Know we how long the present shall endure? West.
This method of introducing moral observations adds peculiar dignity and importance to Lyric Poetry, and is likewise happily suited to the Ode, whose diversified composition naturally admits of it.
I shall only observe further with regard to Pindar, that his character is eminently distinguished by that noble superiority to vulgar opinions, which is the inseparable concomitant of true genius. He appears to have
had his Zoilus as well as Homer, and to have been equally fallible of the extent and sublimity of his own talents. Thus he compares his enemies to a parcel of crows and magpies pursuing an eagle.
The learned Abbe Fraquier in a short dissertation on the character of Pindar affirms, that one will discover too obvious an imitation of this Poet in those pieces of Horace which are sublime and diversified[88]. He mentions, as examples of this, his celebrated Odes to Virgil[89] and to Galatea[90], intended to dissuade them from going to sea; and that in which he so artfully represents to the Roman people the danger and impropriety of removing the seat of the Empire to Troy[91]. Upon comparing these with the Odes of Pindar, he says that we shall find more strength, more energy, and more sublimity in the works of the Greek, than in those of the Roman Poet[92]. In the three Odes formerly mentioned, he observes that the digressions never lead us far from the principal subject, and the Poet’s imagination appears to be too much confined to one place. On the contrary, Pindar never curbs the
exuberance of his Genius. He celebrates promiscuously in the same Ode, Gods, Heroes, and persons who have made a shining figure in their age and country, by imitating illustrious examples[93].
From the observations made on the manner of Horace in a preceding part of this Essay, it is sufficiently obvious, that his Genius in Lyric Poetry was principally fitted to excel in the composition of the shorter Ode; and that his imagination was not so equal as that of Pindar to the higher and more perfect species. Of the three Pieces, however, which this Author hath mentioned as imitations of the Greek Poet, we can only admit one to have been compleatly attempted in the manner of this Great Master. It is that which regards the design of removing the imperial seat to Troy. The other two Odes are highly beautiful in their kind; but the subjects are not treated at so much length, nor with that variety of high poetic colouring which characteriseth so eminently the writings of the latter. The Ode to the Roman people is indeed composed in an higher strain, and is full of that enthusiasm which the subject might naturally be supposed to excite in the mind of a Poet, who was animated by the love of his country. Through the whole of this noble performance, the address of the Author, and the emphatical energy with which the sentiments are conveyed,
deserve to be equally the objects of admiration. The Poem opens with a just and poetical description of the security of Virtue; from which the Poet takes occasion to introduce an artful compliment to Augustus, whom he ranks with Bacchus and Romulus; on the ascent of which last to heaven, Juno expresseth her aversion to the repeopling of Troy. She breaks abruptly into the subject, in a manner expressive of eager solicitude.
——Ilion, Ilion,
Fatalis incestusque Judex