By the Images which are employed in the Ode, I mean those illustrations borrowed from _natural_ and often from _familiar_ objects, by which the Poet either clears up an obscurity, or arrests the attention, and kindles the imagination of his reader. These illustrations have very distinct uses in the different species of poetic composition. The greatest Masters in the Epopee often introduce metaphors, which have only a general relation to the subject; and by pursuing these through a variety of circumstances, they disengage the reader’s attention from the principal object. This indeed often becomes necessary in pieces of length, when attention begins to relax by following too closely one particular train of ideas. It requires however great judgment in the Poet to pursue this course with approbation, as he must not only fix upon metaphors which in some points have a striking similarity to the object illustrated, but even the digressive circumstances must be so connected with it, as to exhibit a succession of sentiments which resemble, at least remotely, the subject of his Poem[67]. It must be obvious, at first view, that as the Lyric Poet cannot adopt this plea, his metaphors will always have the happiest effect, when they correspond to the object in such a manner, as to shew its compleat proportions in the fullest point of view, without including foreign and unappropriated epithets. This however is not the course which a Writer of imagination will naturally follow, unless his judgment restrains the excursions of that excentric faculty. He will, on the contrary, catch with eagerness every image which Fancy enlivens with the richest colouring, and he will contemplate the external beauty of his metaphor, rather than consider the propriety with which it is applied as an illustration. It is probably owing to this want of just attention to propriety, that the first Lyric Poets have left such imperfect standards to the imitation of posterity. [Footnote 67: The reader will meet with many examples of this liberty in the Iliad, some of which Mr. Pope has judiciously selected in the notes of his translation. Milton, in the same spirit, compares Satan lying on the lake of fire, to a Leviathan slumbering on the coast of Norway; and immediately digressing from the strict points of connection, he adds, “that the mariners often mistake him for an island, and cast anchor on his side.” Par. Lost, B. II. In this illustration it is obvious, that though the Poet deviates from close imitation, yet he still keeps in view the general end of his subject, which is to exhibit a picture of the fallen Arch angel. See Par. Lost, B. I.]