Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/230

88, that if we look on both Poets together, we see in one the plainness of a down-right Country-Man, and in the other, something of a Rustick Majesty, like that of a Roman Dictator at the Plow-Tail. He delivers the meanest of his Precepts with a kind of Grandeur, he breaks the Clods and tosses the Dung about with an air of gracefulness. His Prognostications of the Weather are taken out of Aratus, where we may see how judiciously he has pickt out those that are most proper for his Husbandman's Observation; how he has enforc'd the Expression, and heighten'd the Images which he found in the Original.

The Second Book has more wit in it, and a greater boldness in its Metaphors than any of the rest. The Poet with a great Beauty applies Oblivion, Ignorance, Wonder, Desire and the like to his Trees. The last Georgic has indeed as many Metaphors, but not so daring as this; for Humane Thoughts and Passions may be more naturally ascrib'd to a Bee, than to an Inanimate Plant. He who reads over the Pleasures of a Country Life, as they are describ'd by Virgil in the latter end of this Book, can scarce be of Virgil's Mind, in preferring even the Life of a Philosopher to it.