SECT. I.

The Introduction.

Now we have gone through the Works and Days, it may poffibly contribute in fome degree to the profit and delight of the reader, to take a view of the poem as we have it delivered down to us. I fhall firft confider it as an ancient piece, and, in that light, enter into the merit and esteem that it reafonably obtained among the ancients: the authors who have been lavish in their commendations of it are many; the greatest of the Roman writers in profe, Cicero, has more than once expreffed his admiration for the fyftem of morality contained in it; and the deference the greatest Latin poet has paid to it, I fhall fhow in my comparison of the Works and Days with the Latin Georgic; nor is the encomium paid by Ovid to our poet to be paffled over.

Vive et Afcrous, dum muftis uva tumebit,
Dum cadet incurvâ falce refecta Ceres.

While fwelling clusters fhall the vintage stain,
And Ceres with rich crops fhall blefs the plain,
Th' Afcroan bard fhall in his verfe remain.
Eleg. 15. Book I.

And Justin Martyr, one of the most learned fathers in the Chriftian church, extols the Works and Days of our poet, while he expreffes his diflike to the Theogony.

Sect. 2. Of the first book.

The reason why our poet addreffes to Perfes, I have fhowed in my notes: while he directs himfelf to his brother, he instructs his countrymen in all that is ufeful to know for the regulating their conduct, both in the business of agriculture, and in their behaviour to each other. He gives us an account of the first ages, "according to the common received notion among the Gentiles. The ftory of Pandora has all the embellishments of poetry which we can find in Ovid, with a clearer moral than is generally in the fables of that poet. His fyftem of morality is calculated fo perfectly for the good of fociety, that there is fcarcely any precept omitted that could be properly thought of on that occasion. There is not one of the ten commandments of Mofes, which relates to our moral duty to each other, that is not ftrongly recommended by our poet; nor is it enough, he thinks, to be obfervant of what the civil government would oblige you to; but to prove yourself a good man, you must have fuch virtues as no human laws require of you, as those of temperance, generofity, &c. These rules are lai

In bis fecond difcourfe er cabertation to the Greeks.

down in a most proper manner to captivate the reader; here the beauties of poetry and the force of reafon combine to make him in love with morality. The poet tells us what effect we are reafonably to expect from fuch virtues and vices as he mentions; which doctrines are not always to be taken in a pofitive fenfe. If we fhould fay a continuance of intemperance in drinking, and of our commerce with women, would carry us early to the grave, it is morally true, according to the natural course of things; but a man of a strong and uncommon constitution, may wanton through an age of pleasure, and so be an exception to this rule, yet not contradict the moral truth of it. Archbishop Tillotfon has judiciously told us in what fenfe we are to take all doctrines of morality; “ Ariftotle," says that great divine, “observ"ed long fince, that moral and proverbial fayings are understood to be true generally, and for the "most part; and that is all the truth that is to be "expected in them; as when Solomon fays, Train

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up a child in the way wherein he fhall go, and "when he is old he will not depart from it. This "is not to be taken, as if no child that is piously “educated, did ever miscarry afterwards, but that "the good education of children is the best way to "make good men."

Sec. 3. Of the second book, Te.

The fecond book, which comes next under our view, will appear with more dignity when we confider in what esteem the art of agriculture was held in those days in which it was writ: the Georgic did not then concern the ordinary and middling fort of people only, but our poet writ for the inftruction of princes likewife, who thought it no difgrace to till the ground which they perhaps had conquered. Homer makes Laertes not only plant, but dung his own lands; the best employment he could find for his health, and confolation, in the abfence of his fon. The latter part of this book, together with all the third, though too mean for poetry, are not unjustifiable in our author. Had he made ofe religious and fuperftitious precepts one entire fubject of verse, it would have been a ridiculous fancy, but, as they are only a part, and the fmalleft part, of a regular poem, they are introduced with a laudable intent. After the poet had laid down proper rules for morality,husbandry, navigation, and the vintage, he knew that religion towards the gods, and a due obfervance of what was held facred in his age, were yet wanted to complete the work. Thefe were fubjects, he ̈ was fenfible, incapable of the embellishments of

-μέμυκε દ γεια και ύλη, &ς.

Loud groans the earth, and all the forefts roar.

I cannot leave this head, without injustice to the Roman poet, before I take notice of the manner in which he uses that fuperftitious precept πέμπτας δ' εξαλεαθαι, &c. what in the Greek is languid, is by him made brilliant :

-quintum fuge: pallidus Orcus, Eumenidefque fatæ tum partu, terra, nefando, Caumq. Japetumq. creat, favumq. Typhæum, Et conjuratos cœlum refcindere fratres: Ter funt conati, &c.

