Continuò in sylvis magnâ vi flexa domatur
In burim, et curvi formam accipit ulmus aratri.

GEORG. I.

Young elms, with early force, in copses bow,
Fit for the figure of the crooked plough.

1

DRYDEN.

Thus we find him imitating the Greek poet in the most minute precepts. Hesiod gives directions for making a plough; Virgil does the same. Even that which has been the subject of ridicule to many critics, viz. ' plough and sow naked,' is translated in the Georgic, nudus ara, sere nudus, Before I proceed any further, I shall endeavour to obviate the objection which has been frequently made against this precept. Hesiod means to insinuate, that ploughing and sowing are labours which require much industry and application; and he had doubtless this physical reason for his advice, that where such toil is required it is unhealthful, as well as impossible, to go through with the same quantity of clothes as in works of less fatigue. Virgil doubtless saw this reason, or one of equal force, in this rule, or he would not have translated it. In short, we find him a strict follower of our poet in most of the precepts of husbandry in the 'Works and Days.' I shall give but one instance more, that in his superstitious observance of days:

may

-quintam fuge; pallidus Orcus, Eumenidesque satæ, &c.

-the fifths be sure to shun,

That gave the furies, and pale Pluto, birth.

and

DRYDEN.

If the judgment I have passed from the verses

of Manilius, and the second book of the Georgic, in my 'Discourse on the Writings of Hesiod,' be allowed to have any force, Virgil has doubtless been as much obliged to our poet in the second book of his Georgic, as in the first; nor has he imitated him in his precepts only, but in some of his finest descriptions, as in the first book describing the effects of a storm:

-quo, maxima, motu,

Terra tremit, fugere feræ, &c.

and a little lower in the same description : Nunc nemora, ingenti vento, nunc littora plangunt : which is almost literal from Hesiod, on the power of the north wind:

· μεμυκε δε γαια και υλη, &c.

Loud groans

the earth, and all the forests roar.

I cannot leave this head, without injustice to the Roman poet, before I take notice of the manner in which he uses that superstitious precept πεμπίας δ ̓ εξαλεασθαι, &c. what in the Greek is languid, is by him made brilliant :

-quintam fuge: pallidus Orcus,.

Eumenidesque satæ tum partu, terra, nefando,
Cœumque Iapetumque creat, sævumque Typhoëa,
Et conjuratos cœlum rescindere fratres :
Ter sunt conati, &c.

the fifths be sure to shun,

That gave the furies, and pale Pluto, birth,

And arm'd against the skies the sons of earth;

With mountains piled on mountains thrice they strove

To scale the steepy battlements of Jove;

And thrice his lightning and red thunder play'd,
And their demolish'd works in ruin laid.

DRYDEN.

As I have showed where the Roman has followed the Greek, I may be thought partial to my author, if I do not show in what he has excelled him and first he has contributed to the Georgic most of the subjects in his two last books; as, in the third, the management of horses, dogs, &c. and, in the fourth, the management of the bees. His style, through the whole, is more poetical, more abounding with epithets, which are often of themselves most beautiful metaphors. His invocation on the deities concerned in rural affairs, his address to Augustus, his account of the prodigies before the death of Julius Cæsar, in the first book; his praise of a country life, at the end of the second; and the force of love in beasts, in the third; are what were never excelled, and some parts of them never equaled, in any language.

Allowing all the beauties in the Georgic, these two poems interfere in the merit of each other so little, that the 'Works and Days' may be read with as much pleasure as if the Georgic had never been written. This leads me into an examination of part of Mr. Addison's Essay on the Georgic; in which that great writer, in some places, seems to speak so much at venture, that I am afraid he did not remember enough of the two poems to enter on such a task. 'Precepts (says he) of morality, besides the natural corruption of our tempers which makes us averse to them, are so abstracted from ideas of sense, that they seldom give an opportunity for those beautiful descriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry.' Had he that part of Hesiod

in his eye, where he mentions the temporal blessings of the righteous, and the punishment of the wicked, he would have seen that our poet took an opportunity, from his precepts of morality, to give us those beautiful descriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. How lovely is the flourishing state of the land of the just there described, the increase of his flocks, and his own progeny! The reason which Mr. Addison gives against rules of morality in verse, is to me a reason for them; for if our tempers are naturally so corrupt as to make us averse to them, we ought to try all the ways which we can to reconcile them, and verse among the rest; in which, as I have observed before, our poet has wonderfully succeeded.

The same author, speaking of Hesiod, says, 'the precepts he has given us are sown so very thick, that they clog the poem too much.' The poet, to prevent this, quite through his Works and Days, has stayed so short a while on every head, that it is impossible to grow tiresome in either: the division of the work I have given at the beginning of this view, therefore shall not repeat it. Agriculture is but one subject, in many, of the work; and the reader is there relieved with several rural descriptions, as of the north wind, autumn, the country repast in the shades, &c. The rules for navigation are dispatched with the utmost brevity, in which the digression, concerning his victory at the funeral games of Amphidamas, is natural, and gives a grace to the poem.

I shall mention but one oversight more which Mr. Addison has made, in his Essay, and conclude this head: when he condemned that circumstance of the virgin being at home in the winter season, free from the inclemency of the weather, I believe he had forgot that his own author had used almost the same image, and on almost the same occasion, though in other words:

Nec nocturna quidem carpentes pensa puellæ
Nescivere hyemem, &c.

GEORG. I.

The difference of the manner in which the two poets use the image is this: Hesiod makes her with her mother at home, either bathing, or doing what most pleases her; and Virgil says, 'as the young women are plying their evening tasks, they are sensible of the winter season, from the oil sparkling in the lamp, and the snuff hardening.' How properly it is introduced by our poet I have showed in my note to the passage.

The only apology I can make for the liberty I have taken with the writings of so fine an author as Mr. Addison, is, that I thought it a part of my duty to our poet, to endeavour to free the reader from such errors as he might possibly imbibe, when delivered under the sanction of so great a name.

5. Of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil.

I must not end this view, without some observations on the fourth Eclogue of Virgil; since Probus, Grævius, Fabricius, and other men of