Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes. Oh may the gods thus keep us ever join'd! The boy, thus lost in woman, now survey'd The heavenly parents answer'd from on ligh NOTES ON SOME OF THE FOREGOING STORIES IN ON THE STORY OF PHAETON. THE story of Phaeton is told with a greater air of majesty and grandeur than any other in all Ovid. It is indeed the most important subject he treats of, except the Deluge; and I cannot but believe that this is the conflagration be hints at in the first book; Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus, Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laboret; (though the learned apply those verses to the fu. ture burning of the world) for it fully answers that description, if the VOL. IX. Cali miserere tui, circumspice utrumque, Famat uterque polus-comes up to correptaqué regia cœli.-Besides, it is Ovid's custom to prepare the reader for a following story, by giving. some intimations of it in a foregoing one, which was more particularly necessary to be done before he led us into so strange a story as this he is now upon. P. 545. col. 1. 1. 34. For in the portal, &c.] We have here the picture of the universe drawn in little. -Balænarumque prementem Ægeona suis immania terga lacertis. -Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen: qualem decet esse sororum. The thought is very pretty, of giving Doris and her daughters such a difference in their looks as is natural to different persons, and yet such a likeness as showed their affinity. Terra viros, urbesque gerit, sylvasque, ferasque, The less important figures are well huddled to. -Circum caput omne micantes Deposuit radios; propiusque accedere jussit. P. 545. col. 2. 1. 21. And flung the blaze, &c.] It gives us a great image of Phoebus, that the youth was forced to look on him at a distance, and not able to approach him until he had laid aside the circle of rays that cast such a glory about his head. And indeed we may every where observe in Ovid, that he never fails of a due loftiness in his ideas, though he wants it in his words. And this I think infinitely better than to have sublime expressions and mean thoughts, which is generally the true character of Claudian and Statius. But this is not considered by them who run down Ovid in the gross, for a low middle way of writing. What can be more simple and unadorned, than his descrip tion of Enceladus in the fifth book? Nititur ille quidem, pugnatque resurgere sæpe, Dextra sed Ausonio manus est subjecta Peloro, Læva, Pachyne, tibi, Lilibæo crura premuntur, Degravat Etna caput, sub quâ resupinus arenas Ejectat, flammamque fero vomit ore Typhoeus. But the image we have here is truly great and sublime, of a giant vomiting out a tempest of fire, and heaving up all Sicily, with the body of an island upon his breast, and a vast promontory on either arm. There are few books that have had worse commentators on them than Ovid's Metamorphoses. Those of the graver sort have been wholly taken up in the mythologies; and think they have appeared very judicious, if they have shown us out of an old author that Ovid is mistaken in a pedigree, or has turned such a person into a wolf that ought to have been made a tiger. Others have employed themselves on what never entered into the poet's thoughts, in adapting a dull moral to every story, and making the persons of his poems But Aureus axis erat, temo aureus, aurea summæ P. 546. col. 1. 1. 54. Drive them not on directly, &c.] Several have endeavoured to vindicate Ovid against the old jection, that he mistakes the annual for the diurnal motion of the Sun, The dau phin's notes tell us that Ovid knew very well the Sun did not pass through all the signs he names in one day, but that he makes Phoebus mention them only to frighten Phaeton from the undertaking. But though this may answer for what Phoebus says in his first speech, it cannot form what is said in this, where he is actually giving directions for his journey, and plainly to be only nicknames for such virtues or vices;, scription of the chariot, give these verses a great” particularly the pious commentator, Alexander sweetness and majesty: Ross, has dived deeper into our author's design than any of the rest; for he discovers in him the greatest inysteries of the christian religion, and finds almost in every page some typical representation of the world, the flesh and the devil. if these writers have gone too deep, others have been wholly employed in the surface: most of them serving only to help out a school-boy in the construing part; or if they go out of