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As Notus often, when the welkin low'rs,

Sweeps off the clouds, nor teems perpetual show'rs,

So let thy wisdom, free from anxious ftrife,
In mellow wine diffolve the cares of life.

DUNKIN.

The analogy, it must be confeffed, is not very ftriking but nevertheless it is not altogether void of propriety. The Poet reafons thus: as the Southwind, though generally attended with rain, is often known to difpel the clouds, and render the weather ferene; fo do you, though generally on the rack of thought, remember to relax fometimes, and drown your cares in wine. As the South-wind is not always moift, fo you ought not always to be dry.

A few inftances of inaccuracy, or mediocrity, can never derogate from the fuperlative merit of Homer and Virgil, whofe poems are the great magazines, replete with every fpecies of beauty and magnificence, particularly abounding with fimiles which aftonifh, delight, and transport the reader.

Every fimile ought not only to be well adapted to the fubject, but alfo to include every excellence of description, and to be coloured with the warmest tints of Poetry. Nothing can be more happily hit off than the following in the Georgics, to which the Poet compares Orpheus lamenting his loft Eurydice.

Qualis populea morens Philomela fub umbra
Amiffos queritur fætus, quos durus arator
Obfervans nido implumes detraxit; at illa
Flet noctem, ramoque fedens miferabile carmen
Integrat, et mæeftis late loca queftibus implet,

So Philomela, from th' umbrageous wood
In ftrains melodious mourns her tender brood,
Snatch'd from the neft by fome rude ploughman's hand,
On fome lone bough the warbler takes her ftand;
The live-long night the mourns the cruel wrong;
And hill and dale refound the plantive song.

Here

Here we not only find the moft fcrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel the poet of the grove; but alfo the moft beautiful defcription, containing a fine touch of the pathos, in which laft particular indeed Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether antient or modern.

One would imagine that Nature had exhausted itfelf, in order to embellish the Poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with fmiles and metaphors. The firft of these very often ûfes the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to exprefs the rapidity of his combatants: but when he comes to defcribe the velocity of the immortal horfes, that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the fubject, and, as Longinus obferves, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon.

Οσσον δ' ηεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν
Ἤμενος ἐν σκοπιη, λεύσσων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόνον,
Τόσσον ἐπιθρώσκεσι θεῶν ὑψηχίες ἵπποι,

For as a watchman from fome rock on high
O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye;
Thro' fuch a space of air with thund'ring found
At ev'ry leap th' immortal courfers bound.

The celerity of this goddess feems to be a favourite idea with the Poet; for in another place he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had feen, and paffing through them in imagination more fwift than the lightning flies from Eaft to Weft.

Homer's beft fimilies have been copied by Virgil, and almost every fucceeding poet, how foever they may have varied in the manner of expreffion. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus feeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion efpying a hind or goat:

Ωσε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας

· Εὑρὼν ἢ ἔλαφον κεραόν, ἢ ἄγριον αἶγα,&c.

So

So joys the lion, if a branching deer
Or mountain goat his bulky prize appear.
In vain the youths oppofe, the mastiffs bay,
The lordly favage rends the panting prey.
Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound
In clinging arms he leaps upon the ground.

The Mantuan bard in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the fame fimile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle.

Impaftus ftabula alta leo ceu fæpe peragrans
(Suadet enim vefana fames) fi forte fugacem

Confpexit capream, aut furgentem in cornua cervum ž
Gaudet hians immane, comafque arrexit, et hæret
Vifceribus fuper accumbens: lavit improba teter
Ora cruor.-

Then as a hungry lion, who beholds

A gamefome goat who frifks about the folds,
Or beamy ftag that grazes on the plain;
He runs, he roars, he shakes his rifing mane;
He grins and opens wide his greedy jaws,
The prey lies panting underneath his paws;
He fills his famifh'd maw, his mouth runs o'er
With unchew'd morfels, while he churns the gore.
DRYDEN.

The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the fimile in one particular, and in another fallen fhort of his original. The defcription of the lion fhaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws diftained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturefque : but on the other hand, he has omitted the circumftance of devouring it without being intimidated, or reftrained by the dogs and youths that furround him; a circumftance that adds greatly to our idea of his ftrength, intrepidity, and importance.

VOL. IV.

Fr

ESSAY

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OF
F all the figures in Poetry, that called the Hy-
berbole is managed with the greateft difficulty. The
Hyperbole is an exaggeration, with which the Mufe
is indulged, for the better illuftration of her fubject,
when she is warned into enthufiafm. Quintilian calls
it an ornament of the bolder kind. Demetrius Pha-
lereus is still more fevere. He fays, the Hyperbole
is of all forms of fpeech the moft frigid. Masa de
Υπερβολὴ ψυχρότατον πάνων : but this muft be under-
ftood with fome grains of allowance. Poetry is ani-
mated by the paffions; and all the paffions exagge-
rate. Paffion itfelf is a magnifying medium. There
are beautiful inftances of the Hyperbole in the Scrip-
ture, which a reader of fenfibility cannot read with-
out being ftrongly affected. The difficulty lies in
choofing fuch Hyperboles, as the fubject will admit of;
for, according to the definition of Theophraftus, the
frigid in ftyle is that, which exceeds the expreffion
fuitable to the fubject. The judgment does not re-
volt against Homer for reprefenting the horfes of
Ericthonius running over the ftanding corn with-
out breaking off the heads, becaufe the whole is con-
fidered as a fable, and the North wind is reprefented
as their Sire: but the imagination is a little ftartled,
when Virgil, in imitation of this Hyberbole, exhi-
bits Camilla as flying over it without even touching
the tops.

Illa vel intacta fegetis per fumma volaret
Gramina-

This elegant author, we are afraid, has upon fome other occafions degenerated into the frigid, in ftraining to improve upon his great mafter.

Homer

Homer in the Odyffey, a work which Longinus does not fcruple to charge with bearing the marks of defcribes a ftorm in which all the four winds were concerned together.

old

age,

Σὲν δ' Ευρός τε, Νοτό; τ ̓ ἔπεσε, Ζεφυρός τε δυσαής,
Καὶ Βορέης αιθρηγενετη; μέγα λῦμα κυλίνδων.

We know that fuch a contention of contrary blafts could not poffibly exift in Nature; for even in hurricanes the winds blow alternately from different points of the compass. Nevertheless Virgil adopts the defcription, and adds to its extravagance.

Incubuere mari, totumque à fedibus imis

Una Eurufque Notufque ruunt, creberque procellis

Africus.

Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topfy turvey—.

Eaft, Weft, and South, engage with furious sweep,
And from its loweft bed upturn the foaming deep.

The North wind, however, is ftill more mifchievous.

-Stridens aquilone procella

Velum adverfa ferit, fluctufque ad fidera tollit.
The fail then Boreas rends with hideous cry,

And whirls the madd'ning billows to the sky.

The motion of the fea between Scylla and Charybdis is ftill more magnified; and Etna is exhibited as throwing out volumes of flame, which brush the ftars*. Such expreffions as thefe are not intended as a real representation of the thing fpecified; they are defigned to ftrike the reader's imagination; but they generally ferve as marks of the author's finking under his own ideas, who, apprehenfive of * Speaking of the first, he says,

Tollimur in cælum curvato gurgite, et ijdem

Subducta ad manes imos defcendimus undâ

Of the other,

Attollitque globes flammarum, efidera lambit.

FF 2

injuring

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