life, and the like, which are not brought in by force, but naturally rise out of the principal argument and design of the poem, I know no one digression in the Georgics that may seem to contradict this observation, besides that in the latter end of the first book, where the poet launches out into a discourse of the battle of Pharsalia, and the actions of Augustus. But it is worth while to consider, how admirably he has turned the course 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, speaking of Augustus's actions, he still remembers that agriculture ought to be some way hinted at throughout the whole poem : -Non ullus aratro Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis: Et curvæ rigidum falces conflantur in ensem. We now come to the style 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 present itself, and rise up to the reader's view. He ought in particular, to be careful of not letting his subject debase his style, and betray him into a meanness of expression, but every where to keep up his verse, in all the pomp of numbers and dignity of words. I think nothing which is a phrase or saying in common talk should be admitted into a serious poem; because it takes off from the solemnity of the expression, and gives it too great a turn of familiarity; much less ought the low phrases and terms of art that are adapted to husbandry, have any place in such a work as the Georgic, which is, not to appear in the natural simplicity and nakedness of its subject, but in the pleasantest dress that poetry can bestow on it. Thus Virgil, to deviate from the common form of words, would not make use of tempore but sydere in his first verse; and every where else abounds with metaphors, Grecisms, and circumlocutions, to give his verse the greater pomp, and preserve it from sinking into a plebeian style. And herein consists Virgil's master-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 themselves; and find our imaginations more affected by his descriptions, than they would have been by the very sight of what he describes. I shall now, after this short scheme of rules, consider the different success that Hesiod and Virgil have met with in this kind of poetry, which may give us some further notion of the excellence of the Georgics. To begin with Hesiod; if we may guess at his character from his writings, he had much more of the husbandman than the poet in his temper: he was wonderfully grave, discreet, and frugal: he lived altogether in the country, and was probably, for his great prudence, the oracle of the whole neighbourhood. These principles of good husbandry ran through his works, and directed him to the choice of tillage and merchandize, for the subject of that which is the most celebrated of them. He is every where bent on instruction, avoids all manner of digressions, and does not stir out of the field once in the whole Georgic. His method in describing month after month, with its proper seasons and employments, is too grave and simple; it takes off from the surprise and variety of the poem, and makes the whole look but like a modern almanack in verse. reader is carried through a course of weather, and may before-hand guess whether he is to meet with snow or rain, clouds or sunshine, in the next description. His descriptions indeed have abundance of nature in them, but then it is nature in her simplicity and undress. Thus, when he speaks of January, "The wild beasts," says he,." run shivering through the woods, "with their heads stooping to the ground, "and their tails clapt between their legs; "the goats and oxen are almost flea'd The with cold; but it is not so bad with the "sheep, because they have a thick coat "of wool about them. The old men too "are bitterly pinched with the weather; "but the young girls feel nothing of it, "who sit at home with their mothers by "a warm fire-side." Thus does the old gentleman give himself up to a loose kind of tattle, rather than endeavour after a just poetical description. Nor has he shewn more of art or judgment in the precepts he has given us, which are sown so very thick, that they clog the poem too much, and are often so minute and full of circumstances, that they weaken and unnerve his verse. But after all, we are beholden 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 see the design 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 Hesiod has dispatched in half a one; but has so raised the natural rudeness and simplicity of his subject, with such a significancy of expression, such a pomp of verse, such variety of transitions, and such a solemn air, in his reflections, that if we look on both poets together, we see in one the plainness of a downright countryman, and in the other something of rustic majesty, like that of a Roman dictator at the plow-tail. He delivers the meanest of his precepts with a kind of grandeur; he breaks the clods and tosses the dung about with an air of gracefulness. His prognostications of the weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may see how judiciously he has picked out those that are most proper for his husbandman's observation; how he has enforced the expression, and heightened the images, which he found in the original. The second book has more wit in it, and a greater