their way, it is only to mark out the gnome of the author, as they call them, which are generally the heaviest pieces of a poet, distinguished from the rest by Italian characters. The best of Ovid's expositors is he that wrote for the dauphin's use, who has very well shown the meaning of the auther, but seldom reflects on his beauties or imperfections; for in most places he rather acts the geographer than the critic, and instead of pointing out the fineness of a description, only tells you in what part of the world the place is situated. I shall therefore only consider Ovid under the character of a poet, and endeavour to show him impartially, without the usual prejudice of a translator: which I am the mo re willing to do, because I believe such a comment would give the reader a truer taste of poetry han a comment on any other poet would do; for, in reflecting on the ancient poets, men think they may venture to praise all they meet with in some, and scarce any thing in others; but Ovid is confest to have a mixture of both kinds, to have something of the best and worst poets, and by consequence to be the fairest subject for criticism. P. 545. col. 2. 1. 34. My son, says he,&c.] Phobus's speech is very nobly ushered in, with the Terque quaterque concutiens illustre caput--and well represents the danger and difficulty of the undertaking; but that which is its peculiar beauty, and makes it truly Ovid's, is the representing them just as a father would to his young son; Per tamen adversi gradieris cornua Tauri, crum for one while he scares him with bugbears in the way, ➡Vasti quoque rector Olympi, Qui fera terribili jaculatur fulmina dextrâ,” mus? Deprecor hoc unum, quod vero nomine pœna, Non honor est. Poenam, Phacton, pro inunere poscis. And in other places perfectly tattles like a father, -Patrio pater esse metu probor; aspice valtus P. 546. col.1. 1.29. A golden axle, &c.] Ovid has more turns and repetitions in his words than any of the Latin poets, which are always wonderfully easy and natural in him. The repetition of aureus, and the transition to argenteus, in the de Sectus in obliquum est lato curvamine limes, 1 P. 546. col. 1. 1. last. And not my chariot, &c.] Ovid's verse is, Consiliis non curribus utere nostris. This way of joining two such different ideas as chariot and counsel to the same verb is mightily used by Ovid; but is a very low kind of wit,' and has always in it a mixture of pun, because the verb must be taken in a different, sense when it is joined with one of the things, from what it has in conjunction with the other. Thus in the end of this story he tells you that Jupiter flung a thunderbolt at Phaeton Pariterque, animâquè, rơtisque expulit aurigam, where he makes a forced piece of Latin (animâ expulit aurigam) that he inay couple the soul and the wheels to the same verb. P. 546. col. 2. 1. 25. The youth was in a maze, &c.] It is impossible for a man to be drawn in a greater confusion than Phaeton is; but the antithe sis of light and darkness a little flattens the description. Suntque oculis tenebræ per tantum lumen obortæ. ...I no Ibid. 1. 28. Then the Seven Stars, &c.] I wonder none of Ovid's commentators have taken tice of the oversight he has committed in this verse, where he makes the Triones grow warm before there was ever such a sign in the Heavens for he tells us in this very book, that Jupiter, turned Calisto into this constellation, after he had repaired the ruins that Phaeton had made in the world. P. 547. col. 1. 1. 15. Athos and Tolus, &c.] Ovid has here, after the way of the old poets, given us a catalogue of the mountains and rivers which were burnt. But, that I might not tire the English reader, I have left out some of them that make no figure in the description, and inverted the order of, the rest according as the smoothness of my verse required. Ibid. 1. 40. Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor, &c.] This is the only metamorphosis in all this long story, which, contrary to custom, is inserted in the middle of it. The critics may determine whether what follows it be not too great an excursion in him who proposes it as his whole design to let us know the changes of things. I dare say that, if Ovid had not religiously observed the reports of the ancient mythologists, we should have seen Phaeton turned into some creature or other that hates the light of the Sun, or perhaps into an eagle, that still takes pleasure to gaze on it. P. 547. col. 1.1.61. The frighted Nile, &c.] Ovid has made a great many pleasant images towards the latter end of this story. His verses on