Well pleas'd, thy people's loyalty approve, This translation of Virgil is said by sir Walter Scott to have appeared in the third volume of Dryden's Miscellany, published in 1693. Addison was then in his twenty-second year. Dryden, in the postscript to his translation of Virgil, says: "Whoever has given the world the translation of part of the third Georgic, which he calls the Power of Love, has put me to sufficient pains to make my own not inferior to his; as my lord Roscommon's Silenus had formerly given me the same trouble. The most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford has also been as troublesome to me as the other two, and on the same After his Bees, my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving." Scott's Dryden, vol. i. 378. xv. 193. Bishop Hurd says of it, that "the version, though it be exact enough, for the most part, and not inelegant, gives us but a faint idea of the original. It has the grace but not the energy of Virgil's manner. The versification, except only the bad rhymes, may be excused; for the frequent triplets and alexandrines, which Dryden's laziness, by the favour of his exuberant genius, had introduced, were esteemed, when this translation was made, not blemishes, but beauties." account. A TRANSLATION OF ALL VIRGIL'S FOURTH GEORGIC, EXCEPT THE STORY OF ARISTEUS. ETHEREAL sweets shall next my muse engage, Nor frisking heifers bound about the place, Το spurn the dewdrops off, and bruise the rising grass: Nor must the lizard's painted brood appear, Nor woodpecks, nor the swallow harbour near. V They waste the swarms, and, as they fly along, Let purling streams, and fountains edg'd with moss, Or palms shoot up, and shade the streams below; Whether the neighb'ring water stands or runs, Though barks and plaited willows make your hive, For colds congeal and freeze the liquors up, And, melted down with heat, the waxen buildings drop. Their wax around the whistling crannies spread, |