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 description, for he seems 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 coolness 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 defcription of the horse 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 fhivering. 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

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 noife and hurry in the battles of Æneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two fwarms. And as in his neis 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 fhort, 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 defcribing the mock-grandeur of an infect with fo 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 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 so 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 long 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 ftill find in the fcholiafts a verfe that ridicules part of a line translated from Hefiod, "Nudus ara, fere nudus"-And we may easily 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 shall not here compare the ftyle of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may fee already done in the preface to the fecond 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 thos● 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.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLE

K

ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING.

NELLER, with filence and furprize

We fee Britannia's monarch rife,
A godlike form, by thee display'd
In all the force of light and shade;
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 mildness shows,
His care of friends, and fcorn of foes:
In every stroke, 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 sovereign, through his wide command,

Paffing in progrefs 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.

The

The image on the medal plac'd,

With its bright round of titles grac'd,
And ftampt on British coins fhall live,
To richest ores the value give,
Or, wrought within the curious mold,
Shape and adorn the running gold.
To bear this form, the genial fun
Has daily fince his courfe begun
Rejoic'd the metal to refine,
And ripen'd the Peruvian mine.

Thou, Kneller, long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, haft vy'd
With nature in a generous ftrife,
And touch'd the canvas into life.

Thy pencil has, by monarchs fought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in the robes of state array'd,

The kings of half an age display'd.

Here fwarthy Charles appears, and there
His brother with dejected air:
Triumphant Naffau here we find,
And with him bright Maria join'd;
There Anna, great as when the fent
Her armies through the continent,
Ere yet her Hero was difgrac'd:

0
may fam'd Brunfwick be the laft,
(Though heaven fhould with my wish
And long preferve thy art in thee)

The laft, the happiest British king,

agree,

Whom thou shalt paint, or I fhall fing!