boldness in its metaphors, than any of the rest. The poet, with a great beauty, applies oblivion, ignorance, wonder, desire, and the like, to his trees. The last Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not so daring as this; for human thoughts and passions 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 book, can scarce be of Virgil's mind, in preferring even the life of a philosopher to it. We may, I think, read the poet's clime in his description; for he seems to have been in a sweat at the writing of it: -O quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! And is every where mentioning among his chief pleasures, the coolness of his shades and rivers, vales and grottoes; which a more northern poet would have omitted, for the description of a sunny hill and fireside. The third Georgic seems to be the most laboured of them all; there is a wonderful vigour and spirit in the description of the horse and chariot-race. The force of love is represented in noble instances, and very sublime expressions. The Scythian winterpiece appears so very cold and bleak to the eye, that a man can scarce look on it. without shivering. The murrain at the end has all the expressiveness that words can give. It was here that the poet strained hard to outdo Lucretius in the description of his plague; and if the reader would see what success he had, he may find it at large in Scaliger. But Virgil seems no where so well pleased as when he is got among his bees, in the fourth Georgic; and ennobles the actions of so trivial a creature, with metal phors drawn from the most important concerns of mankind. His verses are not in a greater noise and hurry in the battles of Aneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two swarins. And as in his Aneis he compares the labours of his Trojans to those of bees and pismires, here he compares the labours of the bees to those of the Cyclops. In short, the last Georgic was a good prelude to the Eneis; and very well shewed what the poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his describing the mock grandeur of an insect, with so good a grace. There is more pleasantness in the little platform of a garden, which he gives us about the middle of this book, than in all the spacious walks and water-works of Rapin. The speech of Proteus at the end can never be enough admired, and was indeed very fit to conclude so divine a work. After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics, I should in the next place endeavour to point out its imperfections, if it has any. But though I think there are some few parts in it that are not so beautiful as the rest, I shall not presume to name them, as rather suspecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that poem, which lay so long under Virgil's correction, and had his last hand put to it. The first Georgic was probably burlesqued in the author's life time; for we still find in the scholiasts a verse that ridicules part of a line translated from Hesiod-Nudus ara, sere nudus. And we may easily guess at the judg ment of this extraordinary critic, whoever he he was, from his censuring in this particular precept. We may be sure Virgil would not have translated it from Hesiod, had he not discovered some beauty in it; and indeed the beauty of it is what I have before observed to be frequently met with in Virgil, the delivering the precept so indirectly, and singling out the particular circuinstances of sowing and plowing naked, to suggest to us that these employments are proper only in the hot season of the year. I shall not here compare the style of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may see already done in the preface to the second volume of Dryden's Miscellany Poems: but shall conclude this poem to be the most complete, elaborate, and finished piece of all antiquity. The Eneis, indeed, is of a nobler kind; but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind. The Eneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but those of the Georgic are more exquisite. In short, the Georgic has all the perfection that can be expected in a poem written by the greatest poet in the flower of his age, when his invention was ready, his imagination warm, his judgment settled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity. Addison. f236. History of the HEATHEN 1. COELUS and TERRA. Cælus is said to be the son of the Air, great father of the gods, and husband of Terra the daughter of the Earth; by whom he had the Cyclops, Oceanus, Titan, the Hundred Giants, and many other children, the most eminent of which was Saturn. Nothing is more uncertain than what is related of Cœlus and Terra, and the whole fable plainly seems to signify that the Air and Earth were the common father and parent of all created beings. Coelus was called Uranus by the Greeks, and Terra was also named Vesta; she presided over all feasts and banquets; and the first fruits of the earth were offered to her in the most solemn sacrifices. According to the fable, Coelus was dethroned by his youngest son Saturn, and wounded by him, to prevent his having more children. 