on

row.

in such an exquisite strain, says Here the day-break is described Fenton, that though he had left by the faint appearance of the no other monuments of his ge- upland lawns under the first nius behind him, his name had gleams of light: the son-set by been immortal. Dr. J. Warton. the buzzing of the chaffer: and

[Mr. Dunster hopes that Para- the night sheds her fresh dews dise Regained" slipped acci- their flocks. We cannot

dentally out of this list.” Mr. blame pastoral imagery, and Todd gives a note of Dr. War. pastoral allegory, which carry ton's on P. R. j. 44. which shews with them so much natural at least that he rated the Par. painting. In this piece there is Reg. very highly. E.]

perhaps more poetry than sorDoctor Johnson observes, that

But let us read it for Lycidas is filled with the heathen its poetry. It is true, that pasdeities; and a long train of my- sion plucks no berries from the thological imagery, such as a myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon College easily supplies. But it Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells is such also, as even the Court of rough Satyrs with cloven heel. itself could now have easily sup- But poetry does this; and in plied. The public diversions, the hands of Milton, does it and books of all sorts and from with a peculiar and irresistible all sorts of writers, more espe- charni. Subordinate poets excially compositions in poetry, ercise no invention, when they were at this time overrun with tell how a shepherd has lost his classical pedantries. But what companion, and must feed his writer, of the same period, has flocks alone, without any judge made these obsolete fictions the of his skill in piping: but Milvehicle of so much fancy and ton dignifies and adorns these poetical description? How beau- common artificial incidents with tifully has he applied this sort of unexpected touches of picturallusion, to the Druidical rocks esque beauty, with the graces of of Denbighshire, to Mona, and sentiment, and with the novelties the fabulous banks of Deva! of original genius. It is obIt is objected, that its pastoral

jected “ here is no art, for there form is disgusting. But this “is nothing new.” To say nowas the age of pastoral: and yet thing that there may be art Lycidas has but little of the bu. without novelty, as well as nocolic cant, now so fashionable. velty without art, I must reply, The Satyrs and Fauns are but that this objection will vanish, just mentioned. If any trite ru

if we consider the imagery which ra! topics occur, how are they Milton has raised from local cirheightened !

cumstances. Not to repeat the

use he has made of the mounTogether both, ere the high lawns appear'd

tains of Wales, the isle of Man, Under the opening eyelids of the morn,

and the river Dee, near which We drove afield, and both together Lycidas was shipwrecked; let the fatal scene of his friend's at a loss for a meaning, a meandisaster.

ing which is as clearly perceived, But the poetry is not always as it is elegantly represented. unconnected with passion. The This is the sympathy of a true poet lavishly describes an ancient poet. We know that Milton sepulchral rite, but it is made and King were not nursed on preparatory to a stroke of ten- the same hill; that they did not derness. He calls for a variety feed the same flock, by fountain, of flowers to decorate his friend's shade, or rill; and that rough hearse, supposing that his body Satyrs and Fauns with cloven heel was present, and forgetting for never danced to their ruralditties, a while that it was floating far But who hesitates a nioment for off in the ocean. If he was

the application? Nor are such drowned, it was some consolation ideas more untrue, certainly not that he was to receive the de- less far-fetched and unnatural, cencies of burial. This is a than when Cowley says, that he pleasing deception: it is natural and Harvey studied together and pathetic. But the real ca- every night with such unremitted tastrophe recurs. And this cir- diligence, that the twin-stars of cumstance again opens a new Leda, so famed for love, looked vein of imagination.

down upon the twin-students Dr. Johnson censures Milton with wonder from above. And for his allegorical mode of telling where is the tenderness, when that he and Lycidas studied he wishes, that, on the melantogether, under the fictitious choly event, the branches of images of rural employments, the trees at Cambridge, under in which, he says, there can be which they walked, would comno tenderness; and prefers Cow- bine themselves into a darker ley's lamentation of the loss of umbrage, dark as the grave in Harvey, the companion of his which his departed friend was labours, and the partner of his newly laid ? discoveries. I know not if, in Our author has also been centhis similarity of subject, Cowley sured for mixing religious dishas more tenderness; I am sure putes with pagan and pastoral he has less poetry. I will allow ideas. But he had the authority that he has more wit, and more of Mantuan and Spenser, now smart similies. The sense of considered as models in this way our author's allegory on this oc- of writing. Let me add, that casion is obvious, and is just as our poetry was not yet purged intelligible as if he had used from its Gothic combinations; plain terms. It is a fiction, that nor had legitimate notions of when Lycidas died, the woods discrimination and propriety so and caves were deserted and far prevailed, aś sufficiently to overgrown with wild thyme and influence the growing improveluxuriaut vines, and that all ments of English composition. their echoes mourned; and that These irregularities and inconthe

green copses no longer waved gruities inust not be tried by their joyous leaves to his soft modern criticism). strains : but we cannot here be

XVIII.

