Κύκλωψ δὲ σενάχων τε καὶ ὠδίνων ἐδύνησι,
Χεσρί ψηλοφίων
Mean time the Cyclop, raging with his wound,
Spreads his wide arms, and fearches round and round.
The critick then proceeds to fhew, that the efforts of Achilles ftruggling in his armour against the current of a river, fometimes refifting and fometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elifions of the fyllables, the flow fucceffion of the feet, and the ftrength of the confonants.
Δεινον δ' αμφ' Αχιλήα κυκώμενον ἴσατο κύμα.
Ὦθει δ ̓ ἐν σάκεὶ πίπλων ςοῦ· ἐδὲ πόδεσσιν
Ἐσκε σηρίξασθαι.
So oft the furge, in wat'ry mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head,
Yet dauntless ftill the adverfe flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves,
Tir'd by the tides; his knees relax with toil;
Wafh'd from beneath him, flides the flimy foil.
When Homer defcribes the crufh of men dashed against a rock, he collects the most unpleafing and harfh founds.
Συν δὲ δύω μάρψας, ώςε σκύλακας ποτὶ γαιη
Κόπ: ἐκ δ ̓ ἐγκέφαλος χαμάδις ῥέε, δεῦς δὲ γαῖαν.
-His bloody hand
Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band,
And dafh'd like dogs against the stony floor:
The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.
And when he would place before the eye fomething dreadful and aftonishing, he makes choice of the strongest vowels, and the letters of most difficult
Τῆ δ ̓ ἐπὶ μὲν Γοργώ βλοσυρῶπις ἐσεφάνωτο
Δεινὸν δερκομήνη· περὶ δὲ Δεὶμῶν τε Φόβω τε.
Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,
And circling terrors fill'd th' expreffive fhield. POPE.
Many other examples Dionyfius produces; but thefe will fufficiently fhew, that either he was fanciful, or we have loft the genuine pronunciation; for I know not whether, in any one of these inftances, fuch fimilitude can be difcovered. It feems, indeed, probable, that the veneration with which Homer was read, produced many fuppofititious beauties; for though it is certain, that the found of many of his verfes very justly correfponds with the things expreffed, yet when the force of his imagination, which gave him full poffeffion of every object, is confidered, together with the flexibility of his language, of which the fyllables might be often contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will feem unlikely that fuch conformity should happen less frequently even without defign.
It is not however to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light of criticism, and who owed fo much of his fuccefs to art and labour, endeavoured among other excellencies, to exhibit this fimilitude; nor has he been lefs happy in this than in the other graces of verfification. This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival of learning, displayed with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.
Haud fatis eft illis utcunque claudere versum.—
Omnia fed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
Atque fono quæcunque canunt imitantur, & apta
Verborum facie, & quæfito carminis ore.
Nam diverfa opus eft voluti dare verfibus ora.-
Hic melior motuque pedum, & pernicibus alis,
Molle viam tacito lapfu per levia radit :
Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens
Incedit tardo molimine fubfidendo.
Ecce aliquis fubit egregio pulcherrimus ore,
Cui letum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.
Contra alius rudis, informes oftendit & artus,
Hirfutumque fupercilium, ac caudam finuofam,
Ingratus vifu, fonitu illætabilis ipfo..
Ergo ubi jam nautæ fpumas falis ære ruentes
Incubuere mari, videas fpumare reductis
Convulfum remis, roftrifque ftridentibus &quor.
Tunc longe fale faxa fonant, tunc & freta ventis
Incipiunt agitata tumefcere: littore fluctus
Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda
Ad fcopulos, cumulo infequitur præruptus aquæ mons.-
Cum vero ex alto fpeculatus cærula Nereus
Lenit in morem ftagni, placidæque paludis,
Labitur unita vadis abies, natat una carina,-
Verba etiam res exiguas angufta fequuntur,
Ingentefque juvant ingentia : cunda gigantem
Vafta decent, vultus immanes, pe&ora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna offa lacertique.
Atque adeo, fiquid geritur molimine magno,
Adde moram, & pariter tecum quoque verba laborem
Segnia: feu quando vi multa gleba coa&tis ;
Eternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore feu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
At mora fi fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
Si fe forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape faxa manu, cape robora, pastor;
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite peftem.
Ipfe etiam verfus ruat, in præcepfque feratur,
Immenfo cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum perculfus graviter procumbit humi bos,
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipfa quoque ultro
Carmina paulifper curfu ceffare videbis
In medio interrupta: quiêrunt cum freta ponti,
Poftquam aura pofuere, quiefcere protinus ipfum
Cernere erit, mediifque inceptis fiftere verfum.
Quid dicam, fenior cum telum imbelle fine iu
Invalidus jacit, & defectis viribus ager?
Num quoque fum verfus fegni pariter pede languet:
Sanguis hebet, frigent effate in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertiffe domos, prefractaque quadrupedantum
Peltora pectoribus perrumpere, fternere turres
Ingentes, totoque, ferum dare funera campo.
"Tis not enough his verses to complete,
In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the found a picture of the fenfe:
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the fame.
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This fwiftly flies, and fmoothly fkims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;
That, of rude form, his uncouth members fhows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
His monftrous tail in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vaft, curls up behind;
At once the image and the lines appear,
Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
Lo! when the failors fteer the pond'rous fhips,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
Incumbent on the main that roars around,
Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves refound;
The prows wide echoing thro' the dark profound.
To the loud call each diftant rock replies;
Toft by the storm the tow'ring furges rife;
While the hoarfe ocean beats the founding fhore,
Dafh'd from the ftrand, the flying waters roar.
Flash at the fhock, and gath'ring in a heap,
The liquid mountains rife, and over-hang the deep.
But when blue Neptune from his car furveys,
And calms at one regard the raging feas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep fubfides,
And the pitch'd veffel o'er the furface glides.
When things are fmall, the terms should still be so;
For low words please us, when the theme is low.
But when fome giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait, and vaft in ev'ry limb,
Stalks tow'ring on; the fwelling words must rife
In just proportion to the monster's size.
If fome large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verfe too labours; the throng'd words fcarce move.
When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th'encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor lefs, when pilots catch the friendly gales,
Unfurl their shrouds, and hoift the wide-stretch'd fails.
But if the poem fuffers from delay,
Let the lines fly precipitate away..
And when the viper iffues from the brake,
Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack
His rifing creft; and drive the ferpent back.
When night defcends, or stunn'd by num'rous strokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too finks with correspondent found,
Flat with the fteer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves fubfide, and tempeft cease,
And hush the roarings of the fea to peace;
So oft we fee the interrupted strain
Stop'd in the midft-and with the filent main
Paufe for a space-at laft it glides again.
When Priam ftrains his aged arms, to throw
His unavailing jav'line at the foe;
(His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unftrung)
Then with the theme complies the artful song;
Like him, the folitary numbers flow,
Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and flow.
Not fo young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.
The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,
Burts her ftrong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courfer to the speed,
In full career to charge the warlike steed:
He piles the field with mountains of the flain;
He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain.
From the Italian gardens Pope feems to have tranfplanted this flower, the growth of happier
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