scapes, whilst it teaches us, and makes the driest of its precepts look like a description. A Georgic, therefore, is some part of the science of husbandry put into a pleasing dress, and set aff with all the beauties and embellishments of poetry. Now, since this science of husbandry is of a very large extent, the poet shows his skill in singling out such precepts to proceed on, as are useful, and at the same time most capable of ornament. Virgil was so well acquainted with this secret, that, to set off his Georgics, he has run into a set of precepts, which are almost foreign to his subject, in that beautiful account he gives us of the signs in nature, which precede the changes of the weather.

And, if there be so much art in the choice of fit precepts, there is much more required in the treating of them, that they may fall in after each other by a natural unforced method, and show themselves in the best and most advantageous light. They should all be so finely wrought together in the same piece, that no coarse seam may discover where they join; as, in a curious brede of needlework, one colour falls away by such just degrees, and another rises so insensibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it sufficient to range and dispose this body of precepts into a clear and easy method, unless they are delivered to us in the most pleasing and agreeable manner: for there are several ways of conveying the same truth to the mind of man; and to choose the pleasantest of these ways is that which chiefly distinguishes poetry from prose, and makes Virgil's rules of husbandry pleasanter to read than Varro's. Where the prose-writer tells us plainly what ought to be done, the poet often conceals the precept in a description, and represents his countryman performing the action in which he would instruct his reader. Where the one sets out, as fully and distinctly as he can, all the parts of the truth which he would communicate to us, the other singles out the most pleasing circumstance of this truth, and so conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the understanding. I shall give one instance, out of a multitude of this nature, that might be found in the Georgics, where the reader may see the different ways Virgil has taken to express the same thing, and how much pleasanter every manner of expression is, than the plain and direct mention of it would have been. It is in the Second Georgic, where ne tells us what trees will bear grafting on each other:

Et sæpe alterius ramos impune videmus
Vertere in alterius, mutatamque insita mala

Ferre pyrum, et prunis lapidosa rubescere corna
-Steriles platani malos gessere valentes:
Castaneæ fagus, ornusque incanuit albo
Flore pyri; glandemque sues fregere sub ulmie.
-Nec longum tempus; et ingens
Exiit ad cœlum ramis felicibus arbos;
Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma.

Here, we see, the poet considered all the ef fects of this union between trees of different

kinds, and took notice of that effect which had the most surprise, and by consequence the most delight in it, to express the capacity that was in them of being thus united. This way of writing is everywhere much in use among the poets, and is particularly practised by Virgil, who loves to suggest a truth indirectly, and, without giving us a full and open view of it, to let us see just so much as will naturally lead the imagination into all the parts that lie concealed. This is wonderfully diverting to the understanding, thus to receive a precept, that enters, as it were, through a by-way, and to apprehend an idea that draws a whole train after it. For here the mind, which is always delighted with its own discoveries, only takes the hint from the poet, and seems to work out the rest by the strength of her own faculties.

But, since the inculcating precept upon precept will at length prove tiresome to the reader, if he meets with no other entertainment,—the poet must take care not to encumber his poem with too much business, but sometimes to relieve the subject with a moral reflection, or let it rest a while for the sake of a pleasant and pertinent digression. Nor is it sufficient to run out into beautiful and diverting digressions, (as it is generally thought,) unless they are brought in aptly, and are something of a piece with the main design of the Georgic: for they ought to have a remote alliance at least to the subject, that so the whole poem may be more uniform and agreeable in all its parts. We should never quite lose sight of the country, though we are sometimes entertained with a distant prospect of it. Of this nature are Virgil's descriptions of the origin of agriculture, of the fruitfulness of Italy, of a country life, and the like, which are not brought in by force, but naturally rise out of the principal argument and design of the poem. I know no one digression in the Georgics that that in the latter end of the first book, where the may seem to contradict this observation, besides poet launches out into a discourse of the batile of Pharsalia, and the actions of Augustus: but it is worth while to consider how admirably he has turned the course of his narration into its proper channel, and made his husbandman concerned even in what relates to the battle, in those inimitable lines:

AN ESSAY ON THE GEORGICS

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis
Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,
Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila,

Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris.

And afterwards, speaking of Augustus's actions, he still remembers, that agriculture ought to be some way hinted at throughout the whole

poem:

Non ullus aratro Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis; Et curve rigidum falces conflantur in ensem.

We now come to the style which is proper to a Georgic; and indeed this is the part on which the poet must lay out all his strength, that his words may be warm and glowing, and that every thing he describes may immediately present itHe self, and rise up to the reader's view. ought, in particular, to be careful of not letting his subject debase his style, and betray him into a meanness of expression, but everywhere to keep up his verse in all the pomp of numbers, and dignity of words.

