He means to say that he stands by himself: he is then ‘a vast species alone:’ then by applying to this generality the _principium individuationis_, he becomes a Phœnix, because the Phœnix is the only example of a species contained in an individual. Yet this is only a literal or metaphysical coincidence: and literally and metaphysically speaking, Pindar was not a species by himself, but only seemed so by pre-eminence or excellence; that is, from qualities of mind appealing to and absorbing the imagination, and which, therefore, ought to be represented in poetical language, by some other obvious and palpable image exhibiting the same kind or degree of excellence in other things, as when Gray compares him to the Theban eagle, ‘Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air.’ Again, he talks in the Motto, or Invocation to his Muse, of ‘marching the Muse’s Hannibal’ into undiscovered regions. That is, he thinks first of being a leader in poetry, and then he immediately, by virtue of this abstraction, becomes a Hannibal; though no two things can really be more unlike in all the associations belonging to them, than a leader of armies and a leader of the tuneful Nine. In like manner, he compares Bacon to Moses; for in _his_ verses extremes are sure to meet. The Hymn to Light, which forms a perfect contrast to Milton’s Invocation to Light, in the commencement of the third book of Paradise Lost, begins in the following manner:— ‘First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old negro’s darksome womb! Which, when it saw the lovely child, The melancholy mass put on kind looks, and smil’d.’ * * * * * And soon after— ‘’Tis, I believe, this archery to show That so much cost in colours thou, And skill in painting, dost bestow, Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heav’nly bow. Swift as light thoughts their empty career run, Thy race is finish’d when begun; Let a post-angel start with thee, And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he.’