Note 21 — MESSIAH,

An improper and burlesque image.—Warton.

The line is too particular; it brings the image too close, and by exhibiting the action stronger than poetical propriety and sublimity required, destroys the intended effect. In images of this sort, the greatest care should be taken just to present the idea, but not to detail it,—otherwise it becomes, in the language of Shakespeare, like "ambition that o'er-leaps itself."—Bowles.

Pope copied Dryden's translation of Virgil, Ecl. vi. 44, quoted by Wakefield;