ose of heav'n may vie;
With AEther veiled, and a purple sky:
The blissful seats of happy souls below;
Stars of their own, and their own suns they know.
Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
And on the green contend the wrestlers prize.
Some in heroic verse divinely sing,
Others in artful measures lead the ring.
The Thracian bard surrounded by the rest,
There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest.
His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
Strike seven distinguish'd notes, and seven at once they fill.

In the celebrated description of the swiftness of Camilla in the VIIth
Aeneid, which Virgil has laboured with so much industry, Dryden is more
equal to Pitt than in the foregoing instances, tho' we think even in
this he falls short of him.

Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret
Gramina, nec teneras curfu laesisset aristas:
Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti
Ferret iter; celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas.

DRYDEN.

--The fierce virago fought,--
Outstrip'd the winds, in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and as she skim'd along,
Her flying feet, unbath'd, on billows hung.

PITT.

She led the rapid race, and left behind,
The flagging floods, and pinions of the wind;
Lightly she flies along the level plain,
Nor hurts the tender grass, nor bends the golden grain;
Or o'er the swelling surge suspended sweeps,
And smoothly skims unbath'd along the deeps.

We shall produce one passage of a very different kind from the former,
that the reader may have the pleasure of making the comparison. This is
the celebrated simile in the XIth Book, when the fiery eagerness of
Turnus panting for the battle, is resembled to that of a Steed; which is
perhaps one of the most picturesque beauties in the whole Aeneid.

Qualis, ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinc'lis,
Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto;
Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,
Aut assuetus aquae perfundi flumine noto
Emicat; arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians, luduntque jubae per colla, per armos.

DRYDEN.

Freed from his keepers, thus with broken reins,
The wanton courser prances o'er the plains:
Or in the pride of youth, o'erleaps the mounds,
And snuffs the females in forbidden grounds.
Or seeks his wat'ring in the well-known flood,
To quench his thirst, and cool his fiery blood: