THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

78

Here, like fomc furious prophet, Pindar rode,And feera’d to labour with tli’ infpiring God .Acrofs the harpj a carelefs hand he flings,

And boldly finks into the founding firings. 2 i 5The figur’d games of Greece the column grace,Neptune and Jove furvey the rapid race.

The youths hang o’er their cliariots as they run;The fiery fteeds feetn flarting from the flone ;

The champions in cliflorted poflures threat; 5220And all appear’d irregularly great.

Here happy Horace tun’d th’ Aufonian lyreTo fweeterfounds, and temper’d Pindar ’s fire:Pleas’d with Alcaeus ’ manly rage t’ infufeThe fofter fpirit of the Sapphic Mufe. 2 25

NOTES.

and unforced, are clofely conne£ted with, and nrife appofltely fromLis fubje£L A diflcriation on this topic, which F I ave read, mayperhaps one day be published. Even his {file has been reprefentedas too fwelling and hombaft ; but, carefully examined, it will appearnot to abound vvith thofe violent and harfh metaphors, and thatprofufion of florid epithets, which fome of bis imitators, who appearnot to have read and ftudied the original, affe& to ufe. One ofPindar ’s arts, which Lord Bacon has obferved, a. d in which hiscopiers fail, is the introdu&ion of many moral reflections. Animoshominum, inopinato (fays Bacon) fententiola aliqua mirabili, velutivirgula divina percutit. Gray has tnoft clofely fludied, and mofthappily imitated, the manner of Pindar of all our writers.

IMITATIONS.

Vbr. 224. Phas'd tuiih Alcaeus ' manly rage t' infufeThe fofter fpirit of the Sapphic Mufe.]

This expreffes the#*nixed chara&er of the odes of Horace : the fccondof thefe verfes alludes to that line of his,

“ Spiiilum Graiac tecuem camoenae. , ‘