capacity that was in them of being thus united. This way of writing is every where much in ufe among the Poets, and is particularly practifed by Virgil, who loves to fuggeft a truth indirectly, and without giving us a full and open view of it, to let us fee juft fo much as will naturally lead the imagination into all the parts that lie 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 difcoveries, only takes the hint from the Poet, and feems to work out the reft by the strength of her own faculties. But fince the inculcating precept upon precept, will at length prove tirefome to the reader, if he meets with no entertainment, the Poet must take care not to in cumber his poem with too much business; but fometimes to relieve the fubject with a moral reflexion, or let it reft a while for the fake of a pleasant and perti-nent digreflion. Nor is it fufficient to run out into beautiful and diverting digreffions (as it is generally thought) unless they are brought in aptly, and are something of a piece with the main defign of the Georgic: For they ought to have a remote alliance at least to the subject, that fo the whole poem may be more uniform and agreeable in all its parts. We should never quite lofe fight of the country, though we are fometimes entertained with a diftant profpect of it. Of this nature are Virgil's defcription of the original of Agriculture, of the fruitfulnefs of Italy, of a country life, and the like, which are not brought in by force, but naturally rife out of the principal argument and defign of the poem. poem. I know no one digreffion in the Georgics that may seem to contradict this obfervation, befides that in the latter end of the first book, where the Poet lanches out into a difcourfe of the battle of Pharfalia, and the actions of Auguftus: But it is worth while to confider how admirably he has turned the courfe 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 And afterwards fpeaking of Auguftus's actions, he ftill remembers that Agriculture ought to be fome way hinted at throughout the whole poem. Non ullus aratro Dignus bonos: fqualent abduclis arva colonis: We now come to the ftyle 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 prefent itfelf, and rife up to the readers view. He ought in particular to be careful of not letting his fubject debase his style, and betray him into a meannefs of expreffion, but every where to keep up up his verse in all the pomp of numbers, and dignity of words. I think nothing which is a phrase or faying in common talk, fhould be admitted into a ferious poem; because it takes off from the folemnity of the expreffion, and gives it too great a turn of familiarity: Much less ought the low phrafes and terms of art, that are adapted to husbandry, have any place in fuch a work as the Georgic, which is not to appear in the natural fimplicity and nakednefs of its fubject, but in the pleafanteft drefs that poetry can beftow on it. Thus Virgil, to deviate from the common form of words, would not make use of Tempore but Sydere in his firft verfe; and every where else abounds with Metaphors, Grecifms, and Circumlocutions, to give his verfe the greater pomp, and preferve it from finking into a Plebeian ftyle. And herein confifts Virgil's mafter-piece, 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 themfelyes: And find our imaginations more affected by his defcriptions, than. they would have been by the very fight of what he defcribes. I fhall now, after this fhort scheme of rules, confider the different fuccefs that Hefiod and Virgil have met with in this kind of poetry, which may give us fome further notion of the excellence of the Georgics. To begin with Hefiod; if we may guefs at his character from his writings, he had much more of the hufbandman than the Poet in his temper: He was wonderfully grave, difcreet, and frugal, he lived altogether in the country, and was probably for his great prudence dence the oracle of the whole neighbourhood. Thefe principles of good hufbandry ran through his works, and directed him to the choice of tillage and merchandize, for the fubject of that which is the most celebrated of them. He is every where bent on inftruction, avoids all manner of digreffions, and does not stir out of the fields once in the whole Georgic. His method in defcribing month after month with its proper feafons and employments, is too grave and simple; it takes off from the furprife and variety of the Poem, and makes the whole look but like a modern Almanack in verfe. The reader is carried through a courfe of weather, and may before hand guess whether he is to meet with fnow or rain, clouds or fun-fhine in the next defcription. His defcriptions indeed have abundance of nature in them, but then it is nature in her fimplicity and undrefs. Thus when he speaks of January, "The wild beafts, fays he, run fhivering through the woods with their heads stooping to the "ground, and their tails clapt between their legs; the 66 goats and oxen are almoft flea'd with cold; but it is not fo bad with the fheep, because they have a "thick coat of wool about them. The old men too 66 66 are bitterly pincht with the weather, but the young girls feel nothing of it who fit at home with their "mothers by a warm fire-fide." Thus does the old gentleman give himself up to a loose kind of tattle, rather than endeavour after a juft poetical defeription. Nor has he thewn more of art and judgment in the precepts he has given us, which are fown so very thick, that they clog the Poem too much, and are often fo minute and full of circumftances, that they weaken and unnerve his verfe. But after all, we are beholden to 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 fee the defign 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 Heftod has dispatched in half a one; but has fo raifed the natural rudeness and fimplicity of his fubject with fuch a fignificancy of expreffion, such a pomp of verse, such variety of traniitions, and such a solemn air in his reflexions, that if we look on both Poets together, we see in one the plainness of a downright countryman, and in the other, fomething of a ruftic majefty, like that of a Roman dictator at the plow-tail. He delivers the meaneft of his precepts with a kind of grandeur, he breaks the clods and tosses the dung about with an air of gracefulness. His prognoftications of the weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may see how judiciously he has pickt out those that are most proper for his husbandman's obfervation; how he has enforced the expreffion, and heightened the images which he found in the original. The fecond book has more wit in it, and a greater boldness in its metaphors than any of the rett. The Poet, with a great beauty, applies oblivion, ignorance, wonder, defire, and the like, to his trees. The laft Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not fo daring as this; for human thoughts and paflions may be more naturally ascribed to a bee, than to an inanimate plant. He who reads over the pleasures of a country life, as they are described by Virgil in the latter end of this |