the Nile, Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem, Occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet: ostia septem Pulverulenta vacant, septem sine flumine valles, are as noble as Virgil could have written; but then he ought not to have mentioned the channel of the sea afterwards, -Mare contrabitur, siccæque est campus arenæ, because the thought is too near the other. The image of the Cyclades is a very pretty one; -2uos altum texerat æquor, Existunt montes, et sparsas Cycladas augent. But to tell us that the swans grew warm in Cays ter, Medio volucres caluere Cäystro, and that the dolphins durst not leap, Nec se super æquora curvi Tollere consuetas audent delphines in auras, is intolerably trivial on so great a subject as the burning of the world. P. 547. col. 2. 1, 13. The Earth at length, &c.] We have here a speech of the Earth, which will doubtless seem very unnatural to an English reader. It is I believe the boldest prosopopeia of any in the old poets; or, if it were never so natural, I cannot but think she speaks too much in any reason for one in her condition. ON EUROPA'S RAPE. P. 553. col. 1. 1. 34. The dignity of empire, &c.] This story is prettily told, and very well brought in by those two serious lines, Non bene conveniunt, nec in unâ sede morantur, Majestas et Amor. Sceptri gravitate relictâ, &c." without which the whole fable would have appeared very prophane. P. 553. col. 2. 1. 9. The frighted nymph looks, &c.] This consternation and behaviour of Europa -Elusam designat imagine tauri Europen: verum taurum, freta vera putares. Et comites clamare suos, tactumque vereri Assilientis aquæ, timidasque reducere plantas, is better described in Arachne's picture in the sixth book, than it is here; and in the beginning of Tatius's Clitophon and Leucippe, than in either place. It is indeed usual among the Latin poets (who had more art and reflection than the Grecian) to take hold of all opportunities to describe the picture of any place or action, which they generally do better than they could the place or action itself; because in the description of a picture you have a double subject before you, either to describe the picture itself, or what is represented in it. | ON THE STORIES IN THE THIRD BOOK. FABLE I.. 14: THERE is so great a variety in the arguments of the Metamorphoses, that he who would treat of them rightly, ought to be a master of all styles, and every different way of writing. Ovid indeed shows himself most in a familiar story, where the chief grace is to be easy and natural; but wants neither strength of thought nor expression, when he endeavours after it, in the more sublime and manly subjects of his poem. In the present fable, the serpent is terribly described, and his behaviour very well imagined; the actions of both parties in the encounter are natural; and the language that represents them, more strong and masculine than what we usually meet with in this poet: if there be any faults in the narration, they are these, per❤ haps, which follow; P. 554. col. 1.1. 24. Spire above spire, &c.] Ovid, to make his serpent more terrible, and to raise the character of his champion, bas given too great a loose to his imagination, and exceeded all the bounds of probability. He tells us, that when he raised up but half his body, he overlooked a tall, forest of oaks, and that his whole body was as large as that of the serpent in the skies. None but a madman would have attacked such a monster as this is described to be; nor can we have any notion of a mortal's standing against him. Virgil is not ashamed of making Aneas fly and tremble at the sight of a far less formidable foe, where he gives us the description of Polyphemus, in the third book; he knew very well that a monster was not a proper enemy for bis hero to encounter; but we should certainly have seen Cadmus hewing down the Cyclops, had he fallen in Ovid's way: or if Statius's little Tydeus had been thrown on Sicily, it is probable he would not have spared one of the whole brotherhood. -Phonicas, sive illi tela parabant, Sive fugam, sive ipse timor prohibebat utrumque, Ibid. 1. 31. In vain the Tyrians, &c.] The poet could not keep up his narration all along, in he has here sunk into the flatness of prose, where the grandeur and magnificence of an heroic style: he tells us the behaviour of the Tyrians at the sight of the serpent: -Tegimen direpta leoni How Pellis erat; telum splendenti lancea ferro, Sed leve vulnus erat, quia se retrahebat ab ictu, P. 554. col. 2. 1. 