of view; which effect is remarkable in the following fimiles. As when two scales are charg'd with doubtful loads, Iliad. b. xii. 521, Ut flos in feptis fecretis nascitur hortis, Idem, cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui, Nulli illum pueri, nullæ cupiere puellæ. Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara fuis; fed 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; 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 Then let me go, and hinder not my courfe; Till the laft ftep have brought me to my love; 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, 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 That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd Richard II. act 5. Sc. 3. Northumberland. How doth my fon and brother? half his Troy was burn'd; And I my Piercy's death, Why, then I do but dream on fov'reignty, So do I wish, the crown being fo far off, And And so I chide the means that keep me from it, 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 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 That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung |