is very inferior to the original, as it is more
vague and general: the picture in the original is strikingly beautiful.
The circumstances which make it so, are omitted by Pope:

Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido,
Ipse dabit tenera vela legetque manu.--BOWLES.

The objection of Bowles would not have applied to the manuscript, where
this admirable couplet, which Pope unwisely omitted, follows the lines
in the text:

Shall take the rudder in his tender hand,
And steer thee safe to this forsaken land.

There is a second, but inferior rendering:

Shall sit presiding on the painted prore,
And steer thy ship to this forsaken shore.

Cromwell applied the words of Horace, "quae desperat nitescere posse,
relinquit," which seems intended to intimate that it was impossible to
give a poetical translation of the original. Pope deferred to the
mistaken criticism.]

THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.[1]

FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

She[2] said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs,
When the fair consort of her son[3] replies:
Since you a servant's ravished form bemoan,[4]
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own,
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate 5
A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate.
No nymph of all Oechalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,[5]
Her tender mother's only hope and pride,
(Myself the offspring of a second bride.) 10
This nymph compressed by him who rules the day,
Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,
Andraemon loved; and, blessed in all those charms
That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms.[6]
A lake there was, with shelving banks around, 15
Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crowned.
These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,
And to the naiads flow'ry garlands brought;
Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she pressed
Within her arms, and nourished at her breast. 20
Nor distant far a wat'ry lotos grows,
The spring was new, and all the verdant boughs,
Adorned with blossoms, promised fruits that vie
In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye:
Of these she cropped to please her infant son, 25
And I myself the same rash act had done:
But lo! I saw (as near her side I stood,)
The violated bloss