antiquity, a truer picture of this fond and froward paffion, than is given us in the perfon of Terence's Phaedria from Menander. Horace and Perfius, when they set themselves, on purpose, to expofe and exaggerate its follies, could imagine nothing beyond it. Yet we have much the fame inconfiftent character in JULIA in The two Gentlemen of Verona. Shall it be now faid, that Shakespeare copied from Terence, as Terence from Menander? Or is it not as plain to common fense, that the English poet is original, as that the Latin poet was an imitator? Shakespeare, on another occafion, describes the various, external fymptoms of this extravagant affection. Amongst others, he infifts, there is no furer fign of being in love, "than when every thing about you demon"ftrates a careless defolation." [As you like it. A. iii. Sc. 8.] Suppofe now the poet to have taken in hand the ftory of a neglected, abandoned lover; for instance of Ariadne; a ftory, which antient poetry took a pleasure to relate, and which hath been touched with infinite grace by the tender, paffionate mufe of Catullus and Ovid. Sup pose him to give a pourtrait of her paffion in that distressful moment when, "from the "naked beach, fhe views the parting fail of 66 Thefeus." This was a time for all the figns of defolation to fhew themselves. And could we doubt of his describing those very figns, which nature's felf dictated, long ago, to Catullus? Non flavo retinens fubtilem vertice mitram, But there is a higher inftance in view. The humanity and eafy elegance of the two Latin poets, just mentioned, joined to an unaffected naiveté of expreffion, were, perhaps, moft proper to defcribe the petulancies, the caprices, the foftneffes, of this paffion in common life. To paint its tragic and more awful diftreffes, to melt the foul into all the sympathies of forrow, is the peculiar character of Virgil's poetry. His talents were, indeed, univerfal. But, I think, we may give it for the characteristic of his mufe, that fhe was, beyond all others, pof feffed feffed of a fovereign power of touching the tender paffions. Euripides' felf, whose genius was most resembling to his, of all the ancients, holds, perhaps, but the fecond place in this praise. A poet, thus accomplished, would omit, we may be fure, no occafion of yielding to his natural bias of recording the diftreffes of love. He difcovered his talent, as well as inclination, very early, in the Bucolics; and even, where one fhould leaft expect it, in his Georgics. But the fairest opportunity offered in his great defign of the Aeneis. Here, one should suppose, the whole bent of his genius would exert itself. And we are not disappointed. I fpeak not of that fucceffion of fentiments, reflexions, and expoftulations, which flow, as in a continued ftream of grief, from the first discovery of her heart to her fifter, to her last frantic and inflamed refentments. These belong to the former article of internal movements: and need not be confidered. My concern, at prefent, is with thofe vifible, external indications, the fenfible marks and fignatures (as expreffed in lcok, air, and action) of this tormenting frenzy. The history of thefe, thefe, as related in the narrative part of Dido's adventure, would comprehend every natural fituation of a perfon, under love's diftractions. And it were no unpleafing amufement to follow and contemplate her, in a series of pictures, from her first attitude, of hanging on the mouth of Aeneas, through all the gradual exceffes of her rage, to the concluding fatal act of defperation. But they are deeply imprinted on every schoolboy's memory. It need only be obferved, that they are fuch, as almost neceffarily fpring up from the circumftances of her cafe, and which every reader, on firft view, as agreeing to his own notices and obfervations, pronounces natural. It may feem fufficient, therefore, to af cribe these pourtraitures of paffion, fo fuitable to all our expectations, and in drawing which the genius of the great poet so eminently excelled, to the original hand and defign of Virgil. But the perverfe humour of criticism, occafioned by this inveterate prejudice "of taking all resemblances for thefts," will allow no fuch thing. Before it will decide of this matter, every ancient writer, writer, who but incidentally touches a love adventure, must be fought out and brought in evidence against him. And finding that Homer hath his Calypfo, and Euripides, and Apollonius their Medea, it adjudges the entire episode to be ftolen by piece-meal, and patched-up out of their writings. I have a learned critic now before me, who roundly afferts, "that, but for the Argonautics, "there had been no fourth book of the "Aeneis [m]." Some traits of resemblance there are. It could not be otherwise. But all the use a candid reader, who comes to his author with the true fpirit of a critic, will make of them, is to fhew," how juftly "the poet copies nature, which had fug"gested fimilar representations to his pre"deceffors." What is here concluded of the softer, cannot but hold more ftrongly of the boisterous paffions. Thefe do not shelter, and conceal themselves within the man. It is, particularly, of their nature, to ftand forth, and fhew themselves in outward actions. Of [m] JEREMIAS HOELSLINUS, Prolegom. ad Apollon. Rhodium. the |