ing Adam and Eve in Paradife is thus resembled.

as a tiger, who by chance hath spy'd

In fome purlieu two gentle fawns at play,
Strait couches close, then rifing changes oft
His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,
Whence rushing he might surest seize them both
Grip'd in each paw.

PAR. LOST.

Nor inferior in correctness, though less elevated in its fubject, is that beautiful one of Gay in his ballad of William and Sufan.

So the fweet lark, high pois'd in air,
Shuts close his pinions to his breast
If chance his mate's fhrill call he hear,
And drops at once into her nest.

I HOPE I shall not be thought influ

enced

enced by fraternal partiality in adding, from Mrs. Barbauld's Poems, a fimile, the converse of thofe before quoted, in which a subject of natural history is adorned by a comparison equally striking from its novelty, and happy in its application. The writer is defcribing the transformation of the caterpillar from its chryfalis to its butterfly ftate.

So when Rinaldo ftruck the conscious rind
He found a nymph in every trunk confin'd;
The foreft labours with convulfive throes,
The bursting trees the lovely births difclofe,
And a gay troop of damfels round him ftood,
Where late was rugged bark and lifeless wood.
To Mrs. P----、 with Drawings..

To illuftrate and enforce moral pre

cepts by allufions to the manners of ani

mals in the way of fable was an invenH tion

こ

tion of the learliest antiquity. No compofitions have been fo univerfally popular as thofe of the fabulifts of different nations; and notwithstanding all the viciffitudes of taste and system, we ftill read with delight their inftructive left fons, because they are inculcated by examples as familiar to the mind at the prefent day, as they were two or three thousand years ago. In proportion, however, as the familiarity of these inftances is requifite to their effect in an fable, it is evident that no minute or uncommon relations in natural history can with propriety be introduced into these compofitions. Some general caft of character, fome obvious and well-s known properties, in the animals whichs form the dramatis perfona of fable, must be the ground-work of every allufive tale. The generous courage of the

Lion

!

cunning of the Fox, the fidelity of the Dog, the ftupidity of the Afs, and the Like, are permanent and diftinguishing attributes, from the operation of which, in various fituations, the incidents proper for fabulous story arife. Fable confiders every animal as a human. creature; and therefore has to do only with fuch of its qualities as bear a refemblance to the affections and manners of mankind, not with fuch as peculiarly constitute its natural history. It is indeed highly requifite that as much of the latter as is neceffary in tracing out the fubject and scenery of a fable should be represented with truth and accuracy; and the many errors of this kind which have been admitted into collections of fables are to be lamented as a fource of falfe opinions, H 2 which,

A

which, from their early poffeffion of the

mind, are frequently never to be eradicated.

ALTHOUGH the walk of fable is thus unfit for the difplay of that novelty which natural hiftory affords, there are methods in which more circumftantial and appropriated descriptions of nature might be made very happily to accórd with the conveyance of moral inftruction. A most pleafing example of this kind, which has all the merit of originality as well as beauty, is exhibited in a poem of Mr. Jago's, (Dodley's Coll. vol. V.) entitled the Swallows. The ingenious and benevolent writer, who in his Elegies of the Goldfinches and Blackbirds has pathetically pleaded the rights of humanity with respect to

the