-the fifths be sure to fhun,

That gave the furies, and pale Pluto, birth,
And arm'd against the skies the fons of earth;
With mountains pil'd on mountains thrice they
ftrove

To fcale the steepy battlements of Jove;
And thrice his lightning, and red thunder play'd,
And their demolish'd works in ruin lay'd.

DRYDEN.

As I have fhowed where the Roman has followed the Greek, I may be thought partial to my author, if I do not fhow in what he has excelled him and first, he has contributed to the Georgic most of the fubjects in his two last books; as, in the third, the management of horses, dogs, &c. and, in the fourth, the management of the bees. His ftyle, through the whole, is more poetical, more abounding with epithets, which are often of themselves moft beautiful metaphors. His invocation on the deities concerned in rural affairs, his addrefs to Auguftus, his account of the prodigies before the death of Julius Cæfar, in the first book, his praife of a country life, at the end of the fe cond, and the force of love in beafts, in the third, are what were never excelled, and fome parts of them never equalled, in any language.

Allowing all the beauties in the Georgic, thefe two poems interfere in the merit of each other fo little, that the Works and Days may be read with as much pleasure as if the Georgic had never been written. This leads me into an examination of part of Mr. Addifon's Effay on the Georgic; in which that great writer, in fome places, feems to fpeak fo much at venture, that I am afraid he did not remember enough of the two pocins to enter on fuch a task. Precepts, fays he, of morality, befides the natural corruption of our tempers which makes us averfe to them, are fo abftracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give an opportunity for thofe beautiful defcriptions and images which are the fpirit and life of poetry. Had he that part of Heliod in his eye, where he mentions

the temporal bleffings of the righteous, and the punishment of the wicked, he would have seen that our poet took an opportunity, from his precepts of morality, to give us thofe beautiful deferiptions and images which are the spirit and life the land of the juft there defcribed, the increase of of poetry. How lovely is the flourishing state of

his flocks, and his own progeny! The reason which Mr, Addison gives against rules of morality in verfe is to me a reason for them; for if our tempers are naturally fo corrupt as to make us averse to them, we ought to try all the ways which we̱, can to reconcile them, and verse among the reft; in which, as I have obferved before, our poet has wonderfully fucceeded.

The fame author, speaking of Hefiod, fays, the precepts he has given us are fown fo very thick, that they clog the poem too much. The poet, to prevent this, quite through his Works and Days, has stayed fo fhort a while on every head, that it is impoffible to grow tiresome in either; the divifion of the work I have given at the beginning of this view, therefore, fhall not repeat it. Agriculture is but one subject, in many, of the work, and the reader is there relieved with feveral rural defcriptions, as of the northwind, autumn, the country repast in the fhades, &c. The rules for navigation are dispatched with the utmost brevity, in which the digreffion, concerning his victory at the funeral games of Amphidamas, is natural, and gives a grace to the poem.

I fhall mention but one overfight more which Mr. Addison has made, in his Effay, and conclude this head when he condemned that circumftante of the virgin being at home in the winter feafon, free from the inclemency of the weather, I believe he had forgot that his own author had used almoft the fame image, and on almost the fame occasion, though in other words:

Nec nocturna quidem carpentes penfa puellæ
Nefcivere hyemem, &c.
GEORG. I.

The difference of the manner in which the two poets ufe the image is this. Hefiod makes her with her mother at home, either bathing, or doing. what most pleases her; and Virgil fays, as the young women are plying their evening talks, they are fenfible of the winter feafon, from the oil fparkling in the lamp, and the fnuff hardening. How properly it is introduced by our poet I have fhowed in my note to the paffage.

The only apology I can make for the liberty have taken with the writings of fo fine an author as Mr. Addifon, is, that I thought it a part of my duty to our poet, to endeavour to free the reader from fuch errors as he might poffibly in bibe, when delivered under the fanction of fo great a

name.

Sect. 5. Of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil.

I must not end this view without fome obfervations on the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, fince Probus, Grævius, Fabricius, and other men of great learning, have thought fit to apply what has there

poetry; but as they were neceffary to his purpofe, he would not omit them. Poetry was not then defigned as the empty amufement only of an idle hour, confifting of wanton thoughts, or long and tedious defcriptions of nothing, but, by the force of harmony and good fenfe, to purge the mind of its dregs, to give it a great and virtuous turn of thinking in fhort, verfe was then but the lure to what was ufeful; which indeed has been, and ever will be, the end pursued by all good poets; with this view, Hefiod feems to have writ, and must be allowed, by all true judges, to have wonderfully fucceeded in the age in which he rofe.