I think nothing, which is a phrase or saying in common talk, should be admitted into a serious poem; because it takes off from the solemnity of the expression, and gives it too great a turn of familiarity. Much less ought the low phrases and terms of art, that are adapted to husbandry, have any place in such a work as the Georgic, which is not to appear in the natural simplicity and nakedness of its subject, but in the pleasantest dress that poetry can bestow on it. Thus Virgil, to deviate from the common form of words, would not make use of tempore, but sidere, in his first verse, and everywhere else abounds with metaphors, Grecisms, and circumlocutions, to give his verse the greater pomp, and preserve it from sinking into a plebeian style. And herein consists Virgil's master-piece, who has not only excelled all other poets, but even himself, in the language of his Georgics, where we receive more strong and lively ideas of things from his words, than we could have done from the objects themselves; and find our imaginations more affected by his descriptions, than they would have been by the very sight of what he describes.

I shall now, after this short scheme of rules, consider the different success that Hesiod and Virgil have met with in this kind of poetry, which may give us some farther notion of the excellence of the Georgics. To begin with Hesiod:-If we may guess at his character from his writings, he had much more of the husbandman than the poet in his temper: he was wonderfully grave, discreet, and frugal: he lived altogether in the country, and was probably, for

his great prudence, the oracle of the neighbour
hood. These principles of good husbandry ran
through his works, and directed him to the
choice of tillage and merchandise, for the sub-
ject of that which is the most celebrated of
them. He is everywhere bent on instruction,
avoids all manner of digressions, and does not
stir out of the field once in the whole Georgic.
His method, in describing month after month,
with its proper seasons and employments, is too
grave and simple; it takes off from the surprise
and variety of the poem, and makes the whole
look but like a modern almanac in verse. The
reader is carried through a course of weather,
and may beforehand guess whether he is to meet
with snow or rain, clouds or sunshine, in the
next description. His descriptions, indeed,
have abundance of nature in them; but then it
is nature in her simplicity and undress. Thus,
when he speaks of January,-"The wild
beasts," says he, "run shivering through the
woods, with their heads stooping to the ground,
and their tails clapped between their legs; the
goats and oxen are almost flayed with cold: but
it is not so bad with the sheep, because they
have a thick coat of wool about them. The old
men too are bitterly pinched with the weather:
but the young girls feel nothing of it, who sit at
home with their mothers by a warm fireside."
Thus does the old gentleman give himself up to
a loose kind of tattle, rather than endeavour
after a just poetical description. Nor has he
shown more of art or judgment in the precepts
he has given us, which are sown so very thick,
that they clog the poem too much, and are often
so minute and full of circumstances, that they
weaken and unnerve his verse. But, after all,
we are beholden to him for the first rough sketch
of & Georgic; where we may still discover
something venerable in the antiqueness of the
work: but, if we would see the design enlarged,
the figures reformed, the colouring laid on, and
the whole piece finished, we must expect it from
a greater master's hand.

Virgil has drawn out the rules of tillage and planting into two books, which Hesiod has despatched in half a one; but has so raised the natural rudeness and simplicity of his subject with such a significancy of expression, such a pomp of verse, such variety of transitions, and such a solemn air in his reflections, that, if we look on both poets together, we see in one the plainness of a downright countryman, and, in the other, something of a rustic majesty, like that of a Roman dictator at the ploughtail. He delivers the meanest of his precepts with a kind of grandeur: he breaks the clods, and tosses the dung about, with an air of gracefulness. His

THE POEMS OF DRYDEN.

TRANSLATIONS FROM VIRGIL.

PASTORAL I.

OR,

TITYRUS AND MELIBUS.

ARGUMENT

The occasion of the first pastoral was this. When Augustus had settled himself in the Roman empire, that he might reward his veteran troops for their past service, he distributed among them all the lands that lay about Cremona and Mantua; turning out the right owners for having sided with his enemies. Virgil was a sufferer among the rest; who afterwards recovered his estate by Mæcenas's intercession, and, as an instance of his gratitude, composed the following pastoral, where he sets out his own good fortune in the person of Tityrus, and the calamities of his Mantuan neighbours in the character of Melibus.

MELIBEUS.

I envy not your fortune but adınire,
That, while the raging sword and wasteful fire
Destroy the wretched neighbourhood around,
No hostile arms approach your happy ground.
Far diffrent is my fate: my feeble goats
With pains I drive from their forsaken cotes.
And this, you see, I scarcely drag along,
Who, yeaning, on the rocks has left her young;
The hope and promise of my falling fold.
My loss, by dire portents the gods foretold;
For, had I not been blind, I might have seen :-
Yon riven oak, the fairest of the green,

TITYRUS.

Freedom, which came at length, tho' slow to

We stood amaz'd to see your mistress mourn,
Unknowing that she pin'd for your return:
We wonder'd why she kept her fruit so long,
For whom so late th' ungather'd apples hung.
But now the wonder ceases, since I see
She kept them only, Tityrus, for thee.
For thee the bubbling springs appear'd to mourn,
And whisp'ring pines made vows for thy re-