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learning, in \shlch lad refpeft, he fometimes however, runs riot, and 

 may juftly incur the cenfure of pedantry. But, let us examine their 

 pretenfious more in detail. 



Nature was uncommonly liberal to Ovid : his fpirit is lively and fer- 

 tile, his fancy is rich, and abounding in the mofl; beautiful images, his 

 exprellion is eafy, flowing and abundant, ever feeming to outrun his 

 thoughts, copious as they are. ■ With thefe great qualities, he feems to 

 have been one of the firfl, who fpoiled the pure tafte of the Romans. 

 He is lavifli in flowers and ornaments, in fallies of imagination, in con- 

 ceits and points of wit ; in his morality, he is mofl relaxed and vi- 

 cious, in his tafte and fentiments, the lead pure and delicate of the 

 triumvirate. Many of his fubjefts are licentious, many immoral, in the 

 highefl: degree, and not only fcattered paffages, but entire compofitions 

 are fuch, as are highly ofFenfive to decency, and mufl: fliock the modeft 

 reader. Others, again, are gay and volatile, light and fanciful, like 

 thofe airy and playful fallies, in which the French poets, and Prior 

 among EngliJ]} writers, fo much excelled. The mofl; confiderable and 

 finilhed produftions of Ovid, on the fubjeft of love, are his Heroides or 

 love epiftlcs written in the perfons of eminent females of antiquity, as 

 Phadra, Her7nione, JEnone, and his Art of Love, a compofition which 

 equals any tiling that we know in ancient or modern poetry, in ad- 

 drefs, gay and fportive pleafantry, not unmixed with covert fatire, a 

 knowledge of the world, and a perfeft acquaintance with the foibles 

 and propenfitics of the fair-fex. His Amores, or books of occafional 

 love elegies, are the moft interefting part, however, of Ovid's writings. 

 They give the mod perfeft image of his temper, difpofuion, and man- 

 ner of life, and are thofe produftions in which he admits of the mod 

 direS and fair comparifon, with Tibiillus and Propertius. Nor are thefe 

 elegies the mod interefting parts of the works of Ovid, merely with 

 refpeft to the poet hhnfelf, they tend to bring us acquainted, with the 

 private life, the manners, the difpofitions and habits, not of him only, 

 but of all the courtly and diflipated part of the Roman people, 

 in general. We read them, with the lively fenflitions of pleafures, 



which 