:

This advantage more arifes to us from the writings of fo old an author: we are pleafed with those monuments of antiquity, fuch parts of the ancient Grecian hiftory, as we find in them.

Se&. 4. A comparison betwixt Hefiod and Virgil, c.

I fhall now endeavour to fhow how far Virgil may properly be faid to imitate our poet in his Georgic, and to point out fome of thofe paffages in which he has either paraphrafed, or literally tranflated, from the Works and Days. It is plain he was a fincere admirer of our poet, and of this poem in particular, of which he twice makes honourable mention, and where it could be only to express the veneration that he bore to the author. The first is in his third pastoral.

In medio duo figna, Conon, et quis fuit alter,
Defcripfit, radio, totum qui gentibus orbem,
Tempora quæ meffor, que curvus arator, haberet?
Two figures on the fides embofs'd
appear,
Conon, and what's his name who made the
sphere,

And fhow'd the seasons of the sliding year?
DRYDEN.

Notwithstanding the commentators have all difputed whom this interrogation should mean, I am convinced that Virgil had none but Hefiod in his eye. In the next paffage I propofe to quote the greatest honour that was ever paid by one poet to another is paid to ours. Virgil, in his fixth paftoral, makes Silenus, among other things, relate how Gallus was conducted by a mufe to Helicon, where Apollo, and all the mufes arofe to welcome him; and Linus, approaching him, addreffed him in this manner :

-hos tibi dant calamos, en, accipe, mufæ, Afcræa quos ante Seni; quibus ille folebat Cantando rigidas deducere montibus ornos. Receive this prefent, by the mufes made, The pipe on which th' Aftræan paitor play'd; With which, of old, he charm'd the favage train. And call'd the mountain afhes to the plain.

DRYDEN.

The greatest compliment which Virgil thought he could pay his friend and patron, Gallus, was, after all that pompous introduction to the choir of Apollo, to make the mufes prefent him, from the hands of Linus, with the pipe, or calomos, Aferea

quos antè feni, which they had formerly prefented to Hefiod; which part of the compliment to our poet, Dryden has omitted in his tranflation.

To return to the Georgic. Virgil can be faid to imitate Hefiod in his firft and fecond books only: in the firft is fcarcely any thing relative to the Georgic itfelf, the hint of which is not taken from the Works and Days; nay more, in fome places, whole lines are paraphrafed, and fome literally tranflated. It must indeed be acknowledged, that the Latin poet has fometimes explained, in his tranflation, what was difficult in the Greek, as where our poet gives directions for two ploughs:

Δοια δε θέθαι αροτρα πονησάμενος κατα οικον
Αυτογυον και πηκτον.

by auroyuo he means that which grows naturally into the shape of a plough, and by wnxrov that made

by art. Virgil, in his advice to have two ploughs always at hand, has this explanation of αυτογύον:

Continuó in fylvis magnâ vi flexa domatur
In burim, et cur vi formam accipit ulmus aratri.
GEORG. I.

Young elms, with early force, in copfes bow,
Fit for the figure of the crooked plough.

DRYDEN.

Thus we find him imitating the Greek poet in the moft minute precepts. Hefiod gives directions for making a plough; Virgil does the fame. Even that which has been the subject of ridicule to many critics, viz. " plough and fow naked," is tranflated in the Georgic; nudus ara, fere nudus. Before I proceed any farther, I fhall endeavour to obviate the objection which has been frequently made against this precept. Hefiod means to infinuate, that ploughing and fowing are labours which require much industry and application; and he had doubtlefs this phyfical reafon for his advice, that where fuch toil is required it is unhealthful, as well as impoffible, to go through with the fame quantity of clothes as in works of lefs fatigue. Virgil doubtlefs faw this reafon, or one of equal force, in this rule, or he would not have translated it. In fhort, we may find him a ftri& follower of our poet in most of the precepts of husbandry in the Works and Days. I fhall give but one inftance more, and that in his fuperftitious obfervance of days:

-quintum fugæ ; pallidus Orcus, Eumenidefque fatæ, &c.

-the fifths be fure to shun, That gave the furies, and pale Pluto birth. DRYDEN.

