Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/226

84 Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila: Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, Grandiaq; effossis mirabiter ossa sepulchris.

And afterwards speaking of Augustus's Actions, he still remembers that Agriculture ought to be some way hinted at throughout the whole Poem.

Non ullus Aratro Dignus honos: squalent abductis arva colonis: Et curvæ rigidum falces conflantur in Ensem.

We now come to the Stile which is proper to a Georgic; and indeed this is the part on which the Poet must lay out all his strength, that his words may be warm and glowing, and that every thing he describes may immediately present it self, and rise up to the Reader's view. He ought in particular to be careful of not letting his Subject debase his Stile, and betray him into a meanness of Expression, but every where to keep up his Verse in all the Pomp of Numbers, and Dignity of Words.

I think nothing which is a Phrase or Saying in common talk, shou'd be admitted into a serious Poem: because it takes off from the Solemnity of the expression, and gives it too great a turn of Familiarity: much less ought