two ideas that have some resemblance with each other, and are both expreffed by the fame word, we make use of the ambiguity of the word to speak that of one idea included under it, which is proper to the other. Thus, for example, most languages have hit on the word, which properly fignifies fire, to express love by (and therefore we may be fure there is fome refemblance in the ideas mankind have of them); from hence the witty Poets of all languages, when they once have called Love a fire, confider it no longer as the paffion, but speak of it under the notion of a real fire; and, as the turn of wit requires, make the fame word in the fame fentence ftand for either of the ideas that is annexed to it. When Ovid's Apollo falls in love, he burns with a new flame; when the SeaNymphs languish with this paffion, they kindle in the water; the Greek Epigrammatift fell in love with one that flung a fnow-ball at him, and therefore takes occafion to admire how fire could be thus concealed in fnow. In fhort, whenever the Poet feels any thing in this love that resembles fomething in fire, he carries on this agreement into a kind of allegory; but if, as in the preceding inftances, he finds any circumstance in his love contrary to the nature of fire, he calls his love a fire, and by joining this circumstance to it furprizes his reader with a feeming contradiction. I should not have dwelt fo long on this inftance, had it not been fo frequent in Ovid, who is the greatest admirer of this mixt wit of all the ancients, as our Cowley is among the moderns. Homer, Virgil, Họa

race, and the greatest Poets, fcorned it; as indeed it is only fit for Epigram, and little copies of verfes: one would wonder therefore how fo fublime a genius as Milton could fometimes fall into it, in fuch a work as an Epic Poem. But we must attribute it to his humouring the vicious taste of the age he lived in, and the falfe judgment of our unlearned English readers in general, who have few of them a relish of the more masculine and noble beauties of Poetry.

FAB. VI.

Ovid feems particularly pleased with the subject of this ftory, but has notoriously fallen into a fault he is often taxed with, of not knowing when he has faid enough, by his endeavouring to excel. How has he turned and twifted that one thought of Narciffus's being the perfon beloved, and the lover too?

Cunctaque miratur quibus eft mirabilis ipfe. "Qui probat, ipfe probatur.

"Dumque petit petitur, 'pariterque incendit et ardet, "Atque oculos idem qui decipit incitat error. "Perque oculos perit ipfe fuos

"Uror amore mei, flammas moveoque feroque, &c." But we cannot meet with a better instance of the extravagance and wantonness of Ovid's fancy, than in that particular circumstance at the end of the story, of Narciffus's gazing on his face after death in the Stygian waters. The defign was very bold, of making a boy fall in love with himself here on earth; but to torture him with the fame paffion after death, and not

to

to let his ghoft reft in quiet, was intolerably cruel and uncharitable.

P. 161. 1. 8. But whilst within, &c.] "Dumque «fitim fedare cupit fitis altera crevit." We have here a touch of that mixed wit I have before spoken of; but I think the measure of pun in it out-weighs the true wit; for if we express the thought in other words the turn is almost loft. This paffage of Narciffus probably gave Milton the hint of applying it to Eve, though I think her surprize, at the fight of her own face in the water, far more just and natural than this of Narciffus. She was a raw unexperienced being, just created, and therefore might eafily be subject to the delufion ; but Narciffus had been in the world fixteen years, was brother and fon to the water-nymphs, and therefore to he fuppofed converfant with fountains long before this fatal mistake.

P. 162. l. 8. You trees, fays he, &c.] Ovid is very juftly celebrated for the paffionate speeches of his Poem. They have generally abundance of nature in them, but I leave it to better judgments to confider whether they are not often too witty and too tedious. The Poet never cares for fmothering a good thought that comes in his way, and never thinks he can draw tears enough from his reader: by which means our grief is either diverted or spent before we come to his conclufion; for we cannot at the fame time be delighted with the wit of the Poet, and concerned for the perfon that speaks it; and a great Critic has admirably well obferved, "Lamentationes debent effe breves et "concife,

03

"concifæ, nam lacryma fubitò excrefcit, et difficile "eft Auditorem vel Lectorem in fummo animi affectu "diu tenere." Would any one in Narciffus's condition have cry'd out" Inopem me copia fecit ?” Or can any thing be more unnatural than to turn off from his forrows for the fake of a pretty reflexion?

"O utinam noftro fecedere corpore poffem !

"Votum in amante novum; vellem, quod amamus, "abeffet."

None, I fuppofe, can be much grieved for one that is fo witty on his own afflictions. But I think we may every where observe in Ovid, that he employs his invention more than his judgment; and fpeaks all the ingenious things that can be faid on the fubject, rather than those which are particularly proper to the perfon and circumstances of the speaker.

F A B. VII.

P. 165. 1. 22. When Pentheus thus] There is a great deal of fpirit and fire in this speech of Pentheus, but I believe none befide Ovid would have thought of the transformation of the ferpent's teeth for an incitement to the Thebans courage, when he defires them not to degenerate from their great forefather the Dragon, and draws a parallel between the behaviour of them both.

"Efte, precor, memores, quâ fitis ftirpe creati,

Illiufque animos, qui multos perdidit unus,
"Sumite ferpentis: pro fontibus ille, lacuque
"Interiit, at vos pro famâ vincite veftrâ.
"Ille dedit letho fortes, vos pellite molles,

"Et patrium revocate decus."

FAB.

FA B. VIII.

The story of Acœtes has abundance of nature in all the parts of it, as well in the description of his own parentage and employment, as in that of the failors characters and manners. But the fhort fpeeches scattered up and down in it, which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear so well in our language, which is much more stubborn and unpliant; and therefore are but as fo many rubs in the story, that are still turning the narration out of its proper courfe. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beautiful.

FA B. IX.

Ovid has two very good fimilies on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former story, and to a war-horse in the present.