travelled, so did Æneas; but neither of them were the first travellers: for Cain went into the land of Nod, before they were born, and neither of the poets ever heard of such a man. If Ulysses had been killed at Troy, yet Æneas must have gone to sea, or he could never have arrived in Italy. But the designs of the two poets were as different as the courses of their heroes; one went home, and the other sought a home.

Suppose

To return to my first similitude. Apelles and Raffaelle had each of them painted a burning Troy, might not the modern painter have succeeded as well as the ancient, though neither of them had seen the town on fire? For the draughts of both were taken from the ideas which they had of nature. Cities have been burnt before either of them were in being. But to close the simile as I began it; they would not have designed it after the same manner: Apelles would have distinguished Pyrrhus from the rest of all the Grecians, and shewed him forcing his entrance into Priam's palace; there he had set him in the fairest light, and given him the chief place of all his figures; because he was a Grecian, and he would do honour to his country. Raffaelle, who was an Italian, and descended from the Trojans, would have made Æneas the hero of his piece, and perhaps not with his father on his back, his son in one hand, his bundle of gods in the other, and his wife following; for an act of piety is not half so graceful in a picture, as an act of

courage he would rather have drawn him killing Androgeus, or some other, hand to hand; and the blaze of the fires should have darted full upon his face, to make him conspicuous amongst his Trojans. This I think is a just comparison betwixt the two poets, in the conduct of their several designs. Virgil cannot be said to copy Homer; the Grecian had only the advantage of writing first. If it be urged that I have granted a resemblance in some parts, yet therein Virgil has excelled him. . For what are the tears of Calypso for being left, to the fury and death of Dido ? Where is there the whole process of her passion, and all its violent effects to be found, in the languishing episode of the ODYSSES? If this be to copy, let the criticks shew us the same disposition, features, or colouring, in their original. The like may be said of the descent to hell; which was not of Homer's invention neither: he had it from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. But to what end did Ulysses make that journey? Æneas undertook it by the express commandment of his father's ghost. There he was to shew him all the succeeding heroes of his race; and next to Romulus, (mark, if you please, the address of Virgil,) his own patron, Augustus Cæsar. Anchises was likewise to instruct him how to manage the Italian war, and how to conclude it with his honour: that is, in other words, to lay the foundations of that empire which Augustus was to govern. This is the noble invention of our author; but it hath

been copied by so many signpost daubers, that now it is grown fulsome; rather by their want of skill, than by the commonness.

In the last place, I may safely grant, that by reading Homer, Virgil was taught to imitate his invention; that is, to imitate like him; which is no more than if a painter studied Raffaelle, that he might learn to design after his manner. And thus I might imitate Virgil, if I were capable of writing an heroick poem, and yet the invention be my own; but I should endeavour to avoid a servile copying. I would not give the same story under other names, with the same characters, in the same order, and with the same sequel; for every common reader to find me out at the first sight for a plagiary, and cry-" this I read before in Virgil, in a better language, and in better verse.' This is like Merry-Andrew on the low rope, copying lubberly the same tricks which his master is so dexterously performing on the high.

I will trouble your Lordship but with one objection more, which I know not whether I found in Le Fevre, or Valois; but I am sure I have read it in another French critick, whom I will not name,' because I think it is not much for his reputation. Virgil, in the heat of action, suppose for example, in describing the fury of his hero in a battle, when he is endeavouring to raise our concernments to the highest pitch, turns short on

* I suspect, Dacier is the

person meant.

the sudden into some similitude, which diverts, say they, your attention from the main subject, and mispends it on some trivial image. He pours cold water into the caldron, when his business is to make it boil,

This accusation is general against all who would be thought heroick poets; but I think it touches Virgil less than any. He is too great a master of his art, to make a blot which may so easily be hit. Similitudes, as I have said, are not for tragedy, which is all violent, and where the passions are in a perpetual ferment; for there they deaden, where they should animate; they are not of the nature of dialogue, unless in comedy. A metaphor is almost all the stage can suffer, which is a kind of similitude comprehended in a word. But this figure has a contrary effect in heroick poetry; there it is employed to raise the admiration, which is its proper business: and admiration is not of so violent a nature as fear or hope, compassion or horrour, or any concernment we can have for such or such a person on the stage. Not but I confess that similitudes and descriptions, when drawn into an unreasonable length, must needs nauseate the reader. Once I remember, and but once, Virgil makes a similitude of fourteen lines; and his description of Fame is about the same number. He is blamed for both; and I doubt not but he would have contracted them, had he lived to have reviewed his work: but faults are no precedents. This I have observed of his similitudes in general,

that they are not placed, as our unobserving criticks tell us, in the heat of any action, but commonly in its declining: when he has warmed us in his description, as much as possibly he can, then, lest that warmth should languish, he renews it by some apt similitude, which illustrates his subject, and yet palls not his audience. I need give your Lordship but one example of this kind, and leave the rest to your observation, when next you review the whole ENEIS in the original, unblemished by my rude translation. It is in the first book, where the poet describes Neptune composing the ocean, on which Æolus had raised a tempest, without his permission. He had already chidden the rebellious winds, for obeying the commands of their usurping master; he had warned them from the seas; he had beaten down the billows with his mace; dispelled the clouds, restored the sunshine, while Triton and Cymothoe were heaving the ships from off the quicksands, before the poet would offer at a similitude for illustration :

Ac, veluti magno in populo cum sæpe coorta est
Seditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus ;

Jamque faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministral;
Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant:
Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet:
Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, æquora postquam
Prospiciens genitor, caloque invectus aperto
Flectit equos, curruque volans dat lora secundo.

This is the first similitude which Virgil makes