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sages, which relate the two appearances of this formidable figure; and I place them last, as I think them the most lofty of any part of Dryden's works:

Whilst list'ning to the murm'ring leaves he stood,
More than a mile immers'd within the wood,
At once the wind was laid--the whisp❜ring sound
Was dumb-a rising earthquake rock'd the ground:
With deeper brown the grove was overspread,
And his ears tingled, and his colour fled.

The sensations of a man upon the approach of some strange and supernatural danger, can scarcely be represented more feelingly. All nature is thus said to sympathize at the second appearance of

The felon on his sable steed

Arm'd with his naked sword, that urg'd his dogs to speed.

Thus it runs

The fiend's alarm began; the hollow sound
Sung in the leaves, the forest shook around,

Air blacken'd, roll'd the thunder, groan'd the ground.

But

But to conclude this digression on Dryden. It must be owned, that his Ode on the Power of Music, which is the chief ornament of this volume, is the most unrivalled of his compositions. By that strange fatality which seems to disqualify authors from judging of their own works, he does not appear to have valued this piece, because he totally omits it in the enumeration and criticism he has given of the rest in his preface to the volume. I shall add nothing to what I have already said on this subject,* but only relate the occasion and manner of his writing it. Mr. St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a visit to Dryden, whom he always rẻspected,† found him in an unusual agitation of spirits, even to a trembling. On enquiring the cause, "I have been up all night, (replied the old bard.) My musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their feast of St. CæC 2 cilia:

* Vol. I. pag. 51.

+ See his verses to Dryden, prefixed to the translation of Virgil. Lord Bolingbroke assured POPE, that Dryden often declared to him, that he got more from the Spanish critics alone, than from the Italian, French, and all other critics put together; which appears strange. This from Mr. Spence.

cilia I have been so struck with the subject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it: here it is, finished at one sitting." And immediately he shewed him this ode, which places the British lyric poetry above that of any other nation. This anecdote, as true as it is curious, was imparted by Lord Bolingbroke to POPE, by POPE to Mr. Gilbert West, by him to the ingenious friend who communicated it to me.* The rapidity, and yet the perspicuity, of the thoughts, the glow and the expressiveness of the images, those certain marksof the first sketch of a master, conspire to corroborate the truth of the fact.

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THE TRANSLATION of the first Book of Statius is the next piece that belongs to this Section. It was in his childhood only that he could make choice of so injudicious a writer.

wished, that no youth of genius

It were to be

were suffered

ever to look into Statius,† Lucan, Claudian, or

Richard Berenger, Esq.

Seneca

+ Writers of this stamp are always on the stretch. They disdain the natural: they are perpetually grasping at the vast,

the

Seneca the tragedian; authors, who, by their forced conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by their want of a just decorum, have a strong tendency to dazzle and to mislead inexperienced minds, and tastes unformed, from the true relish of possibility, propriety, simplicity, and nature. Statius had un

doubtedly invention, ability, and spirit; but his images are gigantic and outrageous, and his sentiments tortured and hyperbolical. It can hardly, I think, be doubted, but that Juvenal intended a severe satire on him, in these well known lines, which have been commonly interpreted as a panegyric:

Curritur ad vocem jucundam et carmen amica
Thebaidos, latam fecit cum Statius urbem,

Promisitque diem; tanta dulcedine, captos

Afficit ille animos, tantaque libidine vulgi

Auditur; sed, cum fregit subsellia versu,
Esurit.-

C 3

In

the wonderful, and the terrible. “ Καν έκαςον αυτών προς αυγας ανασκοπης, εκ τε φοβερε κατ' ολίγον ύπονοςει προς το ευκαταφρόνητον. Κακοι δε ογκοι, και επι σωματων και λογων, οι χαυνοι και αναληθείς, και μηποτε περιίσαντες ήμας εις τεναντιον εδεν γαρ φασι, ξηροτερον υδρωπικό.” Longinus, ei v↓es rμ. y. Sect. iii. They should read the sensible discourse of S. Wedrenfels, of Basle, De Meteoris Orationis.

In these verses are many expressions, here marked with italics, which seem to hint obliquely, that Statius was the favourite poet of the vulgar, who were easily captivated with a wild and inartificial tale, and with an empty magnificence of numbers; the noisy roughness of which may be particularly alluded to in the expression, fregit subsellia versu. One cannot forbear reflecting on the short duration of a true taste in poetry among the Romans. From the time of Lucretius, to that of Statius, was no more than about one hundred and forty-seven years; and if I might venture to pronounce so rigorous a sentence, I would say, that the Romans can boast of but eight poets who are unexceptionably excellent; namely, TERENCE, LUCRETIUS, CATULLUS, VIRGIL, HORACE, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, PHEDRUS. These only can be called legitimate models of just thinking and writing. Succeeding authors, as it happens in all countries, resolving to be original and new, and to avoid the imputation of copying, became distorted and unnatural: by endeavouring to open an unbeaten path, they deserted simplicity and truth: weary of common and obvious beauties, they must needs

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