Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/40

xxii most nervous and perswading. Where he endeavours to disswade Mankind frome indulging carnivorous Appetites in his Pythagorean Philosophy, how emphatical is his Reasoning!

Quid meruêre boves, animal sine fraude, dolisque, Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare laborem? Immemor est demum, nec frugum munere dignus Qui potuit curvi dempto modò pondere aratri Ruricolam mactare suum

I think Agricolam had been stronger, but the Authority of Manuscripts does not warrant that Emendation.

Through the whole Texture of this Work, Ovid discovers the highest Humanity, and a most exceeding good Nature. The Virtuous in Distress are always his Concern; and his Wit contrives to give them an Immortality with himself.

He seems to have taken the most Pains in the first and second Book of the Metamorphoses, tho' the thirteenth abounds with Sentiments most moving, and with calamitous Incidents, introduc'd with great Art. The Poet had here in View, the Tragedy of Hecuba in Euripides; and 'tis a wonder, it has never been attempted in our own Tongue. The House of Priam is destroy'd, his Royal Daughter a Sacrifice to the Manes of him that occasion'd it. She is forc'd from the Arms of her unhappy Friends, and hurry'd to the Altar, where she behaves her self with a cency