in the preceding line, is imagined to have excited any idea of Mr. Pitt.
Our author now pursues his hero to the pulpit, and there, in imitation of Homer, who always takes the opportunity for giving a minute description of his personæ, when they are on the very verge of entering upon an engagement, he gives a laboured but animated detail of the Doctor’s personal manners and deportment. Speaking of the penetrating countenance for which the Doctor is distinguished, he says,
ARGUS could boast an hundred eyes, ’tis true, }
The DOCTOR looks an hundreds ways with two: }
Gimlets they are, and bore you through and through. }
This is a very elegant and classic compliment, and shows clearly what a decided advantage our Reverend Hero possesses over the celebrated Οφθαλμοδουλος of antiquity. Addison is justly famous in the literary world, for the judgment with which he selects and applies familiar words to great occasions, as in the instances:
———“The great, the important day, “Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.”—
“The sun grows dim with age, &c. &c.”
This is a very great beauty, for it fares with ideas, as with individuals; we are the more interested in their fate, the better we are acquainted with them. But how inferior is Addison in this respect to our author?
Gimlets they are, &c.
There is not such a word in all Cato! How well-known and domestic the image! How specific and forcible the application!—Our author proceeds: Having described very accurately the style of the Doctor’s hairdressing, and devoted ten beautiful lines to an eulogy upon the brilliant on the little finger of his right hand, of which he emphatically says:
No veal putrescent, no dead whiting’s eye,
In the true water with this ring could vie;