Here you see what is a rapid Stile.  I will now shew you what is quite the contrary, that is, a majestic one.  To instance in Virgil:  “Arms and the Man I sing; the first who from the Shores of Troy (the Fugitive of Heav’n) came to Italy and the Lavinian Coast.”  Here you perceive the Subject-matter is retarded by the Inversion of the Phrase, and by that Parenthesis, the Fugitive of Heaven all which occasions Delay; and Delay (as a learned Writer upon a Passage of this nature in Tasso observes) is the Property of Majesty:  For which Reason when Virgil represents Dido in her greatest Pomp, it is,

  —­Reginam cunctantem ad limina primi
  Poenorum expectant.—­

For the same Reason he introduces the most solemn and most important Speech in the AEneid, with three Monosyllables, which causes great Delay in the Speaker, and gives great Majesty to the Speech.

  —­O Qui Res Hominumq; Deumq;—­

These three Syllables occasion three short Pauses. O—­Qui—­Res—­How slow and how stately is this Passage!

But it happens that I can set the Beginning of the AEneid in a clear Light for my purpose, by two Translations of that Passage, both by the same Hand; one of which is exactly in the manner of Virgil, the other in the manner of Homer:  The two Translations are made by the Reverend Mr. Pitt.  He published the first among some Miscellany Poems several Years since, the latter in his four Books of the AEneid about two Years ago.

I.

  “Arms and the Man I sing; the first who driv’n
  From Trojan Shores, the Fugitive of Heav’n,
  Came to th’ Italian and Lavinian Coast;—­

II.

  “Arms and the Man I sing, the first who bore
  His Course to Latium from the Trojan Shore.—­

The first Translation is exact in every respect:  You have in it the Suspence and Majesty of Virgil.  The second is a good Translation, though not at all like Virgil, but exactly like Homer:  There is no Hesitation, but the Verse and the Matter hurry on together as fast as possible.

I have now shown you what is a rapid, and what is a majestick Stile.  But a few more Lines of the Beginning both of the Iliad and of the AEneid will make it still more plain.

  ILIAD.