When we examine the works of later Poets among the Ancients, we find that even those of them who are most exceptionable in other circumstances, have yet in a great measure corrected this mistake of their predecessors. In the lyric Odes of Euripides and Sophocles, the metaphors made use of are generally short, expressive, and fitted to correspond with great accuracy to the point which requires to be illustrated[68]. Pindar is in many instances equally happy in the choice of his images, which are frequently introduced with address, and produce a very striking effect[69]. [Footnote 68: The reader may consider, as an example, of the following verses of the Ode of Sophocles to the Sun. Πολλα γαρ ὡστ’ ακαμαντος η Νωτου η Βορεα τις κυματα ευρει ποντω βαντ’ επιοντα τ’ ιδοι οὑτο δε τον καδμογενη τρεφει‧ το δ’ αυξει βιοτου πολυπονον ὡστε πελαγος κρητιον. Soph. Trachin.] [Footnote 69: Of this the reader will find a noble instance in Pindar’s first Pythian Ode, where he employs from the verse beginning ναυσιφορηταις δ’ αδρασεα, &c. to the end of the stanza, one of the happiest and most natural illustrations that is to be met with either in the works of Pindar, or in those of any Poet whatever. The abrupt address to Phœbus, when he applies the metaphor, is peculiarly beautiful.] It is likewise necessary that the Poet should take care in the higher species of the Ode, to assign to every object that precise degree of colour, as well as that importance in the arrangement of sentiments which it seems peculiarly to demand. The same images which would be considered as capital strokes in some pieces can be admitted only as secondary beauties in others; and we might call in question both the judgment and the imagination of that Poet who attempts to render a faint illustration adequate to the object, by clothing it with profusion of ornament. A defect likewise either in the choice, or in the disposition, of images, is conspicuous in proportion to the importance of the subject, as well as to the nature of those sentiments with which it stands in more immediate connection. It is therefore the business of the Lyric Poet, who would avoid the censure of competing with inequality, to consider the colouring of which particular ideas are naturally susceptible, and to discriminate properly betwixt sentiments, whose native sublimity requires but little assistance from the pencil of art, and a train of thought which (that it may correspond to the former) demands the heightening of poetic painting. The astonishing inequalities which we meet with, even in the productions of unquestioned Genius, are originally to be deduced from the carelessness of the Poet who permitted his imagination to be hurried from one object to another, dwelling with pleasure upon a favourite idea, and passing slightly over intermediate steps, that he may catch that beauty which fluctuates on the gaze of Expectation.