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FA B. VIII.

The ftory of Acates 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. But the fhort fpeeches fcattered up and down in it, which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear fo well in our language, which is much more ftubborn and unpliant, and therefore are but as fo many rubbs in the story, that are ftill turning the narration out of its proper course. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beautiful.

FA B. IX.

Ovid has two very good fimilies on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former ftory, and to a war horfe in the prefent..

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VIRGIL'S GEORGICS.

V

Irgil may be reckoned the first who introduced three new kinds of poetry among the Romans, which he copied after three the greatest masters of Greece. Theocritus and Homer have ftill difputed for the advantage over him in Paftoral and Heroics, but I think all are unanimous in giving him the precedence to Hefiod in his Georgics. The truth of it is, the sweetness 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 majesty 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 But in the middle style,

pronunciation of the Ionians. where the writers in both tongues are on a level, we fee how far Virgil has excelled all who have written in the fame way with him.

There

There has been abundance of criticifm fpent on Virgil's Paflorals and Eneids, but the Georgics are a fubject which none of the critics have fufficiently taken into their confideration; moft of them paffing it over in filence, or cafting it under the fame head with Paftoral; a divifion by no means proper, unless we fuppofe the style of a husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgic, as that of a thepherd is in a Paftoral. But though the fcene of both these poems lies in the fame place; the speakers in them are of a quite different character, fince the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the fimplicity of a plowman, but with the addrefs of a Poet. No rules therefore that relate to Paftoral, can any way affect the Georgics, fince they fall under that clafs of poetry, which confiits in giving plain and direct inftructions to the reader; whether they be moral duties, as thofe of Theognis and Pythagoras; or philofophical fpeculations, as thofe of Aratus and Lucretius; or rules of practice, as thofe of Hefiod and Virgil. Among thefe different kinds of fubjects, that which the Georgics go upon, is I think the meaneft and leaft improving, but the most pleafing and delightful. Precepts of morality, befides the natural corruption of our tempers, which makes us averfe to them, are fo abtracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give: an opportunity for thofe beautiful defcriptions and images which are the fpirit and life of poetry. Natural philofophy has indeed fenfible objects to work upon, but then it often puzzles the reader with the intimacy. of its notions, and perplexes him with the multitude of its difputes. But this kind of poetry I am now speaking of, addreffes itself wholly to the imagination :: It is altogether converfant among the fields and woods,

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and has the most delightful part of nature for its province. It raifes in our minds a pleafing variety of scenes and landskips, whilst it teaches us; and makes the diyest of its precepts look like a description. A • Georgic therefore is fome part of the science of husbandry put into a pleasing dress, and fet off with all the beauties and embellishments of poetry.' Now since this science of husbandry is of a very large extent, the Poet fhews his skill in fingling out such precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the same time most capable of ornament. Virgil was fo well acquainted with this fecret, that to fet off his firtt Georgic, he has run into a set of precepts, which are almost foreign to his subject, in that beautiful account he gives us of the figns in nature, which precede the changes of the weather.

And if there be so much art in the choice of fit precepts, there is much more required in the treating of them; that they may fall in after each other by a natural unforced method, and fhew themselves in the beft and most advantageous light. They should all be fo finely wrought together in the fame piece, that no coarfe feam may difcover where they join ; as in a curious brede of needle-work, one colour falls away by fuch just degrees, and another rifes fo infenfibly, that we see the variety, without being able to diftinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it fufficient to range and dispose this body of precepts into a clear and eafy method, unless they are delivered to us in the moft pleafing and agreeable manner; for there are feveral ways of conveying the fame truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleasanteft of these ways, is that which chiefly diftinguishes poetry

poetry from profe, and makes Virgil's rules of hufbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the profe writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the Poet often conceals the precepts in a defcription, and reprefents his countryman performing the action in which he would inftruct his reader. Where the one fets out, as fully and diftinctly as he can, all the parts of the truth, which he would communicate to us; the other fingles out the moft pleafing circumstances of this truth, and fo conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the understanding. I fhall give one inftance out of a multitude of this nature that might be found in the Georgics, where the reader may fee the different ways Virgil has taken to express the same thing, and how much pleasanter every manner of expreffion is, than the plain and direct mention of it would have been. It is in the fecond Georgic, where he tells us what trees will bear grafting on each other.

Et fæpe alterius ramos impune videmus

Vertere in alterius, mutatamque infita mala
Ferre pyrum, et prunis lapidofa rubefcere corna.
Steriles Platani malos geffere valentes,

Caftanea fagos, ornufque incanuit albo

Flore pyri: Glandemque fues fregere sub ulmis.
Nec longum tempus: & ingens

Exiit ad Cælum ramis felicibus arbos ;
Miraturque novas frondes et non fua pema.

Here we fee the Poet confidered all the effects of this union between trees of different kinds, and took notice of that effect which had the moft furprife, and by confequence the moft delight in it, to exprefs the capacity

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