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Show [ 54 ] [eleCtion and new combination of her moll: agreeable parts. Your. felf will be fenfible of the truth of this doCtrine, by recolleCting over in your mind the works of three of our celebrated ar.tifis. Sir J ofhua Reynolds has introduced fublimity even into its portraits; we admire the reprefentation of perfons, whofe reality we ihould have paifed by unnoticed. Mrs. Angelica Kauffman attraCts our eyes with beauty, which I fuppofe no where exifis; certainly frw Grecian faces are feen in this country. And the darif'g- ennJ uf Fufeli tranfports us beyond the boundaries of nature, au i ra\ ifl cs u with the charm of the mofl: interefl:ing novelty. And Shal'clpcar, y, ho exeells in all thefe together, fo far capt ivates the fi1 '1ator, <..S to make him unmindful of every kind of violation of T u , Plan, or Exifience. As at the firfi appearance of the Ghoft of Hamlet, ' ' his ·" ear mull: be dull as the fat ·weed which roo s itfdt on Lethe's "' brink," who can attend to the improbability of the exhibition. So in many fcenes of the Tempefi we perpetually believ the aCtion palling before our eyes, and relapfe with fomewhat of difiaile into common life at the intervals of the reprefentation. B. I fuppofe a poet of lefs ability would find fuch great machinery difficult and cumberfome to manage? P. Jufl: fo, we ihould be {hocked at the apparent improbabilities. As in the gardens of a Sicilian nobleman, defcribed in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinburn's travels, there are faid to be fix hundred fl:atues of imaginary monfiers, which fo difgufl: the fpeCtators, that the fiate had once a ferious defign of defl:roying them; and yet the very improbable monfiers in Ovid's Metamorphofes have entertained the world for many centuries. B. The monfiers in your Botanic Garden, I hope, are of the latter kind ? P. The candid reader mufi determine. THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. CANTO II. A.G AIN the Goddefs il:rikes the golden lyre, And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire ; With foft fufpended fiep Attention moves, And Silence hovers o'er the lifl:ening groves ; Orb within orb the charrned audience throng, And the green vault reverberates the fong. 5 |
