_Non semper imbres nubibus hispidos Manant in agros_, &c.[46] Not always snow, and hail, and rain Defend, and beat the fruitful plain. CREECH. [Footnote 46: Carm. Lib. II. Od. 9.] On other occasions he breaks abruptly into a short and spirited transition. _Auditis? an me ludit amabilis Insania? audire et videor pios Errare per lucos, amœnæ Quos et aquae subeunt et auræ[47]._ Dos’t hear? or sporting in my brain, What wildly-sweet deliriums reign! Lo! mid Elysium’s balmy groves, Each happy shade transported roves! I see the living scene display’d, Where rills and breathing gales sigh murmuring thro’ the shade. [Footnote 47: Id. Lib. III. Od. 4.] On some subjects he is led imperceptibly into a soft melancholy, which peculiar elegance of expression renders extremely agreeable in the end of this poem. There is a fine stroke of this kind in his Ode to Septimus, with whom he was going to fight against the Cantabrians. He figures out a poetical recess for his old age, and then says, _Ille te mecum locus, et beatæ Postulant arces, ibi tu calentem Debita sparges lachryma favillam Vatis amici[48]._ That happy place, that sweet retreat. The charming hills that round it rise, Your latest hours, and mine await; And when your Poet Horace dyes; There the deep sigh thy poet-friend shall mourn, And pious tears bedew his glowing urn. FRANCIS. [Footnote 48: Carm. Lib. II. Od. 6.] Upon the whole, my Lord, you will perhaps be of opinion, that though the subjects of this second species of the Ode are wholly different from these of the first; yet the same variety of images, boldness of transition, figured diction, and rich colouring which characterised this branch of poetry on its original introduction, continue to be uniformly and invariably remarkable in the works of succeeding performers. Reflection indeed will induce us to acknowledge, that in this branch of Lyric Poetry the Author may be allowed to take greater liberties than we could permit him to do in that which has formerly been mentioned. It is the natural effect of any passion by which the mind is agitated, to break out into short and abrupt sallies which are expressive of its impetuosity, and of an imagination heated, and starting in the tumult of thought from one object to another. To follow therefore the workings of the mind in such a situation and to paint them happily, is in other words to copy Nature. But your Lordship will observe, that the transitions of the Poet who breaks from his subject to exhibit an historical detail whose connection with it is remote, or who is solicitous to display the fertility of a rich imagination at the expence of perspicuity, when it is not supposed that his passions are inflamed: you will observe, my Lord, that his digressions are by no means so excusable as those of the other, because obscurity in the latter may be an excellence, whereas in the former it is always a blemish.