Now gently winding up the fair ascent, By many an easy step, the matron went: Then o’er the pavement glides with grace divine, (With polish’d oak the level pavements shine); The folding gates a dazling light display’d, With pomp of various architrave o’erlay’d. The bolt, obedient to the silken string, Forsakes the staple as she pulls the ring; The wards respondent to the key turn round; The bars fall back; the flying valves resound. Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring; So roar’d the lock when it releas’d the spring. She moves majestic through the wealthy room Where treasur’d garments cast a rich perfume; There from the column where aloft it hung, Reach’d, in its splendid case, the bow unstrung. Virgil sometimes errs against this rule. In the following passages minute circumstances are brought into full view; and what is still worse, they are described in all the sublimity of poetical description. _Æneid, L. 1. l. 214. to 219. L. 6. l. 176. to 182. L. 6. l. 212. to 231._ And the last, which is a description of a funeral, is the less excuseable, as it relates to a man who makes no figure in the poem. The speech of Clytemnestra, descending from her chariot in the Iphigenia of Euripides, beginning of act 3. is stuffed with a number of low, common, and trivial circumstances. But of all writers Lucan in this article is the most injudicious. The sea-fight betwixt the Romans and Massilians[63], is described so much in detail without exhibiting any grand or general view, that the reader is quite fatigued with endless circumstances, and never feels any degree of elevation. And yet there are some fine incidents, those for example of the two brothers, and of the old man and his son, which, separated from the rest, would affect us greatly. But Lucan once engaged in a description, knows no bounds. See other passages of the same kind, _L. 4. l. 292. to 337. L. 4. l. 750. to 765._ The episode of the sorceress Erictho, end of book 6. is intolerably minute and prolix. To these I venture to oppose a passage from an old historical ballad: Go, little page, tell Hardiknute That lives on hill so high[64], To draw his sword, the dread of faes, And haste to follow me. The little page flew swift as dart Flung by his master’s arm. Come down, come down, Lord Hardiknute, And rid your king from harm.