tion, after he had repaired the ruins that Phaeton had made in the world.

P. 114. l. 12. Athos and Tmolus, &c.] Ovid has here, after the way of the old poets, given us a ca talogue of the mountains and rivers which were burnt. But, that I might not tire the English reader, I have left out fome of them that make no figure in the defcription, and inverted the order of the rest according as the fmoothness of my verfe required.

P. 115. l. 7. 'Twas then, they say, the fwarthy Moor, &c.] This is the only Metamorphofis in all this long story, which, contrary to custom, is inferted in the middle of it. The critics may determine whether what follows it be not too great an excurfion in him who propofes it as his whole defign to let us know the changes of things. I dare say that, if Ovid had not religiously observed the reports of the ancient Mythologists, we should have seen Phaeton turned into fome creature or other that hates the light of the fun; or perhaps into an eagle, that still takes pleasure to gaze on it.

P. 115. 1. 28. The frighted Nile, &c.] Ovid has made a great many pleasant images towards the latter end of this story. His verfes on the Nile,

"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem,

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Occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet: oftia feptem "Pulverulenta vacant, feptem fine flumine valles." are as noble as Virgil could have written; but then he ought not to have mentioned the channel of the fea afterwards,

"Mare

"Mare contrahitur, ficcæque eft campus arenæ," because the thought is too near the other. The image of the Cyclades is a very pretty one;

66 -Quos altum texerat æquor

"Exiftunt montes, et fparfas Cycladas augent.' but to tell us that the fwans grew warm in Cäyster, "-Medio volucres caluere Cäystro,"

and that the Dolphins durft not leap,

"Ne fe fuper æquora curvi

"Tollere confuetas audent Delphines in auras," is intolerably trivial on fo great a subject as the burning of the world.

P. 116. 1. 19. The earth at length, &c.] We have here a speech of the Earth, which will doubtless seem very unnatural to an English reader. It is I believe the boldest Profopopoeia of any in the old Poets; or, if it were never so natural, I cannot but think she speaks too much in any reason for one in her condition.

ON EUROPA'S RAPE.

P. 141. l. 17. The dignity of empire, &c.] This ftory is prettily told, and very well brought in by those two ferious lines,

"Non bene conveniunt, nec in unâ fede morantur, "Majeftas et Amor. Sceptri gravitate relictâ, &c." without which the whole fable would have appeared very prophane.

P. 142. l. 27. The frighted nymph looks, &c.] This confternation and behaviour of Europa,

"Elufam defignat imagine tauri

"Europen

"Europen: verum taurum, freta vera putaras. "Ipfa videbatur terras spectare relictas,

"Et comites clamare fuos, tactumque vereri "Affilientis aquæ, timidafque reducere plantas," is better described in Arachne's picture in the Sixth Book, than it is here; and in the beginning of Tatius's Clitophon and Leucippe, than in either place. It is indeed ufual among the Latin Poets (who had more art and reflexion than the Grecian) to take hold of all opportunities to defcribe the picture of any place or action, which they generally do better than they could the place or action itself; because in the defcription of a picture you have a double subject before you, either to defcribe the picture itself, or what is reprefented

in it.

ON THE STORIES IN THE THIRD BOOK.

FA B. I.

THERE is fo great a variety in the arguments of the Metamorphofes, that he who would treat of them rightly, ought to be a master of all stiles, and every different way of writing. Ovid indeed fhows himself moft in a familiar ftory, where the chief grace is to be eafy and natural; but wants neither ftrength of thought nor expreffion, when he endeavours after it, in the more fublime and manly fubjects of his poem. In the prefent fable, the ferpent is terribly defcribed, and his behaviour very well imagined; the actions of both parties in the encounter are natural, and the

language

language that reprefents them more ftrong and mafculine than what we ufually meet with in this Poet: if there be any faults in the narration, they are these, perhaps, which follow:

P. 146. 1. 8. Spire above Spire, &c.] Ovid, to make his ferpent more terrible, and to raise the character of his champion, has given too great a loose to his imagination, and exceeded all the bounds of probability. He tells us, that when he raised up but half his body, he over-looked a tall foreft of oaks, and that his whole body was as large as that of the ferpent in the fkies. None but a madman would have attacked fuch a monster as this is defcribed to be; nor can we have any notion of a mortal's standing against him. Virgil is not ashamed of making Æneas fly and tremble at the fight of a far less formidable foe, where he gives us the defcription of Polyphemus, in the Third Book; he knew very well that a monster was not a proper enemy for his hero to encounter: but we fhould certainly have feen Cadmus hewing down the Cyclops, had he fallen in Ovid's way: or if Statius's little Tydeus had been thrown on Sicily, it is probable he would not have spared one of the whole brotherhood. "Phoenicas, five illi tela parabant,

"Sive fugam, five ipfe timor prohibebat utrumque, "Occupat:-"

Ibid. 1. 15. In vain the Tyrians, &c.] The Poet could not keep up his narration all along, in the grandeur and magnificence of an heroic ftile: he has here funk into the flatnefs of profe, where he tells us

the

the behaviour of the Tyrians at the fight of the ferpent: "Tegimen direpta leoni

"Pellis erat; telum fplendenti lancea ferro,

"Et jaculum; teloque animus præftantior omni." and in a few lines after lets drop the majesty of his verfe, for the fake of one of his little turns. How does he languish in that which feems a laboured line! "Triftia fanguineâ lambentem vulnera linguâ." And what pains does he take to exprefs the ferpent's breaking the force of the stroke, by shrinking back from it ! "Sed leve vulnus erat, quia fe retrahebat ab ictu, "Læfaque colla dabat retrò, plagamque federe "Credendo fecit, nec longiùs ire finebat."

P. 149. 1. 4. And flings the future, &c.] The des fcription of the men rifing out of the ground is as beautiful a paffage as any in Ovid. It ftrikes the imagination very strongly; we fee their motion in the first part of it, and their multitude in the "Meffis "virorum" at last.

Ibid. 1. 9. The breathing harveft, &c.] "Meffis ❝ clypeata virorum.” The beauty in thefe words would have been greater, had only "Meffis virorum” been expreffed without "clypeata;" for the reader's mind would have been delighted with two fuch different ideas compounded together, but can fcarce attend to fuch a complete image as is made out of all three.

This way of mixing two different ideas together in one image, as it is a great furprize to the reader, is à great beauty in poctry, if there be sufficient ground for it in the nature of the thing that is defcribed. The Latin

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