d the works that are there carried on. Virgil
dwells particularly on the formation of the thunder which he describes
unfinished under the hammers of the Cyclops. But what are the principles
of this extraordinary composition?

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae
Addiderant; rutili tres ignis, et alitis austri:
Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque, metumque
Miscebant operi, flammisque sequacibus iras.

This seems to me admirably sublime: yet if we attend coolly to the kind
of sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form,
the chimeras of madmen cannot appear more wild and absurd than such a
picture. "_Three rays of twisted showers, three of watery clouds, three
of fire, and three of the winged south wind; then mixed they in the work
terrific lightnings, and sound, and fear, and anger, with pursuing
flames._" This strange composition is formed into a gross body; it is
hammered by the Cyclops, it is in part polished, and partly continues
rough. The truth is, if poetry gives us a noble assemblage of words
corresponding to many noble ideas, which are connected by circumstances
of time or place, or related to each other as cause and effect, or
associated in any natural way, they may be moulded together in any form,
and perfectly answer their end. The picturesque connection is not
demanded; because no real picture is formed; nor is the effect of the
description at all the less upon this account. What is said of Helen by
Priam and the old men of his council, is generally thought to give us
the highest possible idea of that fatal beauty.

[Greek:
Ou nemesis, Troas kai euknemidas 'Achaious
Toied' amphi gunaiki polun chronon algea paschein
Ainos athanatesi thees eis opa eoiken.]

"They cried, No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen."

POPE.

Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty; nothing
which can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person; but
yet we are much more touched by this manner of mentioning her, than by
those long and labored descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by
tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors.
I am sure it affects me much more than the minute description which
Spenser has given of Belphebe; th