Page:Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer's Life and Writings.pdf/104

Rh H o m e ks Life and Writings.

91

ENEID.—' J'avoue qu Enee me paroit excef- Sect. ' Jivement Poete ; Et c'e/l un Defaut que fai XII. ' fenti dans tout le second & tout le troifiemeff '1* *** only florid Description in too rjompous a Style P. that betrays a Speaker to be the Poet, or rather the Poet to be the Speaker ;—but any Description $ not absolutely necessary for carrying on the grartdti* Dejign. ' Most Writers, before they recount an ' River, or the Declivity of a Mountain. These ' they feign according to the Strength of their ' Fancy, and then they apply them. Thus Vir* gil in his second Book makes Eneas himself ' tell Dido, that he said to his Servants in the A rising Ground there is without the Gate ; And lonely Temple of the Goddess Ceres : Hard by an ancient Cypress stands, preserv'd For many Tears, heldsacred by our Fathers.
 * Livre de YEne'ide; oil EneeneJ^ni moinsfleuri
 * ni moins audacieux que Virgilc^.'^at it is not /
 * Action that happened in any Place, first de* scribe that Place, be it a Grove, or Rock, or
 * Hurry of their Flight from Troy,

p 2<^ ~T^T(.)

Which Temple and Tree his Servants must pro bably have known as well or better than him self. Whereas the Grecian Bard, according to Horace,-^Hurries his Reader Into the Scene of Aflion ; just as if Hespoke of things well known-

2S4 fs> -94 so The Rh