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ftatue, call it their RAPHAEL or BERNINI, why should not Horace, in common speech, use the name of the workman, instead of the work? To mention the Hefperian apples, which the artist flung backwards, and almoft concealed as an inconfiderable object, and which therefore scarcely appear in the ftatue, was below the notice of POPE,

4. Amphion there the loud creating lyre
Strikes, and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire.
Cytheron's echos answer to his call,

And half the mountain rolls into a wall:

There might you see the lengthening fpires afcend,
The domes fwell up, the widening arches bend,
The growing tow'rs like exhalations rise,
And the huge columns heave into the skies *.

Ir may be imagined, that these expreffions are too bold; and a phlegmatic critic might afk, how it was poffible to fee, in fculpture, Arches bending, and Towers growing? But the best writers, in fpeaking of pieces of painting and fculpture, ufe the prefent tense, and

* Ver. 85.

talk

talk of the thing as really doing, to give a force to the description. Thus Virgil,

Gallos in limine adeffe canebat*.

- Incedunt victæ longo ordine gentes,
Quam variæ linguis, habitu tam veftis et armis f.

As Pliny fays, that, Clefilochus painted,
Jovem muliebriter ingemifcentem." And
Homer, in his beautiful and lively defcrip-
tion of the shield

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Μυκηθμω δ' απο κοπρε επισσευονο νομον δε,

Πας πόλεμον κελαδονία §.

In another place,

Λίνον υπο καλον αειδι 1.

Upon which Clarke has made an observation that furprises me: " fed quomodo in fcuto DEPINGI potuit, quem CANERET citharista?".

* Lib. viii. v. 656. lib. xviii. v. 494.

+ Lib. viii. v. 656.

§ Ver. 575

+ Iliad,

II Ver. 570.

THIS paffage muft not be parted with, till we have observed the artful rest upon the first fyllable of the second verse,

Amphion there the loud creating lyre
Strikes.

THERE are many instances of such judicious pauses in Homer.

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As likewife in the great imitator of Homer, who always accommodates the found to the fense,

And over them triumphant death his dart

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In the fpirited speech of Satan,

Bane*.

All good to me becomes

These monofyllables have much force and energy. The Latin language does not admit of fuch. Virgil therefore, who fo well underftood and copied all the fecret arts and charms of Homer's verfification, has afforded us no examples; yet, fome of his pauses on words of more fyllables are emphatical,

Vox quoque per lucos vulgo exaudita filentes,
Ingens t.

Verbaquet.

Hærent infixi pectore vultus

Sola domo mæret vacua, ftratifque relictis
Incubat §.

Pecudefque locutæ,

Infandum II!

5. These stopp'd the moon, and call'd th’unbody'd shades To midnight banquets in the glimm'ring glades;

*Book ix. v. 122. + Georg. i. v. 476. n. iv. v. 4. Georg. i. v. 478.

§ Æn. iv. v. 82.

Made

Made vifionary fabrics round them rife,
And airy spectres fkim before their eyes;
Of Talismans and Sigils knew the pow'r,
And careful watch'd the planetary hour *.

THESE fuperftitions of the Eaft, are highly ftriking to the imagination. Since the time that poetry has been forced to affume a more fober, and perhaps a more rational air, it fcarcely ventures to enter these fairy regions. There are some however, who think it has fuffered by deferting these fields of fancy, and by totally laying afide the defcriptions of magic and enchantment. What an exquifite picture has Thomson given us in his CASTLE OF INDOLENce.

As when a fhepherd of the Hebrid ifles,
Plac'd far amid the melancholy Main,
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles,
Or that aerial beings fometimes deign
To ftand, embodied, to our fenfes plain)
Sees on the naked hill or valley low,
The whilft in ocean Phoebus dips his wain,

A vaft affembly moving to and fro,

Then all at once in air diffolves the wonderous fhow t.

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