PITT.

  These rites compleat, they reach the flow’ry plains,
  The verdant groves, where endless pleasure reigns. 
  Here glowing AEther shoots a purple ray,
  And o’er the region pours a double day. 
  From sky to sky th’unwearied splendour runs,
  And nobler planets roll round brighter suns. 
  Some wrestle on the sands, and some in play
  And games heroic pass the hours away. 
  Those raise the song divine, and these advance
  In measur’d steps to form the solemn dance. 
  There Orpheus graceful in his long attire,
  In seven divisions strikes the sounding lyre;
  Across the chords the quivering quill he flings,
  Or with his flying fingers sweeps the strings.

DRYDEN.

  These holy rites perform’d, they took their way,
  Where long extended plains of pleasure lay. 
  The verdant fields with those of heav’n may vie;
  With AEther veiled, and a purple sky: 
  The blissful seats of happy souls below;
  Stars of their own, and their own suns they know. 
  Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
  And on the green contend the wrestlers prize. 
  Some in heroic verse divinely sing,
  Others in artful measures lead the ring. 
  The Thracian bard surrounded by the rest,
  There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest. 
  His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
  Strike seven distinguish’d notes, and seven at once they fill.

In the celebrated description of the swiftness of Camilla in the VIIth Aeneid, which Virgil has laboured with so much industry, Dryden is more equal to Pitt than in the foregoing instances, tho’ we think even in this he falls short of him.

  Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret
  Gramina, nec teneras curfu laesisset aristas: 
  Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti
  Ferret iter; celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas.

DRYDEN.

—­The fierce virago fought,—­
  Outstrip’d the winds, in speed upon the plain,
  Flew o’er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain: 
  She swept the seas, and as she skim’d along,
  Her flying feet, unbath’d, on billows hung.

PITT.

  She led the rapid race, and left behind,
  The flagging floods, and pinions of the wind;
  Lightly she flies along the level plain,
  Nor hurts the tender grass, nor bends the golden grain;
  Or o’er the swelling surge suspended sweeps,
  And smoothly skims unbath’d along the deeps.

We shall produce one passage of a very different kind from the former, that the reader may have the pleasure of making the comparison.  This is the celebrated simile in the XIth Book, when the fiery eagerness of Turnus panting for the battle, is resembled to that of a Steed; which is perhaps one of the most picturesque beauties in the whole Aeneid.