of view; which effect is remarkable in the following fimiles.

As when two scales are charg'd with doubtful loads,
From fide to fide the trembling balance nods,
(While fome laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store),
Till pois'd aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight; nor this nor that defcends :
So ftood the war, till Hector's matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turn'd the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the wall he flies,
And fires his hoft with loud repeated cries.

Iliad. b. xii. 521,

Ut flos in feptis fecretis nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contufus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat fol, educat imber,
Multi illum pueri, multæ cupiere puellæ.

Idem, cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,

Nulli illum pueri, nullæ cupiere puellæ.

Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara fuis; fed
Cum caftum amifit, polluto corpore, florem,
Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis.

Catullus.

The imitation of this beautiful fimile by Ariofto, canto 1. ft. 42. falls fhort of the original. It is alfo in part imitated by Pope *.

Lucetta. I do not feek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extreme rage,

Dunciad, b. 4. 1. 405.

LeA

Left it fhould burn above the bounds of reafon.

Julia. The more thou damm'ft it up, the more it

burns:

The current, that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know'ft, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair courfe is not hindered,

He makes fweet mufic with th' enamel'd ftones,

Giving a gentle kifs to every fedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

And fo by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my courfe;
I'll be as patient as a gentle ftream,
And make a paftime of each weary step

Till the laft ftep have brought me to my love;
And there I'll reft, as, after much turmoil,

A bleffed foul doth in Elyfium.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. Sc. 10.

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: fhe pin'd in thought;

And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She fat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at Grief,

Twelfth Night, act 2. fc.6.

York. Then, as I faid, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his afpiring rider feem'd to know,

With flow but stately pace, kept on his course:

While all tongues cry'd, God fave thee, Bolingbroke.

Dutchefs. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the

while!

York,

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even fo, or with much more contempt, mens eyes
Did fcowl on Richard; no man cry'd, God fave him!
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But duft was thrown upon his facred head;
Which with fuch gentle forrow he fhook off,
His face ftill combating with tears and fmiles,
The badges of his grief and patience;

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they muft perforce have melted;
And barbarifm itself have pitied him.

Richard II. act 5. Sc. 3.

Northumberland. How doth my fon and brother?
Thou trembleft, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even fuch a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, fo dead in look, fo wo-be-gone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him,
But Priam found the fire,

half his Troy was burn'd;
ere he his tongue :
ere thou report'ft it.
Second Part Henry IV. act 1. fc. 3.

And I my Piercy's death,

Why, then I do but dream on fov'reignty,
Like one that stands upon a promontory,
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the fea that funders him from thence,
Saying, he'll lave it dry to have his way:

So do I wish, the crown being fo far off,

And

And so I chide the means that keep me from it,
And fo (I fay) I'll cut the causes off,

Flatt'ring my mind with things impoffible.

Third Part Henry VI. ad 3. fc. 3.

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking fhadow, a poor player,

That ftruts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.

Macbeath, at 5. Sc. 5•

O thou Goddefs,

Thou divine Nature! how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! they are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
(Their royal blood inchaf'd) as the rud'ft wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain-pine,
And make him stoop to th' vale.

Cymbeline, at 4. fc. 4.

Why did not I pafs away in fecret, like the flower of the rock that lifts its fair head unfeen, and ftrows its withered leaves on the blast?

Fingal.

There is a joy in grief when peace dwells with the forrowful. But they are wafted with mourning, O daugh ter of Tofcar, and their days are few. They fall away like the flower on which the fun looks in his ftrength, after the mildew has paffed over it, and its head is heavy with the drops of night.

VOL. II,

N

Fingal.

The

The fight obtained of the city of Jerufalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land difcovered after a long voyage, Taffo's Gierufalem, canto 3. ft. 4. The fury of Rinaldo fubfiding when not opposed, to that of wind or water when it has a free paffage, canto 20. ft. 58.

As words convey but a faint and obfcure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer * compares the Grecian ariny in point of number to a fwarm of bees: in another paffage + he compares it to that profufion of leaves and flowers which appear in the fpring, or of infects in a fummer's evening: and Milton,

As when the potent rod

Of Amram's fon in Egypt's evil day

Wav'd round the coaft, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locufts, warping on the eastern wind,

That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile :
So numberlefs were thofe bad angels feen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
Twixt upper, nether, and furrounding fires.