2. SATURN. Saturn was the son of Cœlus and Terra, and the most ancient of all the gods. Titan, his elder brother, resigned his birth-right to him, on condition that he should destroy all his male Saturn being driven from his throne, left the kingdom, and went into Italy, and there lived with king Janus. That part of Italy where he concealed himself was called Latium. He is represented as the emblem of Time, with a scythe in his hand; and in his time, it is said, was the golden age of the earth, when the ground yielded all sorts of fruit without culture, and Astræa, or Justice, dwelt among men, who lived together in perfect love and amity. The Saturnalia, or Feasts of Saturn, were instituted by Tullus king of the Romans; or, according to Livy, by Sempronius and Minutius the consuls. 3. CYBELE. Cybele was the wife of Saturn, and accounted mother of the gods: she was called Ops by the Latins, and Rhea by the Greeks. She was also named Bona Mater, Vesta, and Terra. Cybele hath her head crowned with towers, and is the goddess of cities, garrisons, and all things that the earth sustains. She is the earth itself, on which are built many towers and castles. In her hand she carries a key, because, in winter the earth locks up her treasures, which in the spring she unlooses, brings forth, and dispenses with a plentiful hand. She is seated in à chariot, because the earth hangs in the air, being poised by its own weight. Her garments were painted with flowers of various colours, and figured with images of several creatures; which needs no explanation, since every one knows, that such a dress is suitable to the earth. Divine honours were daily paid to this goddess; and the priests of Cybele performed their sacrifices with a confused noise. of timbrels, pipes, cymbals, and other instruments; and the sacrificants profaned both the temple of their goddess, and the ears of their hearers, with howling, riot, and every kind of wantonness. The priests of this goddess were called Galli, from a river in Phrygia. They were were also called Curetes, Corybantes, Tel- the first temple that ever was built in chines, Cabiri, and Idæi Dactyli. 4. JUPITER. Jupiter, son of Saturn and Cybele, or Ops, is the father and king of gods and men. He is represented sitHe is represented sitting on a throne of ivory and gold, holding thunder in his right hand, and in the left a scepter made of cyprus; which wood, being free from corruption, is a symbol of eternal empire. Ou this scep ter sits an eagle: either because he was brought up by that bird, or that hereto fore the eagle sitting upon his head, portended his reign; or because in the war against the Giants, it brought him the thunder, and thence was called his Armourbearer. He had golden shoes, and an embroidered cloak, adorned with various flowers, and figures of animals. He was educated, as well as born, upon Ida, a mountain in Crete; but by whom, the variety of opinions is wonderful. There are some who affirm, that he was nursed by the Curetes, or Corybantes; some by the Nymphs; and some by Amalthea, daughter of Melissus king of that island. Others, on the contrary, have recorded, that he was fed by the bees with honey; others, by goat's milk. They add besides, that the goat being dead, and the skin pulled off, Jupiter made of it a shield, called Egis, which he used afterwards in the battle against the Giants. Jupiter, after he had deposed his father Saturn from the throne, and expelled him the kingdom, divided the parental inheritance with his two brothers, Neptune and Pluto. He so obliged and assisted mankind by great favours, that he not only got the title of Jupiter, but also obtained divine honours, and was esteemed the common father of gods and men. Jupiter had names almost innumerable; which he obtained, either from the places where he lived, and wherein he was worshipped, or from the various actions of his life. The Greeks called him Ammon or Hammon, which signifies sandy. He obtained this name first in Lybia, where he was worshipped under the figure of a ram; because when Bacchus was athirst in the desarts of Arabia, and implored the assistance of Jupiter, Jupiter appeared in the form of a ram, opened a fountain with his foot, and discovered it to him. He was called Capitolinus, from the Capitoline hill, on the top whereof he had Rome; which Tarquin the Elder first vowed to build, Tarquin the Proud did build, and Horatius the Consul dedicated. He was besides called Tarpeius, from the Tarpeian rock on which this temple was built. He was also styled Optimus Maximus, from his power and willingness to profit all men. The title of Dodonæus was given Jupiter from the city Dodona in Chaonia, which was so called from Dodona, a nymph of the sea. Near to this city was a grove sacred to him, which was planted with oaks, and famous, because in it was the most ancient oracle of all Greece. The name Feretrius was given him, because after the Romans had overcome their enemies they carried the imperial spoils (Spolia Opima) to his temple. Romulus first presented such spoils to Jupiter, after he had slain Acron, king of Cænina; and Cornelius Gallus offered the same spoils, after he had conquered Tolumnius, king of Hetruria; and, thirdly, M. Marcellus, when he had vanquished Viridomarus, king of the Gauls. Those spoils were called Opima, which one general took from the other in battle. He is also named Olympius from Olympus the name of the master who taught him,, and of the heaven wherein he resides. The Greeks called him Earne (Soter! Servator, the Saviour, because he delivered them from the Medes. He was likewise called Xenius, or Hospitalis; because he was thought the author of the laws and customs concerning hospitality. 