42. And flings the future, &c.] The description of the men rising out of the ground is as beautiful a passage as any in Ovid. It strikes 2 the imagination very strongly; we see their motion in the first part of it, and their multitude in the Messis virorum at last. P. 554. col. 2. 1. 47. The breathing harvest, &c.] Messis clypeata virorum. The beauty in these words would have been greater, had only Messis virorum been expressed without clypeata; for the reader's mind would have been delighted with two such different ideas compounded together, but can scarce attend to such a complete image as is made out of all three. This way of mixing two different ideas together in one image, as it is a great surprise to the reader, is a great beauty in poetry, if there be sufficient ground for it in the nature of the thing that is de scribed, The Latin poets are very full of it, especially the worst of them; for the more correct use it but sparingly, as indeed the nature of things will seldom afford a just occasion for it. When any thing we describe has accidentally in it some quality that seems repugnant to its nature, or is very extraordinary and uncommon in things of that species, such a compounded image as we are now speaking of is made, by turning this quality into an epithet of what we describe. Thus Claudian, having got a hollow ball of crystal with water in the midst of it for his subject, takes the advantage of considering the crystal as hard, stony, precious water, and the water as soft, fluid, imperfect crystal; and thus sports off above a dozen epigrams, in setting his words and ideas at variance among one another. He has a great many beauties of this nature in him; but he gives himself up so much to this way of writing, that a man may easily know where to meet with them when he sees his subject, and often strains so hard for them that he many times makes his descriptions bombastic and unnatural. What work would he have made with Virgil's golden bough, had he been to describe it? We should certainly have seen the yellow bark, golden sprouts, radiant leaves, blooming metal, branching gold, and all the quarrels that could have been raised between words of such different natures: when we see Virgil contented with his Auri frondentis; and what is the same, though much finer expressed-Fron descit virga metallo. This composition of different ideas is often met with in a whole sentence, where circumstances are happily reconciled that seem wholly foreign to each other; and is often found among the Latin poets (for the Greeks wanted art for it), in their descriptions of pictures, images, dreams, apparitions, metamorphoses, and the like; where they bring together two such thwarting ideas, by making one part of their descriptions relate to the representation, and the other to the thing that is represented. Of this nature is that verse, which, perhaps, is the wittiest in Virgil; "Attollens humero famamque et fata nepotum," En. viii. where he describes Æneas carrying on bis shoulders the reputation and fortunes of his posterity; which though very odd and surprising, is plainly made out, when we consider how these disagreeing ideas are reconciled, and his posterity's fame and fate made portable by being engraven on the shield. Thus, when Ovid tells us that Pallas tore in pieces Arachne's work, where she had embroidered all the rapes that the gods had committed, he says-Rupit cœlestia crimina, 1 shall conclude this tedious reflexion with an ex cellent stroke of this nature out of Mr. Montague's poem to the king; where he tells us, how the king of France would have been celebrated by his subjects, if he had ever gained such an honourable wound as king William's at the fight of the Boyne; His bleeding arm had furnish'd all their rooms, And run for ever purple in the looms. FABLE II. P. 555. col. 1. 1. 1. Here Cadmus reign'd.] This is which is all naturally told. The goddess and her a pretty solema transition to the story of Actaæon, maids undressing her, are described with divertand griefs, are passionately represented; but it is ing circumstances. Acteon's flight, confusion, pity the whole narration should be so carelessly closed up. -Ut abesse queruntur, Nec capere oblata segnem spectacula prædæ. Vellet abesse quidem, sed adest, velletque videre, Non etiam sentire, canum fera facta suorum. P. 555. col. 2. 1. 