Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/26

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viii
PREFACE.

Ipsa quoque immunis rastroque intacta, nec ullis
Saucia vomeribus, per se dabat omnia tellus.
Contentique cibis, nullo cogente, creatis,
Arbuteos fœtus, montanaque fraga legebant.
Et quæ deciderant patulâ Jovis arbore glandes.
Ver erat æternum, placidique tepentibus auris
Mulcebant Zephiri natos sine semine flores.

Virgil has also touch'd upon the same Subject in the end of the Second Georgick.

Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat,
Nec dum etiam audierant inflari classica, nec dum
Impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses.

And again


Primus ab ætherio venit Saturnus Olympo


Aurea, quæ perhibent, illo sub rege fuerunt

Sæcula: sic placidâ populos in pace regebat.
Æn. B. 8. l. 319

Some of the Lines, a little foreign to the present Subject, are omitted; but I shall make the most admirable Author amends by transcribing at length his next Description. 'Tis of a Stag, which gave the first Occasion to the War betwixt the Trojans and the Rutulians: I chuse this, because my Design is to have these two great Poets seen together, where the Subject happens

to