r bid with apples barren planes look gay; ft has the beech improv'd the chefnut bore,

he wild-ash stood with pear-tree blossoms hoar,

}

WARTON.

nd swine beneath the elm have crack'd the masty store.

. From the Hawthorn's bough.]

rs are grafted either on pear-stocks or hawthorns.

So Maro's Mufe,

Thrice facred Mufe! commodious precepts gives
Inftructive to the fwain; not wholly bent

On what is gainful: fometimes fhe diverts
From folid counfels

]

though the Poet (fays Dr. Warton, in his REFLECTIONS ON ACTIC POETRY fubjoined to his elegant tranflation of the gics) delivers his precepts in the most artful manner imaginable, enders them as palatable as poffible, yet the reader will foon be fted with a continued feries of inftruction, if his mind be not wed, at proper intervals, by pleafing digreffions of various kinds rally arifing from the main fubject, and clofely connected with it. irgil had confined himself merely to agriculture, and had never ted in his poem the prodigies that attended the death of Julius ar, the Praises of Italy, the Chariot Race, the Scythian Winter e, the Happiness of a Country Life, the Loves of the Beafts, the pathetic Defcription of the Plague among the Cattle; his rgics, though abounding with the most useful rules delivered with ity and grace united, would never have been the delight and iration of his own and all fucceeding ages."

18.

fhews the force of love

F

In

In favage beasts; how virgin face divine
Attracts the hapless youth thro' ftorms and waves, 320

In favage beasts.]

The admired defcription of the " Loves of the Beasts," here referred to, is in the third GEORGIC. The paffage is too long to infert both the original and the tranflation: it is therefore here given from Dr. Warton's excellent verfion, which has fuch peculiar merit that, while it is a very clofe tranflation, it reads with all the fpirit of originality.

Thus man and beaft, the tenants of the flood,

The herds that graze the plain, the feathery brood,
Rush into love and feel the general flame;

For love is lord of all, and is in all the fame.
'Tis with this rage the mother lion ftung
Prowls o'er the plain, regardless of her young.
'Tis then the shapeless bear with scenes of blood,
With murd'rous deeds, pollutes th' affrighted wood:
Then boars in fight with double warmth engage,
And the grim tygrefs calls forth all her rage.
Ah! wretched then the traveller who ftrays
Forlorn o'er Lybia's unfrequented ways!
See, what thick pants the stallions fires declare,
Whene'er in tainted gales he fcents the mare;
Nor curbs, nor tort'ring whips his rage reftrain,
And mountains rife to check his flight in vain;
In vain the torrent rolls, that tumbling sweeps
The maffy fragment from the craggy steeps.
Rushes the Sabine boar, and rends the ground,
And whets his tusk to ftrike the furer wound,
Rubs his rough fides against th' accuftom'd oak,
And difciplines his brawn to bear the rival's ftroke.
bow virgin face divine

319.

Attracts the hapless youth.]

VIRGIN FACE DIVINE is from Milton's
Human face divine: P. L. iii. 44.

Which was poffibly fuggefted by Ovid's

Os homini fublime dedit: cœlumque tueri
Juffit, et erectos ad fidera tollere vultus.

MET. 1. 85.

The well-known ftory of Hero and Leander is thus introduced by

Virgil in his third GEORGIC.

Quid juvenis magnum cui verfat in offibus ignem
Durus amor? nempe abruptis turbata procellis
Nocte natat cœcâ ferus freta: quem fuper ingens
Porta tonat cœli, et fcopulis inlifa reclamant
Equora; nec miferi poffunt revocare parentes,
Nec moritura fuper crudeli funere virgo.

V. 258.

How

Χειμερίης πνοιήσιν ακοντίζοντες αηται,
Αθροον εμπιπίωσιν επι ρηγμῖνι θαλασσης.
Δη τιε Λειανδρος περ' εθήμονος ελπιδι νυμφης
Δυσκελαδων πεφορητο θαλασσαίων επι νωίων.
Hồn κυματι κυμα κυλινδετο. συγχυτο δ ̓ ὕδωρ,
Αιθερο μισγελο ποιος ανεγρετο παιλοθεν ηχη
Μαρναμένων ανέμων. ζεφυρῳ δ' αντεπνεεν εὕρος,
Και νοτος ες βορέην μεγαλας αφέηκεν απειλας.
Και κτυπος ἦν αλίαςος ερισμάραγοιο θαλασσης.
'Twas night; and now with deeper roar the winds,
Winds by fell winter arm'd with fiercer blafts,
Burft in redoubled rage upon the shore.
Ev'n then Leander, urged by fond defire
T'enfold his much-lov'd fair, again was borne
On the strong furges of the foaming main.
Now billows roll'd on billows; now the clouds
In gufhing torrents pour'd; the fea and sky
Knew no diftinction, while on every fide
Rofe the loud clangor of conflicting winds.
The furious Eaft warr'd with the Western blast ;
The South defied the North: dire was the din
Of ocean rent by the wide-fwelling ftorm.

