make the Latin very natural, cannot appear fo well in our language, which is much more stubborn and unpliant, and therefore are but as fo many rubs in the ftory, that are ftill turning the narration out of its proper courfe. The transformation at the latter end is wonderfully beautiful.

FA B. IX.

Ovid has two very good fimiles on Pentheus, where he compares him to a river in a former ftory, and to a war horfe in the prefent,

ΑΝ

ESSAY

ON

VIRGIL's GEORGICS.

Prefixed to Mr. DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION.

VIRG

GIL may be reckoned the first who introduced three new kinds of poetry among the Romans, which he copied after three the greatest masters of Greece. Theocritus and Homer have ftill difputed for the advantage over him in Paftoral and Heroics, but I think all are unanimous in giving him the precedence to Hefiod in his Georgics. The truth of it is, the sweetness and rufticity of a Paftoral cannot be fo well expreffed in any other tongue as in the Greek, when rightly mixed and qualified with the Doric dialect; nor can the majesty of an heroic poem any where appear fo well as in this language, which has a natural great

nefs

nefs in it, and can be often rendred more deep and fonorous by the pronunciation of the Ionians. But in the middle style, where the writers in both tongues are on a level, we fee how far Virgil has excelled all who have written in the fame way with him.

There has been abundance of criticifm fpent on Virgil's Paftorals and Eneids, but the Georgics are a subject which none of the critics have fufficiently taken into their confideration; most of them paffing it over in filence, or cafting it under the fame head with Paftoral; a divifion by no means proper, unless we suppose the style of a husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgic, as that of a fhepherd is in Paftoral. But though the scene of both these poems lies in the fame place; the speakers in them are of a quite different character, fince the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the fimplicity of a plowman, but with the addrefs of a poet. No rules therefore that relate to Paftoral, can any way affect the Georgics, fince they fall under that class of poetry, which confifts in giving plain and direct inftructions to the reader; whether they be moral duties, as those of Theognis and Pythagoras; or philofophical fpeculations, as those of Aratus and Lucretius; or rules of practice, as thofe of Hefiod and Virgil. Among these different kinds of fubjects,

that

that which the Georgics go upon, is I think the meanest and leaft improving, but the moft pleafing and delightful. Precepts of morality, befides the natural corruption of our tempers, which makes us averse to them, are fo abftracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give an opportunity for those beautiful descriptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. Natural philofophy has indeed fenfible objects. to work upon, but then it often puzzles the reader with the intricacy of its notions, and perplexes him with the multitude of its disputes. But this kind of poetry I am now speaking of, addreffes itself wholly to the imagination: It is altogether converfant among the fields and woods, and has the most delightful part of nature for its province. It raises in our minds a pleasing variety of scenes and landskips, whilft it teaches us; and makes the dryeft of its precepts look like a description.

A Georgic therefore is fome part of the • science of husbandry put into a pleafing drefs, and fet off with all the beauties and ⚫ embellishments of poetry.' Now fince this science of husbandry is of a very large extent, the poet fhews his skill in fingling out fuch precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the fame time moft capable of ornament. Virgil was fo well acquainted with this fecret, that to fet off his firft Georgic, he has run

into

into a fet of precepts, which are almost foreign to his subject, in that beautiful account he gives us of the figns in nature, which precede the changes of the weather.

And if there be fo much art in the choice of fit precepts, there is much more required in the treating of them; that they may fall in after each other by a natural unforced method, and fhew themselves in the best and most advantageous light. They should all be fo finely wrought together in the fame piece, that no coarse feam may discover where they join; as in a curious brede of needle-work, one colour falls away by fuch juft degrees, and another rises fo infenfibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it fufficient to range and difpofe this body of precepts into a clear and eafy method, unless they are delivered to us in the most pleafing and agreeable manner; for there are feveral ways of conveying the same truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleasantest of these ways, is that which chiefly distinguishes poetry from profe, and makes Virgil's rules of husbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the profe-writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the poet often conceals the precept in a description, and represents his countryman performing

the