THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

79

The polifh’d pillar diff’rent fculpture grace :

A work outlawing monumental brafs.

Here fmiling Loves and Bacchanals appear,

The Julian flar, and great Auguftus here.

The Doves that round the infant poetfpread, i3oMyrtles and bays, hung hov’ring o’er his head.

NOTES.

Ver. 23 o. The Doves ] Surely he might have fele&ed, for thebalTo relievos about the ftatue of Horace, ornaments more manly andchara&eriftical of his genius. Among the various views in which thevery numerous commentators have confidered his odes, they feemto have negleded to remark the dramatic turn he has given to many ofthem. Witnefs, the prophecy ofNereus, the animated fpeech ofJuno, the fpeeches of Regulus, and ofEuropa and her father, andof one of the daughters of Danaus ; as alfo of the boy feized by th«■witches, and of Canidia berfelf, in the fifth epode.

IMITATIONS.

As another which follows, to

44 Exegi monumentuoi aere perennitis.”

The a£Hon of the Doves hints at a paflage in the fourth ode of bisthird book.

44 Me fabulofac VultuTe in Appulo44 Altricis extra limen Apuliae,

14 Ludo fatigatumque fomno,

44 Fronde nova puerum. paiumbes44 Texere ; mirum quod foret omnibus —

“ Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis

14 Dormirem eturfis; utpremerer facra41 LauTOque collataque myrto,

44 Non- fine Diis animofus infans.”

Which may be thus Englifh’d:

44 While yet a child, I chanc’d to ftray.

44 And in a deftfrt fleepi ng lay ;

44 The favage race withdrew, nor dar’d« 4 To touch the Mules' future bard $

44 But Cytherea’s gentle dove

44 Myrtles and Bays around me fpread,

44 And down’d your infant poet’s head,

44 Sacred to mufic and to Love.” P.