above attempt to render the cited paffage is offered, because the ranflation of the Poem, to which the Editor has immediate re, is one, more bold than correct, publifhed in the year 1773, with he initials of the Author's name, E. B. G.-This tranflation ever accompanied with an opinion, concerning the true date of the al Poem, which deferves our attention.

Tranflator fuppofes, that "the Poem, as originally written, ifted an earlier date than the days of Mufæus the Grammarian; σε and

F 2

1

The Scythian winter, nor disdains to fing
How under ground the rude Riphæan race

" and that this Mufæus, in whofe hands it might have been lodged by "the revolutions of time, probably fupplied cafual omiffions, and re"duced the mangled carcafe into a more regular form; either himself, or others little fitted to the task, tinging it with those blemishes, which difplay too many inftances of officious inequality."

66

66

He adds, "It may be reasonably fuppofed, that this romantic hiftory 66 was of a very ancient origin; and that the earlier age of Poefy must "have recommended it to some author of peculiar eminence. It cannot "be prefumed to have flept unnoticed till the more recent æra of Musæus "the Grammarian."

322. The Scythian winter.]

Connoiffeurs in Poetry have confidered the Scythian Winter-piece, in the third GEORGIC, as one of the Capital Paintings of Virgil. "The Scythian Winter-piece," fays Mr. Addifon, “ appears fo very cold and bleak to "the eye, that a man can fearce look on it without fhuddering."

Dr. Warton's Copy is at once fo correct and masterly, that there is little
need of any apology for not prefenting the Reader with the Original.
Not fo in Scythia fhepherds tend their fheep,
Where fad Mootis fpreads his fable deep;
Thick yellow fands where Ifter's torrents roll,
And Rhodope returns to meet the pole.

Their flocks they ftall; for o'er the unfruitful scene
Nor fields, nor trees are cloth'd in lively green :
One wafte of fnow the joyless landscape lies,
Seven ells in height the ridgy drifts arise.
There ftill the bitter blafts of winter dwell,
Nor the fun's rays the paly fhade difpel,

When first he climbs his noon-tide courfe, or laves
His headlong car in ocean's purple waves.
Th' encroaching ice the loit'ring current feels,
And on its bofom bears the ftudded wheels.
Where once the ftately bark was wont to ride,
Waggons, thro' paths unknown, fecurely glide.
Oft from the veffel burfts the brazen band,

Stiff round their fides their frozen garments ftand.
With fharpen'd feel they cleave the huraid wine,
And chains of folid ice whole lakes confine;
Their matted beards, by the keen climate frore,
With hanging icicles are hard and hoar.
Meantime the fkies are dim with falling fnows,
Thick clouds of fleet th' unwieldy ox inclose,
In growing heaps benumb'd, the crowding deer
Scarce from beneath their branching antlers rear;

Nor

Sloes pounded, Hips, and Servis' harshest juice.]

ccount of the northern nations making a vinous liquor, from the the fervis-tree, is given in the third GEORGIC. V. 376.

pfi in defoffis fpecubus fecura fub altâ

Otia agunt terrâ, congeftaque robora, totafque
Advolvere focis ulmos, ignique dedere.
Hic noctem ludo ducunt, et pocula læti
Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea forbis.

To fubterraneous caves the natives fly,
T' avoid the winter's keen severity;

There many a pile of flaming oak they raise ;

Heap on whole elms at once, and bid them blaze;
No toil they know, their nights with sports are crown'd,
While jovial goblets circle gaily round,

For not unskilful are they to produce

A mimic wine from fervis' harfheft juice.

ps's allufion, to the above paffage, feems not to be on account particular merit in the paffage itfelf, or of its varying from the tion of the northern winter, of which it is really a continuation; may suppose it introduced here, to afford him an opportunity of back again into his fubject.

27.

In-eyeing.]

Greeks termed the operation of budding ενοφθαλμισμος, and the from them inoculatio; and fo. we fometimes call it inoculating, Philips elevates into in-eyeing.-Virgil defcribes the method of g, or inoculating, in his fecond GEORGIC, V. 74; where he "the bud to be inferted in a little aperture made where an original grew."

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