P. 82. l. 14.That other Padus in the sky, &c.
There is a strange mythological fiction concerning the river Po, in Latin Padus; as if it had its origin in heaven, or that there was a river there of that name. This is alluded to both by Virgil and Ovid, but I confess I never could understand it.
Dr Warton, I think, has observed, that English poetry is chiefly deficient in lyrical productions. Songs, and sonnets, hymns, and moral stanzas, epistles, satires, and pastorals, appear to have been the favourite subjects among those of our earlier poets, who addicted themselves to minor compositions in verse. Of the regular ode, in imitation of Pindar, and Horace, whether of the lighter or grander species, I recollect no attempt in our language before the Restoration. The Pindaric rhapsodies of Cowley, and his imitators, are, in general, below criticism, and deservedly forgotten.
Congreve, to whom, according to Johnson, "we owe the cure of our Pindaric madness," says of them, "The character of these late Pindarics, is a bundle of rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like number of irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes."
Of this ode it must be allowed, that the subject and metre are happily chosen, and that it possesses a considerable portion of lyric enthusiasm. The allegory of the river is well preserved throughout, and the language is elevated, figurative, and poetical.