32. A generous pack, &c.] I have not here troubled myself to call over Actæon's pack of dogs in rhyme: Spot and Whitefoot make but a mean figure in heroic verse; and the Greek names Ovid uses would sound a great deal worse. He closes up his own catalogue with a kind of a jest on it: "Quosque referre mora est" which, by the way, is too light and full of humour for the other serious parts of this story Vino onial This way of inserting catalogues of proper names in their poems, the Latins took from the Greeks; imitate, by adapting so many delightful characters but have made them more pleasing than those they to their persons' names; in which part Ovid's copiousness of invention, and great insight into nature, has given him the precedence to all the poets that ever came before or after him. The smoothness of our English verse is too much lost by the repetition of proper names, which is otherwise very natural, and absolutely necessary in some cases; as before a battle, to raise in our minds an answerable expectation of the events, and a lively idea of the numbers that are engaged,For, had Homer or Virgil only told us in two or three tines before their fights, that there were forty thousand of each side, our imagination could not possibly have been so affected, as when we see every leader singled out, and every regiment in a manner drawn up before our eyes. FABLE III. P.556. col. 1. 1. 14. How Semele, &c.] This is one of Ovid's finished stories. The transition to it is proper and unforced: Jano, in her two speeches, acts incomparably well the parts of a resenting goddess and a tattling nurse: Jupiter makes a very majestic figure with his thunder and lightning, but it is still such a one as shows who drew it, for who does not plainly discover Ovid's hand in the Quà tamen usque potest, vires sibi demere tentat. Nec, quo centimanum dejicerat igne Typha,“ Nunc, armatur eo: nimium feritatis in illactose Est alind levius fulmen, cui dextra Cyclopam, Sævitiæ flammæque minus, minus addidit iræ; Tela secunda vocant Superi. Ne do te 1x n * Afterwards earl of Halifax, P. 556. col. 1. 1. 44. 'Tis well, says she, &c.] Virgil has made a Beroë of one of his goddesses in the fifth Æneid; but if we compare the speech she there makes with that of her namesake in this story, we may find the genius of each poet discovering itself in the language of the nurse: Virgil's Iris could not have spoken more majestically in her own shape; but Juno is so much altered from herself in Ovid, that the goddess is quite lost in the old woman. FABLE V. P. 557.col. 1. 1. 44. She can't begin, &c.] If play-ject of this story, but has notoriously fallen into a Ovid seems particularly pleased with the subing on words be excusable in any poem, it is in this, fault he is often taxed with, of not knowing when where Echo is a speaker; but it is so mean a kind he has said enough, by his endeavouring to excel. of wit, that, if it deserves excuse, it can claim no How has be turned and twisted that one thought of Narcissus's being the person beloved, and the lover too? more.. Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Understand- Dumque petit petitur, pariterque incendit et ardet. P. 557. col. 2. 1. 10. But whilst within, &c.] "Dumque sitim sedare cupit, sitis altera crevit." We have here a touch of that mixed wit I have before spoken of; but I think the measure of pun in it outweighs the true wit; for if we express the thought in other words the turn is almost lost. This passage of Narcissus probably gave Milton the hint of applying it to Eve, though I think her surprise, at the sight of her own face in the water, far more just and natural than this of Narcissus. She was a raw unexperienced being, just created, and therefore might easily be subject to the delusion; but Narcissus had been in the world sixteen years, was brother and son to the water-nymphs, and therefore to be supposed conversant with fountains long before this fatal mistake. Ibid. 1. 40. You trees, says he, &c.] Ovid is very justly celebrated for the passionate speeches of his poem. They have generally abundance of nature in them, but I leave it to better judgments to consider whether they are not often too witty and too tedious The poet never cares for smothering a good thought that comes in his way, and never thinks he can draw tears enough from his reader: by which means our grief is either diverted or spent before we come to his conclusion; for we cannot at the same time be delighted with the wit of the poet, and concerned for the person that speaks it; and a great critic has admirably well observed, Lamentationes debent esse breves et concisa, nam lacryma súbitò excrescit, et difficile est auditorem vel lectorem in summo animi affectu diu tenere. Would any one in Narcissus's condition have cried out Inopem me copia fecit? Or can any thing be more unnatural than |