself up to a loose kind of tattle, rather than when he is got among his bees in the fourth endeavour after a just poetical description. Nor Georgic: and ennobles the actions of so trivial a has he shown more of art or judgment in the pre-creature, with metaphors drawn from the most imcepts he has given us; which are sown so very thick, that they clog the poem too much, and are often so minute and full of eircumstances, that they weaken and unnerve his verse. But, after all, we are beholden to him for the first rough sketch of a georgic: where we may still discover something venerable in the antiqueness of the work; but if we would see the design enlarged, the figures reformed, the colouring laid on, and the whole piece finished, we must expect it from a greater master's hand. Virgil has drawn out the rules of tillage and planting into two books, which Hesiod has dispatched in half a one; but has so raised the natu'ral rudeness and simplicity of his subject, with such a significancy of expression, such a pomp of verse, such variety of transitions, and such a solemn air in his reflections, that, if we look on both poets together, we see in one the plainness of a downright countryman; and in the other, something of rustic majesty, 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 tosses the dung about with an air of gracefulness. II's prognostications of the weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may see how judiciously he has picked out those that are most proper for his husbandman's observation; how he has enforced the expression, 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 and spirit in the description of the horse and chariot-race. The force of love is represented in noble instances, and very sublime expressions. The Scythian winter-piece appears so very cold and bleak to the eye, that a man can scarce look on it without shivering. The turrain at the end has all the expressiveness that words can give. It was here that the poet strained hard to outdo Lucretius in the description of his plague; and if the reader would see what success he had, he may find it at large in Scaliger. portant concerns of mankind. His verses are not in a greater noise and hurry in the battles of Eneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two swarms. And as in his Aneis he compares the labours of his Trojans to those of bees and pismires, here he compares the labours of the bees to those of the Cyclops. In short, thẻ last Georgic was a good prelude 10 the Bueis, and very well showed what the poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his describing the mock-grandeur of an insect with so 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 spacious 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 so divine a work. After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics, I should 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 rest, I shall not presume to name them; as rather suspecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that poem, which lay so long under VirgiPs correction, and had liis last hand put to it. The first Georgic was probably burlesqued in the author's life-time; for we still find in the scholiasts a verse that ridicules part of a line translated from Hesiod, "Nudus ara, sere mudus"-and we may easily guess at the judgment of this extraordinary critic, whoever he was, from his censuring this particular precept. We may be sure Virgil would not have translated it from Hesiod, had he not discovered 10q And, in the robes of state array'd, dom bad. I shall not here comparethe style of the Georgics The foremost of thy art, hast vy'd Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought, The collection published by Mr. Dryden, Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, Shunn'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd But he, a stranger to your modish way, PROLOGUE TO STEELE'S TENDER HUSBAND. In the first rise and infancy of farce, When fools were many, and when plays were scarce, The raw unpractis'd authors could with ease In every piece, a coxcomb that was new. But now our British theatre can boast Drolls of all kinds, a vast unthinking host! Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows [beaux; Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and Rough country knights are found of every shire; Of every fashion gentle fops appear; And punks of different characters we meet, As frequent on the stage as in the pit. Our modern wits are forc'd to pick and cull, And here and there by chance glean up a fool: Long ere they find the necessary spark, They search the town, and beat about the park, To all his most frequented haunts resort, Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court, As love of pleasure or of place invites; And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's. Howe'er, to do you right, the present age Breeds very hopeful monsters for the stage; That scorn the paths their dull forefathers trod, And won't be blockheads in the common road. Do but survey this crowded house to night: Here's still encouragement for those that write. Our author, to divert his friends to day, Stocks with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has expos'd to view; The first a damsel travell'd in romance; The other more refin'd, she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from dauger, And kindly treat, like well-bred men, the stranger. EPILOGUE TO LANSDOWNE'S BRITISH ENCHANTERS. WHEN Orpheus tun'd his lyre with pleasing woe, The same dull sights in the same landscape mixt, Scenes of still life, and points for ever fix'd, A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow, Bnt howsoe'er, to please your wandering eyes, Bright objects disappear and brighter rise: There's none can make amends for lost delight, While from that circle we divert your sight, Next, let the solemn organ join Let then the trumpet's piercing sound The soul o'erpowering with delight," Prolonging every note with art, mentesen W And in a low expiring strain Play all the concert o'er again. 004 Such were the tuneful notes that hung |