P. 177. 1. 3. The frighted Nile, &c.] Ovid has made a great many pleafant images towards the latter end of this ftory. His verfes on the Nile, Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem, are as noble as Virgil could have written; but then he ought not to have mentioned the channel of the fea afterwards, Mare contrahitur, ficcæque eft campus Arenæ, because the thought is too near the other. The image of the Cyclades is a very pretty one; Quos altum texerat æquor Exiftunt montes, et fparfas Cycladas augent. but to tell us that the fwans grew warm in Cayfter, Medio volucres caluere. Cäystro, and that the dolphins durft not leap, Ne fe fuper aquora curvi· Tollere confuetas audent Delphines in auras, is intolerably trivial on fo great a fubject as the burning of the world. Ibid. 1. penult. The Earth at length, &c.] We have here a speech of the Earth, which will doubtless seem very unnatural to an English reader. It is I believe the boldeft Profopopeia of any in the old Poets; or if it were never fo natural, I cannot but think she speaks too much in any reason for, one in her condition. On On EUROPA's Rape, page 207. P. 208. 1. 9. The dignity of empire, &c.] This Non bene conveniunt, nec in unâ fede morantar, without which the whole fable would have appear'd P. 209. 1. 23. The frighted nymph looks, &c.] This ·Elusam defignat imagine tauri Europen: verum taurum, freta vera putaras. it is better defcribed in Arachne's picture in the fixth On On the Stories in the Third Book, page 211. FA B. I. There is so great a variety in the arguments of the Metamorphofes, that he who would treat of them rightly, ought to be a master of all stiles, and every different way of writing. Ovid indeed fhows himself most in a familiar story, where the chief grace is to be eafy and natural; but wants neither ftrength of thought nor expreffion, when he endeavours after it, in the more fublime and manly fubjects of his poem. In the present fable the ferpent is terribly defcribed, and his behaviour very well imagined, the actions of both parties in the encounter are natural, and the language that represents them nore strong and mafculine than what we usually meet with in this Poet: if there be any faults in the narration, they are thefe, perhaps, which follow. P. 213. 1. penult. Spire above Spire, &c.] Ovid, to make his ferpent more terrible, and to raise the character of his champion, has given too great a loose to his imagination, and exceeded all the bounds of probability. He tells us, that when he raised up but half his body he over-looked a tall forest of oaks, and that his whole body was as large as that of the ferpent in the fkies. None but a madman would have attacked fuch a monster as this is described to be; nor can we have any notion of a mortal's standing against him. Virgil is not ashamed of making Eneas fly and tremble at the fight of a far lefs formidable foe, where he gives us the defcription of Polyphemus, in the third book; he knew very well that a monster was not a proper enemy for his hero to encounter: But But we should certainly have feen Cadmus hewing down the Cyclops, had he fallen in Ovid's way: or if Statius's little Tydeus had been thrown on Sicily, it is probable he would not have spared one of the whole brotherhood. -Phænicas, five illi tela parabant, Sive fugam, five ipfe timor prohibebat utrumque, P. 214. 1. 6. In vain the Tyrians, &c.] The Poet could not keep up his narration all along, in the grandeur and magnificence of an heroic ftile: He has here funk into the flatness of profe, where he tells us the behaviour of the Tyrians at the fight of the ferpent: Tegimen direpta Leoni Pellis erat; telum fplendenti Lancea ferro, Et Faculum; teloque animus præftantior omni. And in a few lines after lets drop the majesty of his verfe, for the fake of one of his little turns. How does he languish in that which seems a laboured line! Triftia fanguineâ lambentem vulnera lingua. And what pains does he take to exprefs the ferpent's breaking the force of the ftroke, by fhrinking back from it! Sed leve vulnus erat, quia fe retrahebat ab iɛtu, P. 217. 1. 10. And flings the future, &c.] The defcription of the men rifing out of the ground is as beautiful beautiful a paffage as any in Ovid: It strikes the ima gination very ftrongly; we fee their motion in the first part of it, and their multitude in the Meis virorum at laft. Ibid. 1. 15. The breathing harveft, &c.] Meffis clypeata virorum. The beauty in these words would have been greater, had only Meffis virorum been expressed without clypeata; for the reader's mind would have been delighted with two fuch different ideas compounded together, but can fcarce attend to fuch a complete image as is made out of all three. This way of mixing two different ideas together in one image, as it is a great furprise to the reader, is a great beauty in poetry, if there be fufficient ground for it in the nature of the thing that is defcribed. The Latin Poets are very full of it, especially the worst of them, for the more correct, ufe it but sparingly, as indeed the nature of things will feldom afford a just occafion for it. When any thing we describe has accidentally in it fome quality that feems repugnant to its nature, or is very extraordinary and uncommon in things of that fpecies, fuch a compounded image as we are now speaking of is made, by turning this quality into an epithet of what we defcribe. Thus Claudian, having got a hollow ball of cryftal with water in the midst of it for his fubject, takes the advantage of confidering the cryftal as hard, ftony, precious water, and the water as foft, fluid, imperfect crysta!; and thus sports off above a dozen Epigrams, in fetting his words and ideas at variance among one another. He has a great many beauties of this na. ture in him, but he gives himself up fo much to this way of writing, that a man may eafily known where to meet |