if the reader would fee what fuccefs he had, he may find it at large in Scaliger.

But Virgil feems no where fo well pleased, as when he is got among his bees in the Fourth Georgic: and ennobles the actions of fo trivial a creature, with metaphors drawn from the most important concerns of mankind. His verfes are not in a greater noise and hurry in the battles of Æneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two fwarms. And as in his Aneis he compares the labours of his Trojans to thofe of bees and pifmires, here he compares the labours of the bees to thofe of the Cyclops. In short, the last Georgic was a good prelude to the Æneis; and very well fhewed what the Poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his describing the mock-grandeur of an infect with so good a grace. There is more pleasantnefs in the little platform of a garden, which he gives us about the middle of this Book, than in all the fpacious 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 fo divine a work.

After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics, I fhould 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 fo beautiful as the reft, I fhall not prefume to name them; as rather suspecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that Poem, which lay fo

under Virgil's correction, and had his last hand

put

put to it. The firft Georgic was probably burlesqed in the author's lifetime; for we still find in the fcholiafts a verse that ridicules part of a line translated from Hefiod, "Nudus ara, fere nudus"-And we may eafily guess at the judgment of this extraordinary critic, whoever he was, from his cenfuring this particular precept. We may be fure Virgil would not have tranflated it from Hefiod, had he not discovered fome beauty in it; and indeed the beauty of it is what I have before obferved to be frequently met with in Virgil, the delivering the precept fo indirectly, and fingling out the particular circumstance of sowing and plowing naked, to suggest to us that these employments are proper only in the hot season of the year.

I fhall not here compare the ftyle of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may fee already done in the preface to the second volume of Mifcellany Poems*; but fhall conclude this Poem to be the most complete, elaborate, and finished piece of all antiquity. The Aneis indeed is of a nobler kind, but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind. The Æneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but those of the Georgic are more exquifite. 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 fettled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity.

*The Collection published by Mr. Dryden.

P 2

MIS

"bandry put into a pleasing dress, and set off with all "the beauties and embellishments of poetry." Now fince this fcience of husbandry is of a very large extent, the poet fhews his skill in fingling out fuch precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the fame time most capable of ornament. Virgil was fo well acquainted with this fecret, that to set off his first 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 best and most advantageous light. They fhould all be fo finely wrought together in the fame piece, that no coarse seam may discover where they join; as in a curious brede of needle-work, one colour falls away by such just degrees, and another rises so infenfibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it fufficient to range and difpofe this body of precepts into a clear and easy method, unless they are delivered to us in the most pleasing and agreeable manner; for there are feveral ways of conveying the fame truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleasantest of these ways, is that which chiefly distinguishes Poetry from profe, and makes Virgil's rules of hufndry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the

profe

profe writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the poet often conceals the precept in a description, and represents his countryman performing the action in which he would instruct his reader. Where the one

fets out, as fully and distinctly as he can, all the parts

of the truth, which he would communicate to us; the other fingles out the most pleasing circumftance of this truth, and fo conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the understanding. I shall give one instance out of a multitude of this nature that might be found in the Georgics where the reader may see the different ways Virgil has taken to exprefs the fame 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, "Caftaneæ fagos, ornufque incanuit albo

“Flore pyri : glandemque fues fregere fub ulmis. 66 Nec longum tempus: & ingens "Exiit ad coelum ramis felicibus arbos ; "Miraturque novas frondes et non fua poma." 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 most furprize, and by confequence the moft delight in it, to exprefs the capacity that was in them of being thus united. This way of writing

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

K

ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.

NELLER, with filence and furprize
We fee Britannia's monarch rise,
A godlike form, by thee difplay'd
In all the force of light and fhade;
And, aw'd by thy delufive hand,
As in the prefence chamber stand.
The magic of thy art calls forth
His fecret foul and hidden worth,
His probity and mildnefs fhows,
His care of friends, and fcorn of foes:
In every ftroke, in every line,
Does fome exalted virtue fhine,
And Albion's happiness we trace
Through all the features of his face.

O may I live to hail the day,
When the glad nation shall survey
Their fovereign, through his wide command,

Paffing in progress o'er the land!

Each heart fhall bend, and every voice
In loud applauding fhouts rejoice,
Whilft all his gracious afpect praise,
And crowds grow loyal as they gaze.