 | The Poems of John Byrom |  |
VIII.
[Horace, “an Infant” (here he interweaves]
“Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis
Dormirem et Ursis.
—Lib. iii. Od. 4, vv. 17–18.
Dormirem et Ursis.
—Lib. iii. Od. 4, vv. 17–18.
How I could sleep with my body secured from black vipers and bears.”
530
I
Horace, “an Infant” (here he interweavesIn rambling Ode, where no Design coheres),
“By fabled Stock-Doves cover'd up with Leaves,
“Kept safe from black skinn'd Vipers, and from Bears;”—
But, passing by the incoherent Ode,
I ask the Critics where the “Bears” abode?
II
The Leaves indeed, that Stock-Doves could convey,Would be but poor Defence against the Snakes,
And sleeping Boy be still an easy Prey
To black Pervaders of the thorny Brakes;
The Bears, I doubt too, would have smelt him out,
If there had been such Creatures thereabout!
III
The Snakes were black; the Bears, I guess, were white,(Or what the Vulgar commonly call Bulls)
Bears had there been; another Word is right
That has escap'd the criticising Skulls,
Who suffer Bears as quietly to pass,
As if the Bard had been of Lapland Class.
531
IV
A Word, where Sense and Sound do so agree,That I shall spare to speak in its Defence,
And leave Absurdity, so plain to see,
With due Correction, to your own good Sense.
'Tis this in short in these Horatian Verses:
For “Bears” read “Goats”: pro “Ursis,” lege “Hyrcis!”
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