tells us plainly what ought to be done, the Poet often conceals the Precept in a description, and represents his Country-man performing the Action in which he wou'd instruct his Reader. Where the one sets out as fully and distinctly as he can, all the parts of the Truth, which he wou'd communicate to us; the other singles out the most pleasing Circumstance of this Truth, and so conveys the whole in a more diverting manner to the Understanding. I shall give one Instance out of a multitude of this nature that might be found in the Georgics, where the Reader may see the different ways Virgil has taken to express the same thing, and how much pleasanter every manner of Expression is, than the plain and direct mention of it wou'd have been. It is in the Second Georgic where he tells us what Trees will bear Grafting on each other.
Et sæpe alterius ramos impune videmus,
Vertere in alterius, mutatamq; insita mala
Ferre pyrum, & prunis lapidosa rubescere corna.
—Steriles Platani malos gessere valentes,
Castaneæ fagos, ornusq; incanuit albo
Flore pyri: Glandemq; sues fregere sub ulmis.
—Nec longum tempus: & ingens
Exijt ad Cœlum ramis felicibus arbos;
Miraturq; novas frondes, & non sua poma.
