DR. DARWIN. 217 



jured hufband, an atonement not only in 

 itfelf due, but which muft have raifed the 

 fiege, faved the city, and fpared immenfe 

 effufion of human blood. The ftory, if 

 really founded on hiftoric circumftances, 

 might not have authorifed the reftoration 

 of Helen, but it was in the poet's power 

 to have made Hector urge it. 



If the Homeric fable of Mars and Venus, 

 in Vulcan's net, repeated by Darwin with 

 new circumftances, more pifturefque, not 

 more indelicate, forms one fomewhat li- 

 centious paffage in the Botanic Garden, 

 the Iliad contains feveral which are equally- 

 voluptuous, even after Pope has chaftened 

 them. As to the amours of the Plants and 

 Flowers, it is a burlefque upon morality to 

 make them refponfible at its tribunal. The 

 floral harems do not form an imagi- 

 nary but a real fyftem, which philofophy 

 has difcovered, and with which poetry 

 fports. The impurity is in the imagination 



of 



