race, and the greatest Poets, fcorned it; as indeed it is only fit for Epigram, and little copies of verfes : one would wonder therefore how fo fublime a genius as Milton could fometimes fall into it, in fuch a work as an Epic Poem. But we must attribute it to his humouring the vicious taste of the age he lived in, and the falfe judgment of our unlearned English readers in general, who have few of them a relish of the more masculine and noble beauties of Poetry. FA B. VI. Ovid feems particularly pleased with the fubject of this ftory, but has notoriously fallen into a fault hé is often taxed with, of not knowing when he has faid enough, by his endeavouring to excel. How has he turned and twisted that one thought of Narciffus's being the perfon beloved, and the lover too? Cunctaque miratur quibus eft mirabilis ipfe. "Dumque petit petitur, pariterque incendit et ardet, "Uror amore mei, flammas moveoque feroque, &c." But we cannot meet with a better inftance of the extravagance and wantonnefs of Ovid's fancy, than in that particular circumstance at the end of the ftory, of Narciffus's gazing on his face after death in the Stygian waters. The defign was very bold, of making a boy fall in love with himself here on earth; but to torture him with the fame paffion after death, and not to to let his ghost reft in quiet, was intolerably cruel and uncharitable. P. 161. 1. 8. But whilft within, &c.] "Dumque "fitim fedare cupit fitis altera crevit." We have here a touch of that mixed wit I have before fpoken of; but I think the measure of pun in it out-weighs the true wit; for if we exprefs the thought in other words the turn is almost lost. This paffage of Narciffus probably gave Milton the hint of applying it to Eve, though I think her furprize, at the fight of her own face in the water, far more just and natural than this of Narciffus. She was a raw unexperienced being, juft created, and therefore might eafily be fubject to the delusion ; but Narciffus had been in the world fixteen years, was brother and fon to the water-nymphs, and therefore to be fuppofed converfant with fountains long before this fatal mistake. P. 162, 1. 8. You trees, fays he, &c.] Ovid is very justly celebrated for the paffionate fpeeches of his Poem. They have generally abundance of nature in them, but I leave it to better judgments to confider whether they are not often too witty and too tedious. The Poet never cares for fmothering a good thought that comes in his way, and never thinks he can draw tears enough from his reader: by which means our grief is either diverted or spent before we come to his conclufion; for we cannot at the fame time be delighted with the wit of the Poet, and concerned for the perfon that speaks it; and a great Critic has admirably well obferved, "Lamentationes debent effe breves et "concife, 03 "concifæ, nam lacryma fubitò excrefcit, et difficile "eft Auditorem vel Lectorem in fummo animi affectu "diu tenere." Would any one in Narciffus's condition have cry'd out—“ Inopem me copia fecit ?” Or can any thing be more unnatural than to turn off from his forrows for the fake of a pretty reflexion? "O utinam noftro fecedere corpore poffem ! "Votum in amante novum; vellem, quod amamus, "abeffet." None, I fuppofe, can be much grieved for one that is fo 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 perfon and circumftances of the speaker. FA B. VII. P. 165. 1. 22. When Pentheus thus] There is a great deal of spirit and fire in this speech of Pentheus, but I believe none befide Ovid would have thought of the transformation of the ferpent's teeth for an incitement to the Thebans courage, when he defires them not to degenerate from their great forefather the Dragon, and draws a parallel between the behaviour of them both. "Efte, precor, memores, quâ fitis ftirpe creati, "Et patrium revocate decus." FAB. 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. tered 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 fo 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. But the fhort fpeeches fcat FA B. IX. Ovid has two very good fimilies on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former story, and to a war-horse in the present. N E Ś SAY Ο Ν GEORGI CS.. VIRGIL'S VIRGIL may be reckoned the first who introduced three new kinds of poetry among the Romans, which he copied after three of the greatest mafters of Greece: Theocritus and Homer have ftill disputed 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 greatnefs in it, and can be often rendered more deep and fonorous by the pronunciation of the Ionians. But in the middle ftyle, where the writers in both tongues are on a level, we see how far Virgil has excelled all who have written in the fame way with him. There has been abundance of criticism fpent on Virgil's Paftorals and Æneids; but the Georgics are a fubject which none of the critics have fufficiently taken into their confideration; most of them paffing it over in filence, or cafting it under the fame head with Paftoral; a division 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 Pastoral. But though |