Nocte natat cæca serus freta, quem super ingens
Porta tonat cæli, et scopulis illisa reclamant
Æquora:
In both of these, you see, he fears not to give voice and thought to things inanimate.
Will you arraign your master, Horace, for his hardness of expression, when he describes the death of Cleopatra, and says she did—asperos tractare serpentes, ut atrum corpore combiberet cenenum,—because the body, in that action, performs what is proper to the mouth?
As for hyperboles, I will neither quote Lucan, nor Statius, men of an unbounded imagination, but who often wanted the poize of judgment. The divine Virgil was not liable to that exception; and yet he describes Polyphemus thus:
—Graditurque per æquor
Jam medium; necdum fluctus latera ardua tinxit.
In imitation of this place, our admirable Cowley thus paints Goliah:
The valley, now, this monster seemed to fill;