High Epidaurus urges on my speed, From hills and dales the chearful cries 'rebound; • For ccho hunts along, and propagates the found.' Lo, yonder doth earl Douglas come, All men of pleafant Tividale, DRYDEN. The country of the Scotch warriors, defcribed in thefe two laft verfes, has a fine romantic fituation, and affords a couple of fmooth words for verfe. If the reader compares the foregoing fix lines of the fong with the following Latin verfes, he will fee how much they are written in the fpirit of Virgil. Adverfi campo apparent, haftafque reductis Advancing in a line they couch their spears Prænefte fends a chofen band, With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land: DRYDEN. • Earl Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Whofe armour fhone like gold." Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcefferat agmen, &c. Our English archers bent their bows, They clos'd full fast on ev'ry side, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which ftruck earl Douglas to the heart A deep and deadly blow.' Eneas was wounded after the fame manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence, DRYDEN. But of all the defcriptive parts of this fong, there are none more beautiful than the four following ftanzas, which have a great force and fpirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumftances. The thought in the third ftanza was never touched by any other poet, and is fuch an one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil. So thus did both those nobles die, "He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery The gray-goofe wing that was thereon This fight did laft from break of day For when they rung the ev'ning-bell One may obferve likewife, that in the catalogue of the flain the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poet, not only in giving a long list of the dead, bur by diversifying it with little characters of particular perfons. And with carl Douglas there was flain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, Sir David Lamb, fo well efteem'd, The familiar found in thefe names deftroys the majesty of the defcription; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to fhew the natural caft of thought which appears in it, as the two laft verfes look almost like a tranflation of Virgil. -Cadit & Ripheus, juftiffimus unus Qui fuit in Teucris, & fervantiffimus æqui. Dd3 • Then In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the fame manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am fatisfied your little buffoon readers, who have feen that paffage ridiculed in Hudibras, will not be able to take the beauty of it; for which reason I dare not fo much as quote it. Then ftept a gallant fquire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot We meet with the fame heroic fentiments in Virgil: Non pudet, Ó Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam For fhame, Rutilians, can you bear the fight DRYDEN. What can be more natural or more moving, than the circumstances in which he defcribes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day? 'Next day did many widows come Their hufbands to bewail; They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, But all would not prevail. < Their Thus we fee how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arife from the fubject, are always fimple, and fometimes exquifitely noble; that the language is often very founding; and that the whole is written with a true poetical fpirit.. If this fong had been written in the Gothick manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of fo many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I fhall only beg pardon for fuch a profufion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too fingular on fuch a fubject, had not I'fupported it by the practice and authority of Virgil. No. LXXV. SATURDAY, MAY 26. Omnis Ariftippum decuit color, & ftatus, & res. HOR. CREECH. T was with fome mortification that I fuffered the Iraillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for cal She ling in one of my papers, Dorimant a clown. was fo unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occafion, with great freedom to confider the air, the height, the face, the gefture of him who could pretend to judge fo arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, janty, and lively in her impertinence, and one of thofe that commonly pafs, among the ignorant, før perfons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after the had faid it was happy for her there was not fo charming a creature as Dorimant now liv ing, |