NOTES
ON
ASTRÆA REDUX.
An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.—P. [30.]
The small wits of the time made themselves very merry with this couplet; because stillness, being a mere absence of sound, could not, it was said, be personified, as an active agent, or invader. Captain Ratcliff thus states the objection in his "News from Hell:"
Laureat, who was both learned and florid,
Was damned, long since, for "silence horrid;"
Nor had there been such clatter made,
But that this Silence did "invade."
Invade! and so't might well, 'tis clear;