In pleasant fields or copious flow Of Rhine, or many-colour'd bow The former part of these verses: As when the fane and facred wood of Dian, &c. alludes to the following lines in the VII. book of the Metamorphofes ; Ibat ad antiquas Hecates Perfeidos aras Quas nemus umbrofum, fecretaque fylva tegebant. She now retreats where Hecate's altar stood, Sewell's Ovid. The latter part: Or many-colour'd bow, &c. to this paffage in the XI. book. Induitur velamina mille colorum Iris & arquato cælum curvamine fignans Scarce had the Goddess this injunction laid, Her ample bow from heav'n to earth extends, And to the monarch's dull abode defcends. But the next place I fhall cite is fo amazingly ftriking, that it is alone a fufficient key to the clofe difcovery. Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unum And And he who works a fimple theme While boars are in the Ocean drawn. If there be any obfcurity or obliquity in the other inftances, which I have cited to the argument, here is nothing but open affault in broad day-light. Mirantur fub aquâ lucos, urbefque, demofque Crura nec ablato profunt velocia cervo. Beneath the deep the Nereids in furprize See woods, and groves, and towns, and temples rife : Shake the tall oaks, and beat the boughs afide: In this reprehenfion however (to use a homely phrase) Horace gives himself a flap of the face; for he does much the fame thing in the second ode of the first book, at the third stanza, and the truth of the Deluge I (which (which Ovid was nearer to knowing than Horace) being admitted, there is no abfurdity in thefe paffages at all. Over and above all that has been advanced to ftrengthen my pofition, there are yet two remarkable things worth attending to: firft that Horace defpifed elegy in general on Ovid's account, tho' the epiftles are very excellent, and tho' he had a very great affection for Tibullus, Ovid's mafter. Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiferit author But him, who thought it worth his while Our critics have not yet found out, And still the matter is in doubt. The next is a fneer even to the defcription of Ovid's perfon. -Hunc ego me, fi quid componere curem, Non magis effe velim: quam pravo vivere nafa Spectandum nigris oculis, nigroque capillo. If I had any thing to write, I wou'd no more be fuch a wight With nofe of most portentous fize. Every Every school-boy will tell us, why Ovid's parents called him Nafo; and he himself informs us that he had black hair, which is ufually (I suppose) accompanied with black eyes. Jam mea cygneas imitantur tempora plumas, Now on my temples refts a fwan-like down, And my black locks thro' age are bleach'd upon my crown. After all we must admit that Horace was rather too hard upon Ovid, who, tho his inferior with regard to fome things, was altogether a better man in others, and his works, with all their defects, have juftly intitled him to the praife, as his hardships have in a manner endeared him, to the affection of pofterity. Bishop Atterbury, in a little fugitive piece, that I have feen, takes occafion to make complaint of Virgil's want of gratitude to Horace (who had celebrated him very frequently) in refufing a place for his panegyric in every part of his works. Horace is a debtor to the pen of Ovid in this article, Et tenuit noftras numerofus Horatius aures, Melodious Horace too my ears detain❜d, While to his finish'd odes th' Aufonian ftrings he ftrain'd. This This compliment wou'd have been returned by Horace, one of the most thankful men that ever lived (if by the bye it was writen in his life-time) had he not, according to our hypothefis, entertained a most extraordinary contempt, both for his writings and himfelf. So much for our conjecture-and now to bring this long preface to as decent a conclufion as I may; I must confefs myfelf to the reader, that, tho' I prefume upon the whole, he fhall meet with entertainment and information, yet he will find but too many opportunities of exercising his candour and humanity by the faults, which fhall occur. Good-nature is the Good-nature is the grace of God in grain, and so much the characteristic of an Englishman, that I hope every one deferving fuch a name will think it fomewhat hard, if a gentleman derived from ancestors, who have abode upon their own Lordship fix hundred years in the County Palatine of Durham, fhould have been reduced in a manner by neceffity to a work of this kind, which if done in a state, he had more reafon to be fatisfied with, had been more likely to have given fatisfaction. *This is evident not only from the warmth of his language in his Odes and other works, but from the circumftance of his behavicur to all his friends of all parties, with whom he always kept himjelf well to the left. P. S. |