quotations: Arati materia motú caret, ut in quâ nulla varietas, nullus affectus, nulla perfona, nulla cujufquam fit oratio; fufficit tamen operi cui fe parem credidit. Inftit. Orat. L. 10. I believe it is fcarce poffible for a paffage of equal length to contain more tafte and judgment in it than this infomuch that there is hardly a fault, which a didactic poet can commit, that is not here hinted at. OPPIAN lived in the beginning of Commodus's reign, and was afterwards greatly patronized by Severus. He wrote two didactic poems, one upon fishing, called Halieutica; the other on hunting, entituled Cynegetica. The former is the most celebrated of the two. Rapin tells us, he is a dry profaic writer. But it is obfervable, that this critic feldom fpeaks favourably of the Greek authors, the reafon of which may probably be, that like many a modern critic he did. not understand that language; and M. Menage affures us he did not. Scaliger, a much abler * judge, says of Oppian, that he is an excellent poet; eafy, eloquent, fublime and harmonious; that he not only far furpaffes Gratius and Nemefianus, who have written on the same subject, but that he seems to have the very air of Virgil, whom he endeavoured particularly to imitate; and that he has given us the truest and livelieft image of that divine poet. Though the cenfures and praifes of Scaliger are generally extravagant; and though in the prefent cafe, he seems to have bestowed his encomiums on Oppian a little too lavishly, yet I believe this writer is well worthy the learned reader's perufal, for many of his defcriptions (for inftance one of a horfe and a battle of furious bulls) are well worked up and extremely natural and lively. Thus The Jefuit Favalor, in his famous treatife de ludicra ditione, greatly commends Oppian. Thus much may fuffice for the Greek didactic poets: as Nicander, who flourished in the 158th olympiad, is but a flat and profaic writer, in his Theriaca, though copied by Virgil. Major rerum mihi nafcitur ordo. T For I am next to speak of LUCRETIUS, whofe merit as a poet has never yet been fufficiently displayed, and who feems to have had more fire, fpirit, and energy, more of the vivida vis animi, than any of the Roman poets, not excepting Virgil himself. Whoever imagines, with Tully, that Lucretius had not a great genius, is defired to caft his eye on two pictures he has given us at the beginning of his poem; the firft of Venus with her lover Mars, beautiful to the laft degree, and more glowing than any figure painted by Titian'; the + fecond of the terrible and gigantic figure, the daemon of Superftition, worthy the energetic pencil of Michael Angelo. Neither do I think that the description that immediately follows of the facrifice of Iphigenia, was excelled by the famous picture of Timanthes on the fame fubject, of which Pliny speaks fo highly in the 35th book of his Natural History: efpecially the minute and moving circumstances of her perceiving the grief of her father Agamemnon, and of the priest's concealing his facrificing knife, in gremium qui faepe tuum fe Rejicit, aeterno devinctus volnere amoris ; + Humana ante oculos foedè cum vita jaceret, L. i. 33. knife, and of the fpectators bursting into tears, and her falling on her knees. Cui femel infula virgineos circumdata comptus Lib. i. 88. Few paffages even in Virg himself are fo highly finished, contain fuch lively defcriptions, or are fo harmonious in their verfification, as where our poet fpeaks of the fruitfulness occafioned throughout all nature by vernal fhowers, lib. i. 251 to ver. 293; of the ravages committed by tempeftuous winds, lib. i. 272 to ver. 295; of the difficulty of his undertaking, and of his affection to his patron Memmius, lib. i. 920 to ver. 950; where after mentioning the great obfcurity of his fubject, he breaks out into that enthufiaftic rapture; Sed acri Percuffit thyrfo laudis fpes magna meum cor, The fecond book opens with a fublime defcription of a true philofopher, ftanding on the top of the temple of Wisdom, and looking down with pity and contempt on the bufy hum of men. This is followed by a forcible exhortation to temperance of each kind, and by that account of the pleafures of a country life (ver. 24 to ver. 36.) which Virgil hath exactly copied at the end of his fecond book of the Georgics. The fears and the cares that that infeft human life are afterwards perfonified in the following manner. Re verâque METUS hominum, CURAEQUE fequaces Nec metuunt fonitus armorum, nec fera tela ; These images are furely far fuperior to thofe admired ones of Horace, Tecta volantes Nec CURAS laqueata circum Scandit aeratás vitiofa naves CURA I know not how to refift the temptation of giving the reader the following landscape of a distant mountain with flocks feeding on the fide of it. Nam faepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta Et veluti in viridi candor confiftere colli. L. ii. 317. And I could wish to have room to fet down the description that immediately follows, lib. ii. 324 to 330, of a field of battle, or the subsequent one of a cow's lamenting her calf that was facrificed. There is fomething fo truly pathetic, that I must trefpafs on the reader's patience, and give it him. At mater virides faltus orbata peragrans. Linquit humi pedibus veftigia pressa bifulcis, L. ii. 355. In In the beginning of the third book, which opens with the praifes of Epicurus, is a passage that of itself, without alledging other inftances, is fufficient to fhew the ftrength and fublimity of our author's imagination. At the found of thy voice (fays he, addreffing himself to the father of his philofophy) the Terrors of the mind (here perfonified) fly away with fear and astonishment. Nam fimul ac + RATIO tua coepit vociferari The walls of the world fuddenly part afunder! I look down into the immenfe void! and diftinctly fee all it contains! Moenia mundi Difcedunt, totum video per inane geri res. This image always puts me in mind of that exalted one in Milton, which is fo ftrongly conceived. On heavenly ground they stood, and from the fhore Outrageous as a fea, dark, wasteful, wild, Heav'n's height, and with the center mix the pole. Our poct adds, in lines as finished and as fmooth as Virgil's, that he there faw the happy and undisturbed state of the gods. Apparet divum numen, fedefque quietae, Quas neque concutiunt venti, neque nubila nimbis + Perfons. L. iii. 25. On |