Flaccus, for that of Apollonius is of a different nature, is the happily chosen subject of the third. On hearing which, Each chief his sevenfold fhield display'd, Which effects of the fong, however lively, do not equal the force and fpirit of what Dryden afcribes to the fong of his Grecian artift; for when Timotheus cries out REVENGE, raises the furies, and calls up to Alexander's view a troop of Grecian ghofts that were flain and left unburied, inglorious and forgotten, each of them waving a torch in his hand, and pointing to the hoftile temples of the Perfians, and demanding vengeance of their prince, he inftantly started from his throne, Seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to deftroy *, while Thais and the attendant princes rushed out with him to fet fire to the city. The Thefe anapetts, for fuch they are, have a fine effect. whole train of imagery in this ftanza is alive, fublime, and animated to an unparallelled degree; the poet had fo ftrongly poffeffed himself of the action defcribed, that he. places it fully before the eyes of the reader. THE descent of Orpheus into hell is gracefully introduced in the fourth ftanza, as it naturally flowed from the subject of the preceding one; the defcription of the infernal regions is well imagined, and the effects of the musician's lyre on the inhabitants of hell, are elegantly tranflated from the fourth Georgic of Virgil*, and happily adapted to the fubject in queftion. The fupplicating fong at the beginning of the fifth stanza, is highly pathetic and poetical, especially when he conjures the powers below in beautiful trochaics, By the hero's armed fhades Glittering through the gloomy glades, • Ver. 480. Thefe These images are picturefque and appropriated; and these are fuch notes as might, Draw iron tears down Pluto's cheek *, But the numbers that conclude this ftanza are of so burlesque and ridiculous a kind, and have fo much the air of a drinking fong at a county election, that one is amazed and concerned to find them in a ferious ode, and in an ode of a writer eminently fkilled, in general, in accommodating his founds to his fentiments. Thus fong could prevail A conqueft how hard and how glorious ! With Styx nine times round her, One would imagine that John Dennis, or fome hero of the Dunciad, had been here attempting to travefty this defcription of the Milton's II Penferofo. E 4 reftora restoration of Eurydice to life. It is obfervable, that this is the very measure Addifon thought was proper to use in the comic character of Sir Trufty; by the introduction of which he has fo ftrangely debased and degraded his opera of Rofamond. How unhappy is he And fam'd for his wit and his beauty; For of us pretty fellows, Our wives are fo jealous, They ne'er have enough of our duty *. Thefe numbers therefore, according to Addifon's ear, conveyed a low and ludicrous idea, instead of being expreffive of triumph and exaltation, the images here intended to be impreffed by POPE. VIRGIL is again imitated throughout the fixth ftanza, which describes the behaviour of Orpheus on the fecond lofs of Eurydice. * A&t I. Scene II. See alfo, Scene IV. A&I. A fong of Grideline and Trufty. A&III. Scene IV. I wish I wish POPE had inferted that ftriking circumftance, fo ftrongly imagined, of a certain melancholy murmur, or rather difmal fhriek, that was heard all around the lakes of Avernus, the moment Orpheus looked back on his wife; Terque fragor ftagnis auditus Avernis *. And as profopopeias are a great beauty in lyric poetry, furely he fhould not have omitted those natural and pathetic exclamations of Eurydice, the moment she was snatched back, and which he uttered as fhe was gradually finking to the fhades, especially where the movingly takes her laft adieu, Jamque vale! And adds, that fhe is now furrounded with a vaft darkness, "feror ingenti circumdatą nocte," and in vain ftretching out her feeble arms towards him,, Invalidafque tibi tendens, heu! non tuą, palmast. * Georgic. iv. 493. + Ver. 498. |