5. JUNO. Juno was the queen of Heaven, both the sister and wife of Jupiter; the daughter of Saturn and Ops; born in the island Samos, where she lived while she continued a virgin. Juno became extremely jealous of Jupiter, and never ceased to perplex the children he had by his mistresses. She was mother of Vulcan, Mars, and Hebe; she was also called Lucina, and presided over marriages and births; and is represented in a chariot drawn by peacocks, with a sceptre in her right hand, and a crown on her head; her person was august, her carriage noble, and her dress elegant and neat. Iris, the daughter of Thaumas and Electra, was servant and peculiar messenger of Juno. Juno. Because of her swiftness, she is painted with wings, sitting on a rainbow. It was her office to unloose the souls of dying women from the chains of the body. 6. APOLLO. Apollo is described as a beardless youth, with long hair, crowned with laurel, and shining in an embroidered vestment; holding a bow and arrows in his right hand, and a harp in the left. Sometimes he is seen with a shield in the one hand, and the Graces in the other. The power of this god is threefold: in hea ven, where he is called Sol; in earth, where he is named Liber Pater; and in hell, where he is styled Apollo. He generally is painted with a harp, shield, and arrows. He was the son of Jupiter and Latona. His mother, who was the daughter of Cæus the Titan, conceived twins by Jupiter; at which Juno being incensed, sent the serpent Python against her; Latona, to avoid the intended mischief, fled into the island Delos, where she brought forth Apollo and Diana at the same birth. By the invention of physic, music, poctry, and rhetoric, he deservedly presided over the Muses. He also taught the arts of fortelling and archery; by which he so much obliged mankind,, that he was enrolled in the number of the gods. He destroyed all the Cyclops, the forgers of Jupiter's thunderbolts, with his arrows, to revenge the death of his son Esculapius, whom Jupiter had killed with his thunder, because, by the power of physic, he restored the dead to life again. He fell violently in love with the virgin Daphne, so famous for her modesty. When he pursued her she was changed into a laurel, the most chaste of trees; which is never corrupted with the violence of heat or cold, but remains always flourishing, always pure. Apollo raised the walls of the city of Troy by the music of his harp alone; and was challenged by Marsyas, a proud musician; but the god flayed him alive, because he presumed to contend with him in his own art, and afterwards turned him into a river. Also when Midas, king of Phrygia, foolishly determined the victory to the god Pan, when Apollo and he sang together. Apollo stretched his ears to the length and shape of asses ears. This god had many names. He is called Cynthius, from the mountain Cynthus in the island of Delos; from whence Diana is also called Cynthia; and Delius, from the same island, because he was born there. He is called Delphicus, from the city Delphi in Bocotia, where he had the most famous temple in the world. They say, that this famous oracle became dumb at the birth of our Saviour; and when Augustus desired to know the reason of its silence, the oracle answered him, That, in Judæa, a child was born who was the Supreme God, and had commanded him to. depart, and return no more answers. He is called Paan, either from allaying sorrows, or from his exact skill in hunting, wherefore he is armed with arrows. He is called Phoebus, from the swiftness of his motion, or from his method of healing by purging. He was named Pythius, not only from the serpent Python, which he had killed, but likewise from asking and consulting; for none among the gods delivered more responses than he; especially in the temple which he had at Delphi, to which all nations resorted, so that it was called the oracle of all the earth. These oracles were given out by a young virgin, called Pythia from Pythius, one of Apollo's names. 7. Sot. Sol, who enlighteneth the world, is esteemed the same as Apollo. He was the father of Photon by Clymene; and, as a proof of his paternal affection, promised to grant his son whatever he should request. The rash youth asked the guidance of his chariot for one day: Sol in vain used every argument to dissuade him from the enterprize; but having sworn by the river Styx, an oath it was unlawful for the gods to violate, unwillingly granted his request, and gave him the necessary instructions for his behaviour. Phaeton, transported with joy, mounted the chariot, and began to lash the flaming steeds; but they finding the ignorance of their new driver, ran through the air, and set both heaven and earth on fire, Jupiter, to prevent a total conflagration, struck Phæton with thunder from his chariot, and plunged him into the river Po. His sisters, Phæthuso, Lampetia, and Phoebe, and also Cycnus his friend, immoderately bewailed his death on the banks of the |