As Notus often, when the welkin low'rs, Sweeps off the clouds, nor teems perpetual show'rs, So let thy wisdom, free from anxious ftrife, DUNKIN. The analogy, it must be confeffed, is not very ftriking but nevertheless it is not altogether void of propriety. The Poet reafons thus: as the Southwind, though generally attended with rain, is often known to difpel the clouds, and render the weather ferene; fo do you, though generally on the rack of thought, remember to relax fometimes, and drown your cares in wine. As the South-wind is not always moift, fo you ought not always to be dry. A few inftances of inaccuracy, or mediocrity, can never derogate from the fuperlative merit of Homer and Virgil, whofe poems are the great magazines, replete with every fpecies of beauty and magnificence, particularly abounding with fimiles which aftonifh, delight, and transport the reader. Every fimile ought not only to be well adapted to the fubject, but alfo to include every excellence of description, and to be coloured with the warmest tints of Poetry. Nothing can be more happily hit off than the following in the Georgics, to which the Poet compares Orpheus lamenting his loft Eurydice. Qualis populea morens Philomela fub umbra So Philomela, from th' umbrageous wood Here Here we not only find the moft fcrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel the poet of the grove; but alfo the moft beautiful defcription, containing a fine touch of the pathos, in which laft particular indeed Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether antient or modern. One would imagine that Nature had exhausted itfelf, in order to embellish the Poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with fmiles and metaphors. The firft of these very often ûfes the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to exprefs the rapidity of his combatants: but when he comes to defcribe the velocity of the immortal horfes, that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the fubject, and, as Longinus obferves, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon. Οσσον δ' ηεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν For as a watchman from fome rock on high The celerity of this goddess feems to be a favourite idea with the Poet; for in another place he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had feen, and paffing through them in imagination more fwift than the lightning flies from Eaft to Weft. Homer's beft fimilies have been copied by Virgil, and almost every fucceeding poet, how foever they may have varied in the manner of expreffion. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus feeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion efpying a hind or goat: Ωσε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας · Εὑρὼν ἢ ἔλαφον κεραόν, ἢ ἄγριον αἶγα,&c. So So joys the lion, if a branching deer The Mantuan bard in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the fame fimile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle. Impaftus ftabula alta leo ceu fæpe peragrans Confpexit capream, aut furgentem in cornua cervum ž Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamefome goat who frifks about the folds, The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the fimile in one particular, and in another fallen fhort of his original. The defcription of the lion fhaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws diftained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturefque : but on the other hand, he has omitted the circumftance of devouring it without being intimidated, or reftrained by the dogs and youths that furround him; a circumftance that adds greatly to our idea of his ftrength, intrepidity, and importance. VOL. IV. Fr ESSAY OF Illa vel intacta fegetis per fumma volaret This elegant author, we are afraid, has upon fome other occafions degenerated into the frigid, in ftraining to improve upon his great mafter. Homer Homer in the Odyffey, a work which Longinus does not fcruple to charge with bearing the marks of defcribes a ftorm in which all the four winds were concerned together. old age, Σὲν δ' Ευρός τε, Νοτό; τ ̓ ἔπεσε, Ζεφυρός τε δυσαής, We know that fuch a contention of contrary blafts could not poffibly exift in Nature; for even in hurricanes the winds blow alternately from different points of the compass. Nevertheless Virgil adopts the defcription, and adds to its extravagance. Incubuere mari, totumque à fedibus imis Una Eurufque Notufque ruunt, creberque procellis Africus. Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topfy turvey—. Eaft, Weft, and South, engage with furious sweep, The North wind, however, is ftill more mifchievous. -Stridens aquilone procella Velum adverfa ferit, fluctufque ad fidera tollit. And whirls the madd'ning billows to the sky. The motion of the fea between Scylla and Charybdis is ftill more magnified; and Etna is exhibited as throwing out volumes of flame, which brush the ftars*. Such expreffions as thefe are not intended as a real representation of the thing fpecified; they are defigned to ftrike the reader's imagination; but they generally ferve as marks of the author's finking under his own ideas, who, apprehenfive of * Speaking of the first, he says, Tollimur in cælum curvato gurgite, et ijdem Subducta ad manes imos defcendimus undâ Of the other, Attollitque globes flammarum, efidera lambit. レ FF 2 injuring |