Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/170

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
164
DRYDEN.

Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet. So again, he interpolates Virgil with that and the round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around. A ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find.

Ver. 42, 43.

And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.

Was he consul or dictator there?

And watry virgins for thy bed shall strive.

Both absurd interpolations.

Ver. 47, 48.

Where in the void of heaven a place is free,

Ab happy, D———n, were that place for thee!

But where is that void? Or, what does our translator mean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did, to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps this was then forgotten; but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.
No,