Tantum effata, caput glauco contexit amictu,
  Multa gemens, & se fluvio Dea condidit also.

She drew a length of sighs, no more she said, But with an azure mantle wrapp’d her head; Then plunged into her stream with deep despair, And her last sobs came bubbling up in air.

Though the last line is not expressed in the original, it is yet in some measure implied, and it is in itself so exceedingly beautiful, that the whole passage can never be too much admired.  These are excellencies indeed; this is truly Mr. Dryden.  The power of truth, no doubt, extorted this confession from the Dr. and notwithstanding many objections may be brought against this performance of Dryden, yet we believe most of our poetical readers upon perusing it, will be of the opinion of Pope, ’that, excepting a few human errors, it is the noblest and most spirited translation in any language.’  To whom it may reasonable be asked, has Virgil been most obliged? to Dr. Trapp who has followed his footsteps in every line; has shewn you indeed the design, the characters, contexture, and moral of the poem, that is, has given you Virgil’s account of the actions of AEneas, or to Mr. Dryden, who has not only conveyed the general ideas of his author, but has conveyed them with the same majesty and fire, has led you through every battle with trepidation, has soothed you in the tender scenes, and inchanted you with the flowers of poetry?  Virgil contemplated thro’ the medium of Trapp, appears an accurate writer, and the Aeneid as well conducted fable, but discerned in Dryden’s page, he glows as with fire from heaven, and the Aeneid is a continued series of whatever is great, elegant, pathetic, and sublime.

We have already observed, in the Life of Dryden, that it is easier to discern wherein the beauties of poetical composition consist, than to throw out those beauties.  Dr. Trapp, in his Praelectiones Poeticae, has shewn how much he was master of every species of poetry; that is, how excellently he understood the structure of a poem; what noble rules he was capable of laying down, and what excellent materials he could afford, for building upon such a foundation, a beautiful fabric.  There are few better criticisms in any language, Dryden’s dedications and prefaces excepted, than are contained in these lectures.  The mind is enlarged by them, takes in a wide range of poetical ideas, and is taught to discover how many amazing requisites are necessary to form a poet.  In his introduction to the first lecture, he takes occasion to state a comparison between poetry and painting, and shew how small pretensions the professors of the latter have, to compare themselves with the former.  ’The painter indeed (says he) has to do with the passions, but then they are such passions only, as discover themselves in the countenance; but the poet is to do more, he is to trace the rise of those passions, to watch their gradations, to pain their progress, and mark them in the heart in their genuine conflicts; and, continues he, the disproportion between the soul and the body, is not greater than the disproportion between the painter and the poet.