NOTES ON SOME OF THE FOREGOING STORIES IN OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. ON THE STORY OF PHAETON, PAGE 113. THE story of Phaëton is told with a greater air of majesty and grandeur than any other in all Ovid. It is, indeed, the most important subject he treats of, except the deluge; and I cannot but believe that this is the conflagration he hints at in the first book. Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus (though the learned apply those verses to the future burning of the world) for it fully answers that description, if the Cali miserere tui, circumspica utrumque, Fumat uterque polus- -comes up to correptaque regia cali-Besides, it is Ovid's custom to prepare the reader for a following story, by giving such intimations of it in a foregoing one, which was more particularly necessary to be done before he led us into so strange a story as this he is now upon. P. 113. 1. 7.-For in the portal, &c.] We have here the picture of the universe drawn in little. Balanarumque prementem Egeona suis immunia terga lacertis. Ægeon makes a diverting figure in it. Facies non omnibus una Nec diversa tamen: qualem decet esse sororum. The thought is very pretty, of giving Doris and her daughters such a difference in their looks as is natural to different persons, and yet such a likeness as showed their affinity. Terra viros, urbesque gerit, sylvasque, ferasque, The less important figures are well huddled together in the promiscuous description at the end, which very well represents what the painters call a group. Circum caput omne micantes Deposuit radios; propiusque accedere jussit. P. 114. 1. 25.—And flung the blaze, &c.] It gives us a great image of Phoebus, that the youth was forced to look on him at a distance, and not able to approach him till he had laina aside the circle of rays that cast such a glory about his head. And, indeed, we may " Had lain aside] He uses lain for laid very improperly, here, and elsewhere, on the idea, I suppose, that the verb lay has two perfect participles; just as the verb load has loaded and loaden.-But the fact is otherwise and the reason is not far to seek. The doubled in the regular participle " loaded," having an ill sound, the ear gradually introduced loaden, which our nicer writers, and amongst the rest, our author, prefers to loaded, though the last is not entirely disused. There was not the same reason for changing laid to lain; and the use has never prevailed: if it had, "had lain aside" is, by accident, better than "had laid aside;" and that meliority of sound induced, no doubt, our delicate writer, who was all ear, to prefer " lain," in this place, to laid, without reflecting that the established practice was, for good reason, against him." Lain" is, properly, the perfect participle of lyelaid, of lay. every where observe in Ovid, that he never fails of a due loftiness in his ideas, tho' he wants it in his words. And this I think infinitely better than to have sublime expressions and mean thoughts, which is generally the true character of Claudian and Statius. But this is not considered by them who run down Ovid in the gross, for a low middle way of writing. What can be more simple and unadorned, than his description of Enceladus in the sixth book? Nititur ille quidem, pugnatque resurgere sæpe, But the image we have here is truly great and sublime, of a giant vomiting out a tempest of fire, and heaving up all Sicily, with the body of an island upon his breast, and a vast promontory on either arm. There are few books that have had worse commentators on them than Ovid's Metamorphoses. Those of the graver sort have been wholly taken up in the mythologies, and think they have appeared very judicious, if they have shewn us out of an old author that Ovid is mistaken in a pedigree, or has turned such a person into a wolf that ought to have been made a tiger. Others have employed themselves on what never entered into the poet's thoughts, in adapting a dull moral to every story, and making the persons of his poems to be only nicknames for such virtues or vices; particularly the pious commentator, Alexander Ross, has dived deeper into our author's design than any of the rest; for he discovers in him the greatest mysteries of the Christian religion, and finds almost in every page some typical representation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But if these writers have gone too deep, others have been wholly employed in the surface, most of them serving only to help out a school-boy in the construing part; or if they go out of their way, it is only to mark out the gnome of the author, as they call them, which are generally the heaviest pieces of a poet, distinguished from the rest by Italian characters. The best of Ovid's expositors is he that wrote for the Dauphin's use, who has very well shewn the meaning of the author, but seldom reflects on his beauties or imperfections; for in most places he rather acts the geographer than the critic, and, instead of pointing out the fineness of a description, only tells you in what part of the world the place is situated. I shall, therefore, only consider Ovid under the character of a poet, and endeavour to shew him impartially, without the usual prejudice of a translator; which I am the more willing to do, because I believe such a comment would give the reader a truer taste of poetry than a comment on any other poet would do; for in reflecting on the ancient poets, men think they may venture to praise all they meet with in some, and scarce any thing in others; but Ovid is confest to have a mixture of both kinds, to have something of the best and worst poets, and by consequence, to be the fairest subject for criticism. P. 114. 1. 38. My son, says he, &c.] Phoebus's speech is very nobly ushered in, with the terque quaterque concutiens illustre caput—and well represents the danger and difficulty of the undertaking; but that which is its peculiar beauty, and makes it truly Ovid's, is the representing them just as a father would to his young son; Per tamen adversi gradieris cornua tauri, Scorpion, atque aliter curvantem brachia cancrum. for one while he scares him with bugbears in the way, Vasti quoque rector Olympi, Qui fera terribili jaculetur fulmina dextrâ, Non agat hos currus; et quid Jove majus habetur? Deprecor hoc unum quod vero nomine pæna, Non honor est. Panam, Phaeton, pro munere poscis. and in other places perfectly tattles like a father, which by the way makes the length of the speech very natu ral, and concludes with all the fondness and concern of a tender parent. -Patrio pater esse metu probor; aspice vultus P. 116. 1. 20.-A golden axle, &c.] Ovid has more turns and repetitions in his words than any of the Latin poets, which are always wonderfully easy and natural in him. The repetition of aureus, and the transition to argenteus, in the description of the chariot, give these verses a great sweetness and majesty. Aureus axis erat, temo aureus, aurea summæ Curvatura rota; radiorum argenteus ordo. P. 117. 1. 5.—Drive 'em not on directly, &c.] Several have endeavoured to vindicate Ovid against the old objection, that he mistakes the annual for the diurnal motion of the sun. The Dauphin's notes tell us that Ovid knew very well the sun did not pass through all the signs he names in one day, but that he makes Phoebus mention them only to frighten Phaeton from the undertaking. But though this may answer for what Phoebus says in his first speech, it cannot for what is said in this, where he is actually giving directions for his journey, and plainly Sectus in obliquum est lato curvamine limes, Effugit australem, junctamque aquilonibus Arcton. describes the motion through all the zodiac. Ibid. 1. 21.-And not my chariot, &c.] Ovid's verse is Consiliis non curribus utere nostris. This way of joining two such different ideas as chariot and counsel to the same verb is mightily used by Ovid, but is a very low kind of wit, and has always in it a mixture of pun, because the verb must be taken in a different sense when it is joined with one of the things, from what it has in conjunction with the other. Thus in the end of this story he tells you that Jupiter flung a thunderbolt at |