The Fifth Ode of Horace, Lib. I. Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa, rendered almost word for

word without rhyme, according to the Latin measạre, as near as the language will permit.

WHAT slender youth bedew'd with liquid odours Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,

Pyrrha? for whom bind'st thou

In wreaths thy golden hair,
Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he

5

This Ode was first added in sembly of the Passions, before the second edition of the author's Collins's favourite Ode on that poems in 1673.

subject. 1. What slender youth] In There are extant two excel. this measure, my friend and lent Odes, of the truest taste, school-fellow Mr. William Cole written in unrhyming metre lins wrote his admired Ode to many years ago by two of the Evening; and I know he had a students of Christ Church, Oxdesign of writing many more ford, and

among

its chief ornaOdes without rhyme. In this ments, since high in the church. measure also, an elegant Ode One is on the death of Mr. was written on the Paradise Lost, Langton, who died on his travels, by the late Captain Thomas, by the late Dr. Shipley, Bishop formerly a Student of Christ of St. Asaph: the other, by the Church, Oxford, at the time that present Archbishop of York, is Mr. Benson gave medals as prizes addressed to George Onslow, for the best verses that were pro- Esquire, the Speaker. But it duced on Milton at all our great may be doubted, whether there schools. It seems to be an is sufficient precision and eleagreed point, that Lyric poetry gance in the English language cannot exist without rhyme in without rhyme. In England's our language. Some of the Tro- Helicon, there is Enone's comchaics, in Glover's Medea, are plaint in blank verse, by George harmonious, however, without Peele, written about 1590. The rhyme. Dr. J. Warton. verses indeed are heroic, but the

Dr. J. Warton might have whole consists of quatrains. T. added, that his own Ode to Warton. Evening was written before that 5. Plain in thy neatness ?] of his friend Collins; as was a Rather “plain in your ornaPoem of his, entitled the As- “ ments." Milton mistakes the

10

On faith and changed Gods complain, and seas

Rough with black winds and storms

Unwonted shall admire!
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant always amiable

Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful, Hapless they

.
To whom thou untried seem'st fair. Me in

my

vow'd Picture the sacred wall declares t' have hung

My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern God of sea.

15

Ad Pyrrham. Ode V. Horatius ex Pyrrhæ illecebris tanquam e naufragio enataverat,

cujus amore irretitos, affirmat esse miseros. QUIS multa gracilis te puer in rosa Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,

Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?

Cui flavam religas comam Simplex munditiis ? heu quoties fidem Mutatosque deos flebit, et aspera

Nigris æquora ventis

Emirabitur insolens !
Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea,

5

idiomatical use of munditiæ. She was plain in her dress, or in the manner of adorning herself. The sense of the context is, “ For

“ whom do you, who study no “ ornaments of dress, thus unaf“ fectedly bind up your yellow “ locks? T. Warton.

10

Qui semper vacuam semper amabilem

Sperat, nescius auræ

Fallacis. Miseri quibus
Intentata nites. Me tabula sacer
Votiva paries indicat uvida

Suspendisse potenti
Vestimenta maris Deo.

15

FRAGMENTS OF TRANSLATIONS*.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTHa.

Brutus thus addresses Diana in the country of LEOGECIA. GODDESS of shades, and huntress, who at will Walk'st on the rowlingt spheres, and through the

deep; On thy third reign the earth look now,

and tell What land, what seat of rest, thou bidd'st me seek, What certain seat, where I may worship thee For aye,

with temples vow'd, and virgin quires. To whom, sleeping before the altar, Duna answers in a vision

the same night. Brutus, far to the west, in th' ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,

* These fragments of transla- states to be the work, not of tions, taken from various parts Milton, but of Washington the of Milton's Prose Works, I in- Translator of the Defensio. See sert from Mr. Warton's edition; the following note b. E. omitting, however, those from * Hist. Brit. i. xi. “Diva poMilton's Defensio, which Mr.' “ tens nemorum,

&c." Warton adopts from preceding + Tickell and Fenton read editions, but which he himself lowring.