bout the Islands may lye under the Water. Dr. Trapp's Words are these. They (i. e. the Rocks) were conceal'd below, tho' they had a Dorsum immane, a large prominent Ridge on the Surface. For my Part, I see no Difficulty or Contradiction in the Passage, For why may we not suppose, that they appear'd above the Water in a Calm, and were hidden under the Waves (as in the present Case) in a Storm.
Verse 298. For Lycus' Fate, &c.] Nothing but extream Haste in Writing could have made Mr. Dryden translate this Passage so meanly.
Mourns th' uncertain State
Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus,
The Day, but not their Sorrows ended thus.
Dryden.
How vastly different is the Conduct of Mr. Pope, in his Translation of the Catalogue of the Ships, where, for some hundred Lines together, he is engag'd in a Heap of proper Names; yet that great Master, by his exquisite Skill in Sounds and Numbers, has set them to Music, and deriv'd from them the finest Harmony the World. But we ought to pass by these, and a great many other low and vulgar Expressions in Mr. Dryden, if we consider that his Necessities oblig'd him to translate all the Works of Virgil in three Years.
