Imatges de pàgina
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Defcend ye gentle nine! defcend, and spread
Laurels and bays around his infant-head.
Bid noble paffions in his bofom roll,
And beams of fancy dawn upon his foul;
In foften'd mufic bid his accents flow,
Piercing, and gentle as defcending inow;
Bid him be all that can his birth commend:
he daring patriot, and unthaken friend:
Admir'd, yet humble, modeft, though fevere,
Abroad obliging, and, at home fincere ;
Good, juft, and affable in each degree:
Such is the father, fuch the fon fhall be!
Thefe humbie ftrains, indulgent Hertford, fpare;
Forgive the mufe, O fairelt of the fair!

Firit in thy fades (where filver Kennet glides,
Fair Marlbro's turrets trembling in his tides:
Where peace and plenty hold their gentle reign,
And lavish nature decks the fruitful plain :
Where the fam'd mountain lifts its walks on high,
As varying profpects open on the eye)
To love's loft theme I tun'd the warbling lyre,
And borrow'd from thy eyes poetic fire.

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AROUND the pomp in mourning weeds array'd,
Weeps the pale father, and the trembling maid:
The fcreaming infants at the portals stand,
And clafp, and stop the flow-proceeding band.
Each parting face a fettled horror wears,
Each low-held fhield receives a flood of tears.
Some with a kifs (fad fign of future harms)
Round the clas'd beaver glue their clafping arms,
Hang on the fpear, detain 'em as they go,
With lifted eyes, and eloquence of woe.
Thofe warlike chiefs, whom dread Bellona fteel'd,
And arm'd with fouls unknowing once to yield,
Now touch'd with forrows, hide their tearful eyes,
And all the hero melts away and dies.

So the pale failor, launching from the fhore,
Leaves the dear profpects that must charm no more:
Here fhrieks of anguish pierce his pitying ears---
There ftrangely wild, a floating world appears---
Swift the fair veffel wings her watery flight,
And in a mift deceives the aching fight:
The native train in fad diftraction weep,
Now beat their breasts, now tremble o'er the deep,
Curfe ev'ry gale that wafts the fleet from land,
Breathe the last figh, and wave the circling hand.
now, fair ancient truth! conduct along
Th' advent'rous bard, and animate his fong:
Each godlike man in proper lights display,
And open all the war in dread array.

You

You too, bright miftrefs of th' Aonian quire, Divine Calliope! refume the lyre:

The lives and deaths of mighty chiefs recite, The wafte of nations, and the rage of fight. VOL. IX.

A SIMILE,

UPON A SET OF TEA-DRINKERS.

So fairy elves their morning-table spread
O'er a white mushroom's hofpitable head:
In acorn cups the merry goblins quaff
The pearly dews, they fing, they love, they laugh;
Melodious mufic trembles through the sky,
And airy founds along the green-wood die.

THE SAME,

DIVERSIFIED IN ANCIENT METRE.

So, yf deepe clerkes in tymes of yore faine trew,
Or poets eyne, perdie, mought fothly vew,
The dapper Elfins thyr queint feftes bedight
Wyth mickle plefaunce on a mushrome lite:
In acorne cuppes thy quaffen daint liquere,
And rowle belgardes, and defflie daunce yfere;
Ful everidele they makin mufike fote,
And fowns aeriall adowne the grene woode flote.

A SOLILOQUY,

OCCASIONED BY THE CHIRPING OF A GRASS

HOPPER.

HAPPY infect! ever bleft
With a more than mortal rest,
Rofy dews the leaves among,
Humble joys and gentle fong!
Wretched poet! ever curs'd,
With a life of lives the worst,
Sad defpondence, rettlefs fears,
Endless jealoufies and tears.

In the burning fummer, thou
Warbleft on the verdant bough,
Meditating cheerful play,
Mindlefs of the piercing ray;
Scorch'd in Cupid's fervors, I
Ever weep, and ever die.

Proud to gratify thy will,
Ready nature waits thee ftill:
Balmy wines to thee the pours,
Weeping through the dewy flow'rs:
Rich as thofe by Hebe-giv'n
To the thirsty fons of heav'n.

