Tentanda via eft, &c. VIRG. WHAT fhall I do to be for ever known, [a] And make the age to come my own? Hence all the flattering vanities, that lay Nets of roses in the way. Hence the defire of honours, or estate; And'all, that is not above fate. Hence love himself, that tyrant of my days, [a] Some lines of the original are left out. Come, Come, my best friends, my books, and lead me on ; 'Tis time that I were gone. Welcome, great Stagirite, and teach me now All I was born to know. Thy fcholar's vict'ries thou doft far out-do: He conquer'd th' earth; the whole world, you [b].* Welcome, learn'd Cicero, whofe bleft tongue and wit Preferves Rome's greatnefs yet. Thou art the first of orators; only he, Who beft can praise thee, next must be [c]. Welcome the Mantuan fwan, Virgil the wife, Whose verse walks higheft, but not flies [d]. [b] He conquer'd th' earth; the whole world, you.] Earth, means this habitable globe; world, the fyftem of univerfal nature. But the compliment is not a little extravagant! like that of Mr. Pope to Newton "God faid, Let Newton be, and all was light" -for which the Poet is very juffly reprehended by his Who beft can praife thee, next must be.] i. e. he must be only next; for none but Cicero himself was equal to the fubject. The poet glances at what Livy faid of the great Roman orator- .“vir magnus, acer, memòrabilis, et in cujus landès fequendas Cicerone laudatore opus fuerit." Ą fragment, preferved by the elder Seneca. [d] Whofe verfe walks higheft, but not flies.] i. e. which keeps within the limits of nature, and is fublime without Who Who brought green poefy to her perfect age; But ye have climb'd the mountain's top, there fit And, whilft with wearied fteps we upward go, TELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is wit, Thou, who mafter art of it. being extravagant. Virgil's epic Mufe is here juftly cha racterized the Lyric, is a fwan of another fpecies, of which the poet fays nobly, elsewhere— "Le, how th' obfequious wind and swelling, air Pindaric, Odes. The praife of Pindar. For For the first matter loves variety less; 2. London, that vents of false ware fo much ftore, For men, led by the colour and the fhape, Some things do through our judgement pass, And sometimes, if the object be too far, 3. Hence 'tis, a wit, that greatest word of fame, [e] We should now fay, to avoid the difagreeable con traction, "Lefs women love it, or in love, or drefs.” -But our poet affected these contractions, and, if we may believe the writer of his life, fancied they gave a ftrength and energy to his verfe. The truer reafon for his ufe of them was, that he found them in fashion. And |