Od. 9.]

On other occasions he breaks abruptly into a short and spirited
transition.

_Auditis? an me ludit amabilis
Insania? audire et videor pios
Errare per lucos, amoenae
Quos et aquae subeunt et aurae[47]._

Dos't hear? or sporting in my brain,
What wildly-sweet deliriums reign!
Lo! mid Elysium's balmy groves,
Each happy shade transported roves!
I see the living scene display'd,
Where rills and breathing gales sigh murmuring thro' the shade.

[Footnote 47: Id. Lib. III. Od. 4.]

On some subjects he is led imperceptibly into a soft melancholy, which
peculiar elegance of expression renders extremely agreeable in the end
of this poem. There is a fine stroke of this kind in his Ode to
Septimus, with whom he was going to fight against the Cantabrians.
He figures out a poetical recess for his old age, and then says,

_Ille te mecum locus, et beatae
Postulant arces, ibi tu calentem
Debita sparges lachryma favillam
Vatis amici[48]._

That happy place, that sweet retreat.
The charming hills that round it rise,
Your latest hours, and mine await;
And when your Poet Horace dyes;
There the deep sigh thy poet-friend shall mourn,
And pious tears bedew his glowing urn. FRANCIS.

[Footnote 48: Carm. Lib. II. Od. 6.]

Upon the whole, my Lord, you will perhaps be of opinion, that though the
subjects of this second species of the Ode are wholly different from
these of the first; yet the same variety of images, boldness of
transition, figured diction, and rich colouring which characterised this
branch of poetry on its original introduction, continue to be uniformly
and invariably remarkable in the works of succeeding performers.
Reflection indeed will induce us to acknowledge, that in this branch of
Lyric Poetry the Author may be allowed to take greater liberties than we
could permit him to do in that which has formerly been mentioned. It is
the natural effect of any passion by which the mind is agitated, to
break out into short and abrupt sallies which are expressive of its
impetuosity, and of an imagination heated, and starting in the tumult of
thought from one object to another. To follow therefore the workings of
the mind in such a situation and to paint them happily, is in other
words to copy Nature. But your Lordship will observe, that the
transitions of the Poet who breaks from his subject to exhibit an
historical detail whose connection with it is remote,