* Majus parabo: majus infundam tibi
Fastidienti poculum.

And

* Sanadon has a remark in the true spirit of a fastidious French critic. "These descriptions of witchcraft must have been very pleasing to ancient poets, since they dwell upon them so largely and frequently. But surely such objects have so much horror in them, that they cannot be presented with too much haste and rapidity to the imagination.”—Such false delicacy and refinement have rendered some of the French incapable of relishing many of the forcible and masculine images. with which the ancients strengthened their compositions. The most natural strokes in a poem that most abounds with them, the Odyssey, is to such judges a fund of ridicule. They must needs nauseate the scenes that lie in Eumeus's cottage, and despise the coarse ideas of so ill-bred a princess as Nausicaa. Much less can such effeminate judges bear the bold and severe strokes, the terrible graces, of our irregular Shakespeare, espe cially in his scenes of magic and incantations. These gothic charms are, in truth, more striking to the imagination than the classical. The magicians of Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, have more powerful spells than those of Apollonius, Seneca, and Lucan. The inchanted forest of Ismeno is more awfully and tremendously poetical, than even the Grove which Cæsar orders to be cut down in Lucan, 1. iii. 400, which was so full of terrors, that, at noon day or midnight, the Priest himself dared not approach it,

Dreading the Dæmon of the Grove to meet!

Who, that sees the sable plumes waving on the prodigious helmet in the Castle of Otranto, and the gigantic arm on the top

of

And concludes with this spirited threat:

Priusque cœlum sidet inferius mari

Tellure porrecta super,

Quam non amore sic meo flagres, uti
Bitumen atris ignibus.

The boy, on hearing his fate cruelly determined, no longer endeavours to sue for mercy, but breaks out into those bitter and natural execrations, mixed with a tender mention of his parents, which reach to the end of the Ode. If we consider how naturally the fear of the boy is expressed in the first speech, and how the dreadful character of Canidia is supported in the second, and the various turns of passion with which she is agitated, and if we add to these the concluding imprecations, we must own that

this

of the great staircase, is not more affected than with the paintings of Ovid and Apuleius? What a group of dreadful images do we meet with in the Edda! The Runic poetry abounds in them. Such is Gray's thrilling Ode on the Descent of Odin. 'Tis remarkable, that the idea of the Fatal Sisters weaving the Danish standard, bears a marvellous resemblance to a passage in Sophocles, Ajax, v. 1053. "Did not Erinnys herself make this sword? and Pluto, that dreadful workman, this belt?

tis põe aftris a note spermen of the dramatic povers of Bore

ward; and though most of the historians offered their service to introduce him, he left them at the door, and would have no conductor but himself.”*—In the same spirit he tells us, That Q. Curtius intended to conduct Alexander the Great to an apartment appointed for the reception of fabulous heroes; that Virgil hung back at the entrance of the door, and would have excused himself, had not his modesty been overcome by the invitation of all who sate at the table; that Lucan entered at the head of many historians with Pompey, and that seeing Homer and Virgil at the table, was going to sit down himself, had not the latter whispered him, he had forfeited his claim to it, by coming in as one of the historians.

18. With equal rays immortal TULLY shone,

The Roman rostra deck'd the Consul's throne:
Gath'ring his flowing robe, he seem'd to stand,
In act to speak, and graceful stretch'd his hand.†

VOL. I.

Cc

This

*Tatler, No. 81, ut sup.

+ "After hearing an oration of Tully, "How finely and eloquently has he expressed himself," said the Romans. After Demosthenes had spoke, "Let us rise, and march against Philip," said the Athenians." FENELON.

This beautiful attitude is copied from a statue in that valuable collection, which Lady Pomfret had the goodness and generosity lately to present to the University of Oxford.-Cicero, says Addison, next appeared, and took his place. He had enquired at the door for one Lucceius to introduce him; but not finding him there, he contented himself with the attendance of many other writers, who all, except Sallust, appeared highly pleased with the office.

I cannot forbear taking occasion to mention an ingenious imitation of this paper of Addison, called the Table of Modern Fame, at which the guests are introduced, and ranged with that taste and judgment which is peculiar to the author.* It may not be unentertaining to enumerate the persons in the order he has placed them, by which his sense of their merits will appear. Columbus, Peter the Great, Leo X. Martin Luther, Newton, Descartes, Lewis XIV. William the First Prince of Orange, Edward the Black Prince, Francis I. Charles V. Locke, Galileo, John Faust,

Harvey,

* Dr. Akenside. Dodsley's Museum, No. 13.