]
The man, for wisdom's various arts renown'd,
Long exercised in woes, O muse! resound.
Who, when his arms had wrought the destin'd fall
Of sacred Troy, and raz'd her heav'n-built wall,
Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,
The manners noted, and their states survey'd.
On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,
Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore:
Vain toils! their impious folly dar'd to prey
On herds devoted to the god of day;
The god vindictive doom'd them never more
(Ah! men unbless'd) to touch that natal shore.
O snatch some portion of these acts from fate,
Celestial muse! and to our world relate. POPE.
The first verses of the Iliad are in like manner particularly splendid,
and the proposition of the Aeneid closes with dignity and magnificence
not often to be found even in the poetry of Virgil.
The intent of the introduction is to raise expectation, and suspend it;
something therefore must be discovered, and something concealed; and the
poet, while the fertility of his invention is yet unknown, may properly
recommend himself by the grace of his language.
He that reveals too much, or promises too little; he that never
irritates the intellectual appetite, or that immediately satiates it,
equally defeats his own purpose.
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