If the judgment I have paffed from the verses of Manilius, and the second book of the Georgic, in my Discourse on the Writings of Hefiod, be allowed to have any force, Virgil has doubtlefs been as much obliged to our poet in the fecond book of his Georgic, as in the first; nor has he imitated him in his precepts only, but in fome of his finest defcriptions, as in the first book defcribing the effects of a storm:

· μεμυκε ૉટ γεια και ύλη, &ς. Loud groans the earth, and all the forests roar.

I cannot leave this head, without injustice to the Roman poet, before I take notice of the manner in which he ufes that fuperftitious precept #sμras &ikariadas, &c. what in the Greek is languid, is by him made brilliant :

-quintum fuge : pallidus Orcus, Eumenidefque fatæ : tum partu, terra, nefando, Cumq. Japetumq. creat, favumq. Typhæum, Et conjuratos cœlum refcindere fratres: Ter funt conati, &c.

-the fifths be fure to fhun,

That gave the furies, and pale Pluto, birth,
And arm'd against the skies the fons of earth;
With mountains pil'd on mountains thrice they

ftrove

As I have fhowed where the Roman has followed the Greek, I may be thought partial to my author, if I do not show in what he has excelled him and first, he has contributed to the Georgic most of the fubjects in his two laft books; as, in the third, the management of horses, dogs, &c. and, in the fourth, the management of the bees. His style, through the whole, is more poetical, more abounding with epithets, which are often of themselves most beautiful metaphors. His invocation on the deities concerned in rural affairs, his addrefs to Auguftus, his account of the prodigies before the death of Julius Cæfar, in the first book, his praife of a country life, at the end of the fecond, and the force of love in beafts, in the third, are what were never excelled, and fome parts of them never equalled, in any language.

Allowing all the beauties in the Georgic, thefe two poems interfere in the merit of each other fo little, that the Works and Days may be read with as much pleasure as if the Georgic had never been written. This leads me into an examination of

part of Mr. Addifon's Effay on the Georgic; in which that great writer, in fome places, feems to speak so much at venture, that I am afraid he did not remember enough of the two poems to enter on fuch a task. Precepts, fays he, of morality, befides the natural corruption of our tempers which makes us averfe to them, are fo abftracted from ideas of fenfe, that they feldom give an opportunity for those beautiful defcriptions and images which are the fpirit and life of poetry. Had he that part of Hefiod in his eye, where he mentions

the temporal bleffings of the righteous, and the punishment of the wicked, he would have seen that our poet took an opportunity, from his precepts of morality, to give us thofe beautiful deferiptions and images which are the spirit and life of poetry. How lovely is the flourishing state of

the land of the just there described, the increase of his flocks, and his own progeny! The reason which Mr. Addifon gives against rules of morality in verfe is to me a reafon for them; for if our tempers are naturally fo corrupt as to make us averse to them, we ought to try all the ways which we can to reconcile them, and verse among the reft;" in which, as I have obferved before, our poet has wonderfully fucceeded.

The fame author, speaking of Hefiod, fays, the precepts he has given us are fown fo very thick, that they clog the poem too much. The poet, to prevent this, quite through his Works and Days, has stayed fo fhort a while on every head, that it is impoffible to grow tiresome in either; the divifion of the work I have given at the beginning of this view, therefore, fhall not repeat it. Agriculture is but one fubject, in many, of the work, and the reader is there relieved with feveral rural

defcriptions, as of the northwind, autumn, the country repast in the fhades, &c. The rules for navigation are dispatched with the utmost brevity, in which the digreffion, concerning his victory at the funeral games of Amphidamas, is natural, and gives a grace to the poem.

I fhall mention but one overfight more which Mr. Addison has made, in his Effay, and conclude this head when he condemned that circumftante of the virgin being at home in the winter season, free from the inclemency of the weather, I believe he had forgot that his own author had used almost the fame image, and on almost the same occasion, though in other words:

Nec nocturna quidem carpentes penfa puellæ
Nefcivere hyemem, &c.

GEORG. I.

The difference of the manner in which the two poets ufe the image is this. Hefiod makes her with her mother at home, either bathing, or doing what most pleases her; and Virgil fays, as the young women are plying their evening tasks, they are fenfible of the winter feafon, from the oil fparkling in the lamp, and the snuff hardening. How properly it is introduced by our poet I have showed in my note to the paffage.

The only apology I can make for the liberty I have taken with the writings of fo fine an author as Mr. Addison, is, that I thought it a part of my duty to our poet, to endeavour to free the reader from fuch errors as he might poffibly in bibe, when delivered under the fanction of fo great a

name.

Sect. 5. Of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil.

I must not end this view without fome obfervations on the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, fince Probus, Grævius, Fabricius, and other men of great learning, have thought fit to apply what has there