Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/352

826 or Action of an Infant, but also the first Word which the Parent, or any of the Assistants spoke after the Birth: And from thence they gave a Name to the Child al­luding to it.

Pastoral 6. My Lord Roscommon's Notes on this Pastoral, are equal to his excellent Translation of it; and thither I refer the Reader.

The Eighth and Tenth Pastorals are already Translated to all man­ner of advantage, by my excellent Friend, Mr. Stafford. So is the E­pisode of Camilla, in the Eleventh Æneid.

This Eight Pastoral is Copied by our Author from two Bucolicks of Theocritus. Spencer has follow'd both Virgil and Theocritus, in the Charms which he employs for Curing Britomartis of her Love. But he had also our Po­et's Ceiris in his Eye: For there not only the Inchantments are to be found; but also the very Name of Britomartis.

In the Ninth Pastoral, Virgil has made a Collection of many scatter­ing Passages, which he had Translated from Theocritus: And here he has bound them into a Nosegay.

Georgic the First. The Poetry of this Book is more sublime than any part of Virgil, if I have any Taste. And if ever I have Copied his Majestick Stile 'tis here. The Compliment he makes Augustus al­most in the beginning, is ill imitated by his Successors Lucan and Sta­tius. They Dedicated to Tyrants; and their Flatteries are gross and fulsome. Virgil's Address is both more lofty and more just. In the three last Lines of this