_Autumn_, v. 202.
Goldsmith very pathetically applies a similar image:
E'en now where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend,
Like yon _neglected shrub_ at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
_Traveller_.
Akenside illustrates the native impulse of genius by a simile of
Memnon's marble statue, sounding its lyre at the touch of the sun:
For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand, &c.
It is remarkable that the same image, which does not appear obvious
enough to have been the common inheritance of poets, is precisely used
by old Regnier, the first French satirist, in the dedication of his
Satires to the French king. Louis XIV. supplies the place of nature to
the courtly satirist. These are his words:--"On lit qu'en Ethiope il y
avoit une statue qui rendoit un son harmonieux, toutes les fois que le
soleil levant la regardoit. Ce meme miracle, Sire, avez vous fait en
moi, qui touche de l'astre de Votre Majeste, ai recu la voix et la
parole."
In that sublime passage in "Pope's Essay on Man," Epist. i. v. 237,
beginning,
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
and proceeds to
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
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