senfiend rhetorica not Horace, in common speech, use the name of the workman instead of the work? To mention the Hesperian apples, which the artist flung backwards, and almost concealed as an inconsiderable object, and which therefore scarcely appear in the statue, was below the notice of POPE. 4. Amphion there the loud creating lyre And half the mountain rolls into a wall : There might you see the lengthening spires ascend, And the huge columns heave into the skies,* It may be imagined, that these expressions are too bold; and a phlegmatic critic might ask, how it was possible to see, in sculpture, Arches bending, and Towers growing? But the best writers, in speaking of pieces of painting and sculpture, use the present or imperfect tense, and talk of the thing as really doing, to give a force to the description. Thus Virgil, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.† -Incedunt * V. 85. + Lib. viii. v. 656. -Incedunt victæ longo ordine gentes, Quam variæ linguis, habitu tam vestis et armis.* As Pliny says, that, Clesilochus painted, "Jovem muliebriter ingemiscentem." And Homer, in his beautiful and lively description of the shield, Upon which Clark has made an observation that surprises me "sed quomodo in Scuto DEPINGI potuit, quem CANERET citharista ?" * Lib. viii. v. 722. † Iliad, lib. xviii. v. 494. V. 575. §. V. 570. This This passage must not be parted with, till we have observed the artful rest upon the first syllable of the second verse: Amphion there the loud creating lyre There are many instances of such judicious pauses in Homer. Αυταρ επειδ' αύτοισι βελος εχεπευχες εφιείς Βαλλ', * As likewise in the great imitator of Homer, who always accommodates the sound to the sense : Day!- But not to me returns In the spirited speech of Satan: All good to me becomes Bane.* These monosyllables have much force and energy. The Latin language does not admit of such. Virgil, therefore, who so well understood and copied all the secret arts and charms of Homer's versification, has afforded us no examples; yet, some of his pauses on words of more syllables in the beginning of lines are emphatical: Vox quoque per lucos vulgo exaudita silentes, Infandum!* Pecudesque locutæ, 5. These stopp'd the moon, and call'd th' unbody'd shades And airy spectres skim before their eyes; These superstitions of the East are highly striking to the imagination. Since the time that poetry has been forced to assume a more sober, and, perhaps, a more rational air, it scarcely ventures to enter these fairy regions. There are some, however, who think it has suffered by deserting these fields of fancy, and by totally laying aside the descriptions of magic and enchantment. What an exquisite picture has Thomson given us in his delightful CASTLE OF INDOLENCE! As when a shepherd of the Hebrid Isles, T. * Georg. i. v. 478, † V. 101. |