writing is every where much in ufe among the Poets, and is particularly practifed by Virgil, who loves to fuggeft a truth indirectly, and without giving us a full and open view of it, to let us fee juft fo much as will naturally lead the imagination into all the parts that lie concealed. This is wonderfully diverting to the understanding, thus to receive a precept, that enters as it were through a by-way, and to apprehend an idea that draws a whole train after it. For here the mind, which is always delighted with its own difcoveries, only takes the hint from the Poet, and feems to work out the reft by the ftrength of her own faculties. But, fince the inculcating precept upon precept will at length prove tiresome to the reader, if he meets with no entertainment, the Poet must take care not to incumber his poem with too much bufinefs; but fometimes to relieve the fubject with a moral reflexion, or let it reft a while for the fake of a pleafant and pertinent digreffion. Nor is it fufficient to run out into beautiful and diverting digreffions (as it is generally thought) unless they are brought in aptly, and are fomething of a piece with the main defign of the Georgic for they ought to have a remote alliance at least to the fubject, that fo the whole poem may be more uniform and agreeable in all its parts. We should never quite lofe fight of the country, though we are fometimes entertained with a distant prospect of it. Of this nature are Virgil's defcription of the original of Agriculture, of the fruitfulness of Italy, of a country life, and the like; which are not brought in by force, : 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 Augustus: but it is worth while to confider 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 "Agricola incurvo terram molitus aratro, “Exefa inveniet scabrâ rubigine pila : "Aut gravibus raftris galeas pulfabit inanes, Grandiaque effoffis mirabitur offa fepulchris." And afterwards, fpeaking of Auguftus's actions, he still remembers that Agriculture ought to be some way hinted at throughout the whole poem. "-Non ullus aratro "Dignus honos: fqualent abductis arva colonis: "Et curvæ 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 describes may immediately prefent itself, and rife 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 meannefs of expreffion; but every where to keep up his verse in all the pomp of numbers, and dignity of words. I think I think nothing which is a phrafe or faying in common talk fhould be admitted into a ferious Poem: because it takes off from the folemnity of the expreffion, and gives it too great a turn of familiarity: much lefs 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 plea-· fanteft dress that poetry can beftow on it. Thus Virgil, to deviate from the common form of words, would not make use of tempore but fydere in his first verfe; and every where else abounds with Metaphors, Græcifms, and Circumlocutions, to give his verfe the greater pomp, and preserve 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 ftrong 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 defcribes. : I fhall now, after this fhort fcheme 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 subject of that which is the moft celebrated of them. He is every where bent on inftruction, 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 funshine, 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 The fpeaks of January, "The wild beafts, fays he, "run fhivering through the woods with their heads "stooping 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 loofe 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 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 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 master's hand. Virgil has drawn out the rules of tillage and planting into two Books, which Hefiod has dispatched in half a one; but has fo raised the natural rudeness and fimplicity of his fubject, with fuch a fignificancy of expreffion, fuch a pomp of verse, such variety of transitions, and fuch a folemn air in his reflexions, that, if we look on both Poets together, we fee in one the plainness 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 meanest 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 fee how judiciously he has picked out those that are most proper for his husbandman's obfervation; how he has enforced the expreffion, and heightened the images which he found in the original. |
