Page:Annus Mirabilis - Dryden (1688).djvu/14

 he describes his Dido well and naturally, in the violence of her Passions, yet he must yield in that to the Myrrha, the Biblis, the Althæa, of Ovid; for as great an admirer of him as I am, I must acknowledge, that, if I see not more of their Souls than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment for them: And that convinces me, that Ovid has touched those tender strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when Action or Persons are to be described, when any such Image is to be set before us, how bold, how masterly are the strokes of Virgil! We see the objects he represents us with in their native figures, in their proper motions; but so we see them, as our own Eyes could never have beheld them so beautiful in themselves. We see the Soul of the Poet, like that universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving through all his Pictures, Totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet; we behold him embellishing his Images, as he makes Venus breathing beauty upon her son Æneas.

See his Tempest, his Funeral Sports, his Combat of Turnus and Æneas, and in his Georgicks, which I esteem the Divinest part of all his writings, the Plague, the Country, the Battel of the Bulls, the labour of the Bees, and those many other excellent Images of Nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any natural ornament to bear them up: but the words wherewith he describes them