Καὶ γὰρ θὴν οὐδ’ εἶδος ἔχω κακὸν, ὥς με λέγοντι,
Ἦ γὰρ πρὰν ἐς Πόντον ἐσέβλεπον· ἦν δὲ γαλάνα.
Nothing could be better fancied than to make this enormous son of Neptune use the sea for his looking-glass. But is Virgil so happy when his little land-man says,
Nec sum adeò informis: nuper me in littore vidi,
Cùm placidum ventis staret mare——
His wonderful judgment for once deserted him, or he might have retained the sentiment with a slight change in the application. For instance, what if he had said,
Certè ego me novi, liquidæque in imagine vidi
Nuper aquæ, placuitque mihi mea forma videnti.
It is a sort of curiosity, you say, to find Ovid reading a lesson to Virgil. I will dissemble nothing. The lines are, as I have cited them, in the 13th book of the Metamorphosis. But unluckily they are put into the mouth of Polypheme. So that instead of instructing one poet by the other, I only propose that they should make an exchange; Ovid take Virgil’s sea, and Virgil be contented with Ovid’s water. However this be, you may be sure the authority of the Prince of the Latin poets will carry it with admiring posterity above all such scruples of decorum. Nobody wonders therefore to read in Tasso,
————————————Non son’ io
Da disprezzar, se ben me stesso vidi
Nel liquido del mar, quando l’altr’ hieri
Taceano i venti, et ei giacea senz’ onda.
But of all the misappliers of this fine original sentiment, commend me to that other Italian, who made his shepherd survey himself, in a fountain indeed, but a fountain of his own weeping.
3. You will forgive my adding one other instance “of this vicious application of a fine thought.”
You remember those agreeable verses of Sir John Suckling,