Page:Johnson

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N° 94.

THE RAMBLER.

235

it will not be found that he has always assigned the same cast of numbers to the same objects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelick beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be found upon comparison very different.

And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smil'd celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffus'd, so well he feign'd;
Under a coronet his flowing hair
In curls on either cheek play'd: wings he wore
Of many a colour’d plume, sprinkled with gold.

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony, and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance and easy grace, which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however, is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally delights the ear and imagination:

A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder, broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in heaven; the third his feet
Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
Sky-tinctur'd grain! like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide.———

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