[65] Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse; Se cupit imprudens, & qui probat ipse probatur. Dumque petit, petitur; pariterque accendit & ardet: &c. Atque oculos idem qui decipit, incitat, error.
By his own Flames consum'd the Lover lies, And gives himself the Wound by which he dies. Addison.
And afterwards, as if all he had done was nothing, he only changes the Person, and brings in Narcissus himself speaking thus:
[66] Ille ego sum, sensi; nec me mea fallit imago; Uror amore mei, flammas moveoque, feroque; Quid faciam? roger? anne rogem? quid deinde rogabo? Quod cupio mecum est; inopem me copia fecit.
Ah! wretched me, I now begin, too late, To find out all the long perplex'd Deceit: It is myself I love, myself I see, The gay Delusion is a Part of me. I kindle up the Fires by which I burn, And my own Beauties from the Well return. Whom shou'd I court? how utter my Complaint?} Enjoyment but produces my Restraint,} And too much Plenty makes me die for Want,} Addison.
Very justly may the last Words, with some small Alteration, be applied to Ovid himself, in whom a Fecundity of Words occasioned a Barrenness of Sense. How far is this from him, qui nil molitur inepte, who ne'er attempts a Thought in vain? Virgil, I mean, much better entitled, in my Opinion, to that Character, than he for whom Horace design'd it. With how much greater Propriety does that divine Poet express the same Thing in different Ways, where he describes the Manner of Grafting and Inoculating?
[67] Et sæpe alterius ramos impune videmus Vertere in alterius; mutatamque insita mala Ferre pyrum, & prunis lapidosa rubescere corna.
Oft too we see one Tree's ingrafted Sprays Change to another's, nor repent that Change. The Pear's hard Trunk with alien Apples bend: And on the Plumb's the stony Cornel grew.
[68] Inseritur vero ex fœtu nucis arbutus horrida; Et steriles platani malos gessere valentes, Castaneæ fagos; ornusque incanuit albo Flore pyri, glandemque sues fregere sub ulmis.
But with a Filberd's Twig the prickly Arbutus Is grafted: Oft the barren Plane has borne The ruddiest Apples: Chesnuts bloom'd on Beech, The wild Ash blossom'd with the Flow'rs of Pears, Snow-white; and Swine crack'd Acorns under Elms.