cians before Troy, flies to their assistance, and might have been wafted thither in half a line: but the bard describes him, first, descending the mountain on which he sat; secondly, striding towards his palace at Ægæ, and yoking his horses; thirdly, he describes him putting on his armour; and lastly, ascending his car, and driving along the surface of the sea. Far from being disgusted by these delays, we are delighted with the particulars of the description. Nothing can be more sublime than the circumstance of the mountain's trembling beneath the footsteps of an immortal :

Τρέμε δ' οὐρέα μακρὰ καὶ ὕλη

Ποσσὶν ὑπ ̓ ἀθανάτοισι Ποσειδάωνος ἴοντος.

But his passage to the Grecian fleet is altogether transporting.

Βῆδ ̓ ἐλάαν ἐπὶ κύματ, etc.

He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies,
He sits superiour, and the chariot flies;

His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep:
Th' enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep,
Gambol around him on the watery way,
And heavy whales in awkward measures play :
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain,
Exults and crowns the monarch of the main;
The parting waves before his coursers fly;
The wondering waters leave his axle dry.

With great veneration for the memory of Mr Pope, we cannot help objecting to some lines of this translation. We have no idea of the sea's exulting and crowning Neptune, after it had subsided into a level plain. There is no such image in the original. Homer says, the whales

exulted, and knew or owned their king; and that the sea parted with joy : γηθοσύνη δὲ θαλασσα διίστατο Neither is there a word of the wondering waters: we therefore think the lines might be thus altered to advantage :

They knew and own'd the monarch of the main :
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain;

The curling waves before his coursers fly;
The parting surface leaves his brazen axle dry.

Besides the metaphors, similes, and allusions of poetry, there is an infinite variety of tropes, or turns of expression, occasionally disseminated through works of genius, which serve to animate the whole, and distinguish the glowing effusions of real inspiration from the cold efforts of mere science. These tropes consist of a certain happy choice and arrangement of words, by which ideas are artfully disclosed in a great variety of attitudes, of epithets, and compound epithets; of sounds collected in order to echo the sense conveyed; of apostrophes; and, above all, the enchanting use of the prosopopoeia, which is a kind of magic, by which the poet gives life and motion to every inanimate part of nature. Homer, describing the wrath of Agamemnon, in the first book of the Iliad, strikes off a glowing image in two words:

οι

ὄσσε δ' οἱ πυρὶ λαμπετουντι ἔΐκτην.

-And from his eye-balls flash'd the living fire.

This indeed is a figure, which has been copied by Virgil, and almost all the poets of every age-oculis micat acribus ignis-ignescunt iræ: auris dolor ossibus ardet. Milton, describing Satan in Hell, says,

-He spake: and to confirm his words out flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim. The sudden blaze

Far round illumined Hell

There are certain words in every language particularly adapted to the poetical expression; some from the image or idea they convey to the imagination; and some from the effect they have upon the ear. The first are truly figurative; the others may be called emphatical.—Rollin observes, that Virgil has upon many occasions poetized (if we may be allowed the expression) a whole sentence by means of the same word, which is pendere.

At ease reclined beneath the verdant shade,
No more shall I behold my happy flock
Aloft hang browsing on the tufted rock.

Here the word pendere wonderfully improves the landscape, and renders the whole passage beautifully picturesque. The same figurative verb we meet with in many different parts of the Æneid.

Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens
Terram inter fluctus aperit.

These on the mountain billow hung; to those
The yawning waves the yellow sand disclose.

In this instance, the words pendent and dehiscens, hung and

yawning, are equally poetical. Addison seems to have had this passage in his eye, when he wrote his Hymn, which is inserted in the Spectator :

-For though in dreadful worlds we hung,

High on the broken wave.

And in another piece of a like nature, in the same collection :

Thy providence my life sustain'd,

And all my wants redress'd,
When in the silent womb I lay,

And hung upon the breast.

Shakspeare, in his admired description of Dover cliff, uses the same expression:

-Half way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire-dreadful trade!

Nothing can be more beautiful than the following picture, in which Milton has introduced the same expressive tint:

-He, on his side,

Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamour'd.

We shall give one example more from Virgil, to show in what a variety of scenes it may appear with propriety and effect. In describing the progress of Dido's passion for Æneas, the Poet says,

Iliacos iterum demens audire labores

Exposcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore.

The woes of Troy once more she begg'd to hear;
Once more the mournful tale employ'd his tongue,
While in fond rapture on his lips she hung.

The reader will perceive in all these instances, that no other word could be substituted with equal energy; indeed no other word could be used without degrading the sense, and defacing the image. There are many other verbs of poetical import fetched from nature, and from art, which the poet uses to advantage, both in a literal and metaphorical sense; and these have been always translated for the same purpose from one language to another; such as quasso, concutio, cio, suscito, lenio, sævio, mano, fluo, ardeo, mico, aro, to shake, to wake, to rouse, to soothe, to rage, to flow, to shine or blaze, to plough.—Quassantia tectum limina-Eneas, casu concussus acerbo-Ere ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu-Æneas acuit Martem et se suscitat ira-Impium lenite clamorem. Lenibant curas-Ne sævi magna sacerdos-Sudor ad imos manabat solos-Suspensæque diu lachrymæ fluxere per ora-Juvenali ardebat amore— Micat æreus ensis-Nullum maris æquor arandum. It will be unnecessary to insert examples of the same nature from the English poets.

The words we term emphatical, are such as by their sound express the sense they are intended to convey: and with these the Greek abounds, above all other languages, not only from its natural copiousness, flexibility, and significance, but also from the variety of its dialects, which enables a writer to vary his terminations occasionally as the nature of the subject requires, without offending the most delicate ear, or incurring the imputation of adopting vulgar provincial expressions. Every smatterer in Greek can repeat

Βῆ δ ̓ ἀκέων παρα θῖνα πολυφλοισβοῖο θαλάσσης,