Note 84 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
We shall destroy the beauty of the passage by introducing a most insipid parallel of perfect sameness, if we understand the word "like" as introducing a simile. It is merely as if he had said: "Pegasus, as a generous horse is accustomed to do, shows his spirit most under restraint." Our author might have in view a couplet of Waller's, in his verses on Roscommon's Poetry:
Direct us how to back the winged horse, Favour his flight, and moderate his force.—Wakefield.