Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/308

180 offer Zoilus an observation in return for his. There are upon the stone which is carved for the apotheosis of Homer, figures of mice by his foot-stool, which, according to Cuperus, its interpreter, some have taken to signify this poem; and others those critics, who tear or vilify the works of great men. Now if such can be compared to mice, let the words of Zoilus be brought home to himself and his followers for their mortification: That no one ought to think of meriting in the state of learning only by debasing the best performances, and as it were preying upon those things which should be sacred in it.

P. 57. v. 2. In vain my father.]The speech of Pallas is disliked by Zoilus, because it makes the goddess carry a resentment against such inconsiderable creatures; though he ought to esteem them otherwise when they represent the persons and actions of men, and teach us how the gods disregard those in their adversities who provoke them in their prosperity. But, if we consider Pallas as the patroness of learning, we may by an allegorical application of the mice and frogs, find in this speech two sorts of enemies to learning; they who are maliciously mischievous, as the mice; and they who are turbulent through ostentation, as the frogs. The first are enemies to excellency upon principle; the second accidentally by the error of self-love, which does not quarrel with the excellence itself, but only with those people who get more praise than themselves by it.