the sun rising. Homer mentions a person who played upon the lyre; the translator sets him before us warbling to the silver strings. If this be a deviation, it is at the same time an improvement. Homer himself, as Cicero observes above, is full of this kind of painting, and particularly fond of description, even in situations where the action seems to require haste. Neptune, observing from Samothrace the discomfiture of the Grecians 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' ἔρια μακρὰ καὶ ὕλη

Ποσσὶν ὑπ ̓ ἀθανάτοισι Ποσειδάωνος ἴοντος.

But his passage to the Grecian fleet is altogether transporting.

Βῆ δ ̓ ἐλάαν ἐπὶ κύματ. κ. τ. λ.

He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies,

He sits superior, 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 wond'ring 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 θαλάσσα διίσατο· 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, similies, 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 prosopopœia, 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:

-ὄσσε δ ̓ οἱ πυρὶ λαμπετο εντι εἴκτην.

-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,

"With head uplift above the wave, and eye
That sparkling blaz'd!—”

"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 illumin'd 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.

"Ite meæ, felix quondam pecus, ite capellæ,
Non ego vos posthac, viridi projectus in antro,
Dumosâ pendere procul de rupe videbo.

At ease reclin'd 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 :

VOL. I

"For though in dreadful worlds we hung,
High on the broken wave."

U

And in another piece of a like nature, in the same col

lection :

"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 :

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 rais'd, 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 Eneas, the Poet says,

"Iliacos iterùm demens audire labores

Exposcit, pendetque iterùm narrantis ab ore.

The woes of Troy once more she begg'd to hear;
Once more the mournful tale employed 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 —Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu―Æneas acuit Martem et se suscitat irá-Impium lenite clamorem. Lenibat curas-Ne sævi magna sacerdos-Sudor ad imos manabat solos-Suspensæque diu lachrymæ fluxêre per ora -Juvenali ardebat amore -Micat cereus 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 παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης,

in which the two last words wonderfully echo to the sense, conveying the idea of the sea dashing on the shore. How much more significant in sound than that beautiful image of Shakspeare—

"The sea that on the unnumber'd pebbles beats."

And yet, if we consider the strictness of propriety, this last expression would seem to have been selected on purpose to concur with the other circumstances which are brought together to ascertain the vast height of Dover cliff; for the poet adds, "cannot be heard so high." The place where Gloster stood was so high above the surface of the sea, that the proíobos, or dashing, could not be heard; and