equally excellent. The temple of Mars, is fituated with propriety, in a country defolate and joylefs; all around it,

The landscape was a foreft wide and bare;
Where neither beaft nor human kind repair;
The fowl, that fcent afar, the borders fly,
And fhun the bitter blaft, and wheel about the fky.
A cake of fcurf lies baking on the ground,
And prickly ftubs inftead of trees are found.

The temple itself is nobly and magnificently ftudied; and, at the fame time, adapted to to the furious nature of the God to whom it belonged; and carries with it a barbarous and tremendous idea.

The frame of burnish'd feel that caft a glare
From far, and fecm'd to thaw the freezing air.
A ftrait long entry to the temple led,

Blind with high walls and horror over-head:
Thence iffued fuch a blaft and hollow roar,
As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door,
In through the door a northern light there fhone,
'Twas all it had, for windows there were none.
The gate of adamant, eternal frame,

Which hew'd by Mars himfelf from Indian quarries

came.

This scene of terror is judicioufly contrafted by the pleafing and joyous imagery of the temples of Venus and Diana. The figure of the last goddess, is a design fit for GUIDO to

execute.

The graceful Goddefs was array'd in green;
About her feet were little beagles feen,

That watch'd with UPWARD eyes the motions of their queen.

But above all, the whole defcription of the entering the lifts *, and of the enfuing combat, which is told at length, in the middle of the third book, is marvelloufly fpirited; and fo lively, as to make us fpectators of that interefting and magnificent tournament. Even the abfurdity of feigning ancient heroes, fuch as Thefeus and Lycurgus, prefent at the lifts and a modern combat, is overwhelmed and obliterated amidst the blaze, the pomp, and the profufion of fuch animated poetry. Fri

* The reader is defired all along to remember, that the firft delineation of all thefe images is in Chaucer, and it might be worth examining how much Dryden has added purely from his own stock

gid

gid and phlegmatic must be the critic, who could have leisure dully and foberly to attend to the anachronism on so striking an occafion. The mind is whirled away by a torrent of rapid imagery, and propriety is forgot.

THE tale of Sigifmonda and Guifcardo is heightened with many new and affecting touches by Dryden. I fhall felect only the following picture of Sigifmonda, as it has the fame attitude in which the appears in a famous piece of CORREGGIO.

Mute, folemn forrow, free from female noife,
Such as the Majefty of grief deftroys:

For bending o'er the cup, the tears the fhed
Seem'd by the pofture to discharge her head,
O'erfill'd before; and oft (her mouth apply'd
To the cold heart) fhe kiss'd at once and cry'd.

There is an incomparable wildness in the vifion of Theodore and Honoria *, that repre

"It is a

*This is one of Boccace's most serious stories. curious thing to fee at the head of an edition of Boccace's tales, printed at Florence in 1573, a privilege of Gregory XIII. who fays, that in this he follows the fteps of Pius V. his predeceffor, of bleffed memory, and which threatens with

fents the furious fpectre of " the horseman ghoft that came thundering for his prey," and of the gaunt maftiffs that tore the fides of the fhrieking damfel he pursued; which is a fubject worthy the pencil of Spagnoletti, as it partakes of that favageness which is fo ftriking to the imagination. I fhall confine myself to point out only two paffages, 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.

Whilft lift'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 found
Was dumb-a rifing earthquake rock'd the ground:
With deeper brown the grove was overspread,

And his ears tingled, and his colour fled.

The fenfations of a man upon the approach of some strange and fupernatural danger, can fcarcely be reprefented more feelingly. All

fevere punishments all those, who shall dare to give any dif turbance to those bookfellers to whom this privilege is granted. There is also a decree of the inquifition in favour of this edition, in which the holy father caused some alterations to be made." LONGUERUANA, Tom. II. p. 62. a Berlin, 1754

Vol. II.

M

nature

nature is thus faid to fympathize at the fecond appearance of

The felon on his fable steed

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

Thus it runs

The fiend's alarm began; the hollow found
Sung in the leaves, the forest shook around,
Air blacken'd, roll'd the thunder, groan'd the ground.

BUT to conclude this digreffion on Dryden. It must be owned, that his ode on the power of mufic, which is the chief ornament of this volume, is the most unrivalled of his compofitions. By that strange fatality which feems 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 fhall add nothing to what I have already said on this fubject; but only tell the occafion and manner of his writing it. Mr. St. John, after