force, but naturally rife out of the pricipal argument and defign of the poem. I know no one digreffion in the Georgics that may feem to contradict this obfervation, befides that in the latter end of the first book, where the Poet launches 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 "Agricola incurvo terram molitus aratro, "Exefa inveniet fcabrâ rubigine pila : "Aut gravibus raftris galeas pulfabit inanes, "Grandiaque effoffis mirabitur offa fepulchris." 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 honos: fqualent abductis árva colonis : "Et curve rigidum falces conflantur in enfem." We now come to a 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 defcribes may immediately prefent itself, and rise up to the reader's view. He ought in particular to be careful of not letting his fubject debafe his ftyle, and betray him into a meanness of expreffion; but every where to keep up his verfe in all the pomp of numbers, and dignity of words.

I think

I think nothing which is a phrase or faying in common talk fhould be admitted into a serious 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 nakedness of its fubject, but in the pleafanteft 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, Græcifms, and Circumlocutions, to give his verse the greater pomp, and preferve it from finking into a plebeian style. And herein confifts Virgil's mafterpiece, 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 fight of what he describes.

I fhall now, after this short 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 husbandman than the Poet in his temper: he was wonderfully grave, difcreet, and frugal, he lived al

. together

together 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 fubject of that which is the most celebrated of them. He is every where bent on instruction, avoids all manner of digreffions, and does not ftir out of the field once in the whole Georgic ̧ His method in defcribing month after month, with its proper feafons and employments, is too grave and fimple; it takes off from the furprize and variety of the Poem, and makes the whole look but like a modern almanack in verfe. The reader is carried throngh a courfe of weather; and may before-hand guess whether he is to meet with fnow or rain, clouds or funfhine, 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 fpeaks of January, "The wild beafts, fays he, "run fhivering. through the woods with their heads "ftooping to the ground, and their tails clapt be"tween their legs; the goats and oxen are almost "flead 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 are bitterly pinched 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 defcription. Nor has he fhewn

more

more of art or judgment in the precepts he has given us; which are fown fo very thick, that they clog the Poem too much, and are often fo minute and full of circumftances, that they weaken and unnerve his verse. But, after all, we are beholden to him for the firft rough sketch of a Georgic: where we may ftill difcover fomething 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 mafter's hand.

Virgil has drawn out the rules of tillage and planting into two Books, which Hefiod has difpatched in half a one; but has so raised the natural rudeness and fimplicity of his fubject, with fuch a fignificancy of expreffion, fuch a pomp of verfe, fuch variety of tranfitions, and fuch a folemn air in his reflexions, that, if we look on both Poets together, we fee in one the plainnefs of a downright countryman; and in the other, fomething of ruftic majefty, like that of a Roman dictator at the plough-tail. He delivers the

meaneft of his precepts with a kind of grandeur; he breaks the clods and toffes the dung about with an air of gracefulness. His prognoftications of the weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may see how judicioufly he has picked out those that are moft proper for his husbandman's obfervation; how he has enforced the expreffion, and heightened the images which he found in the original,

4

The

The Second Book has more wit in it, and a greater boldness in its metaphors, than any of the reft. The Poet, with great beauty, applies oblivion, ignorance, wonder, defire, and the like, to his trees. The last Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not so daring as this; for human thoughts and paffions may be more naturally afcribed to a bee, than to an inanimate plant. He who reads over the pleasures of a country life, as they are defcribed by Virgil in the latter end of this Book, can fcarce be of Virgil's mind in preferring even the life of a philofopher to it.

We may, I think, read the Poet's clime in his defcription, for he feems to have been in a sweat at the writing of it:

"O quis me gelidis fub montibus Hæmi

"Siftat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra !** and is every where mentioning, among his chief pleafures, the coolnefs of his fhades and rivers, vales and grottoes, which a more Northern Poet would have omitted for the description of a funny hill, and fire-fide.

The Third Georgic feems to be the most laboured of them all; there is a wonderful vigour and spirit in the description of the horfe and chariot-race. The force of love is reprefented in noble inftances, and very fublime expreffions. The Scythian winter-piece appears fo 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 expreffiveness that words can give. It was here that the Poet ftrained hard to out-do Lucretius in the defcription of his plague; and