"I have been woo'd, as I entreat thee now, Even by the stern and direful god of war, Whose sinewy neck in battle ne'er did bow— Over my altars hath he hung his lance, His batter'd shield, his uncontrolled crest, And for my sake hath learn'd to sport and dance, _To coy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest_:" and, on finding her efforts fruitless, she bursts forth into the following energetic reproach:— "Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone, Well-painted idol, image, dull and dead, Statue, contenting but the eye alone, _Thing like a man, but of no woman bred_." The death of Adonis, however, banishes all vestige of resentment, and, amid numerous exclamations of grief and anguish, gives birth to prophetic intimations of the hapless fate of all succeeding attachments:— "Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend; It shall be waited on with jealousy, _Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end_;— It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear; It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust; It shall be merciful, and too severe, _And most deceiving when it seems most just_;— It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, And shall be blasted in a breathing-while; The bottom poison, and the top o'er-straw'd With sweets, that shall the sharpest sight beguile: The strongest body shall it make most weak, _Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak_." These passages are not given with the view of impressing upon the mind of the reader, that such is the constant strain of the versification of the _Venus and Adonis_; but merely to show, that, while in narrative poetry he equals his contemporaries in the general structure of his verse, he has produced, even in his earliest attempt, instances of beauty, melody, and force, in the mechanism of his stanzas, which have no parallel in their pages. In making this assertion, it must not be forgotten, that we date the composition of _Venus and Adonis_ anterior to 1590, that the comparison solely applies to narrative poetry, and consequently that all contest with Spenser is precluded. It now remains to be proved, that the merits of this mythological story are not solely founded on its occasional felicity of versification; but that in description, in the power of delineating, with a master's hand, the various objects of nature, it possesses more claims to notice than have hitherto been allowed. After the noble pictures of the horse which we find drawn in the book of Job, and in Virgil, few attempts to sketch this spirited animal can be expected to succeed; yet, among these few, impartial criticism may demand a station for the lines below:— "Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, And now his woven girts he breaks asunder, The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder.—