19 



Whatever exalts the imagination by its sublimity, raises our 

 admiration at it's magnificence, or awes us into a still more 

 violent emotion by its terrific grandeur; whatever on the 

 other hand fascinates us by its beauty, charms us by the 

 harmonious variety of it's colours, or delights by the exqui- 

 site delicacy of it's proportions, every such object was equal- 

 ly, and, in some cases, better qualified to make the same 

 impression on the poetic mind three thousand years from 

 the present period. The din of battle, and the roaring of the 

 winds and waters, must have possessed the same solemn and 

 fearful qualities ; the melody of the lyre, the gaiety of a 

 vintage feast, and the serene tranquillity of a summer's eve, 

 must have had the same chearful and enlivening effect in 

 the days of Homer, as at present. When Virgil breaks forth 

 into that exclamation 



" Oh quis me gelidis in vallibus Haemi 

 Sistat, et ingenti ratnorum protegat umbra ! 



or cries out, 



" Oh fortunati nimium, sua si boua norint, 

 Agricolae !" 



the charms of a country life must have appeared as attrac- 

 tive to him, as to Thomson or any other modern. And 

 Horace, when , he sang the following verses, must have felt 

 the pleasing pain of love with a sensibility as exquisite as 

 Moore himself can pretend to — 