Yet alas! we both agree,
Miferable thou like me!
Each alike in youth rehearses
Gentle ftrains, and tender verfes;
Ever wand'ring far from home;
Mindlefs of the days to come,
(Such as aged winter brings
Trembling on his icy wings)
Both alike at last we die;
Thou art starv'd, and so am I !

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daughter Proferpina, who was then loft. At laft Arethuía (a river of Sicily) informs the goddess that her daughter was stolen away by Pluto, and carried down into hell. Now it was ordained by fate, that Proferpine should return again, if the tafted not of any fruit in the other world. But temptations were strong, and the woman could not refift eating fix or feven kernels of a pomegranate. However, to mitigate the fentence, Jupiter decreed that the should refide but half the year with Pluto, and pafs the reft with her mother. Upon thefe terms Ceres is very well pacified, and in complaifance defires Arethufa to relate her life, and for what reafons he was changed into a river. HUSH'D in fufpenfe the gath'ring waters stood, When thus began the parent of the flood: What time emerging from the wave, she prest Her verdant treffes drooping on her breast.

Of all the nymphs Achaia boafts (the faid), Was Arethufa once the fairest maid. None lov'd fo well, to spread in early dawn The trembling mefhes o'er the dewy lawn: Though drefs and beauty scarce deferv'd my care, Yet ev'ry tongue confefs'd me to be fair. The charms which others ftrive for, I refign, And think it ev'n a crime to find them mine! It chanc'd one morn, returning from the wood, Weary I wander'd by a filver flood: The gentle waters scarce were feen to glide, And a calm filence ftill'd the fleeping tide; High o'er the banks a grove of watery trees Spread its dark shade, that trembled to the breeze. (My veft fufpended on the boughs) I lave My chilly feet, then plunge beneath the wave; A ruddy light my blushing limbs difpread, And the clear ftream half glows with rofy-red. When from beneath in awful murmurs broke A hollow voice, and thus portentous spoke : My lovely nymph, my Arethusa itay, Alpheus calls; it faid, or feem'd to fay", Naked and fwift I flew (my clothes behind), Fear ftrung my nerves, and fhame enrag'd my mind. So wing'd with hunger the fierce eagle flies, To drive the trembling turtles through the skies: So wing'd with fear the trembling turtles fpring, When the fierce eagle fhoots upon the wing.

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Swift bounding from the god, I now furvey Where breezy Piophis and Cyllene lay: Elis' fair ftructures open'd on my eyes; And waving Erymanthus cools the fkies, At length unequal for the rapid chafe Tremble my limbs, the god maintains the race: O'er hills and vales with furious hafte I flew ; O'er hills and vales the god behind me drew. Now hov'ring o'er, his lengthening fhadow bends, (His length'ning thadow the low fun extends) And fudden now, his founding fteps drew near; At least I feem'd his founding feps to hear. Now finking, in fhort fobs I gasp'd for breath, Juft in the jaws of violence and death.

Ah, Cynthia help! ('twas thus in thought I pray'd)
Ah, help a ravin'd, miferable man!

The virgin-pow'r confenting to my pray'r,
Jffus'd around a veil of clouded air:
Lot in the gloom he wanders o'er the plain,
And Arethula calis, but calls in vain

in mifty steams th' impervious vapours rife, Perplex his gueffes, and deceive his eyes.

What fears I felt as thus enclos'd I stood, What chilling horrors trembled through my blond So pants the fawn in filence and despair, When the grim wolf runs howling through the la So fits the lev'ret, when the hound purfues His trembling prey, and winds the tainted dews.

Sudden my cheek with flashing colour barns, Pale fwoons, and fickly fears fucceed by turns: Cold creeps my blood, its pulfes beat no mare: Big drops of fweat afcend from every pore; Adown my locks the pearly dews diftill, And each full eye pours forth a guthing rill; Now all at once my melting limbs decay, In one clear itream diffolving faft away.

The god foon faw me floating o'er the plain, And ftrait refum'd his watery form againInftant, Diana, fmote the trembling ground; Down rush my waters with a murm'ring found; Thence darkling through th' infernal regions ftra, And in the Delian plains review the day,

ANGERIANUS DE CÆLIA,
(EPIG. 40.)

QUUM dormiret Amor, rapuit clam pulchra plz

retram

Celia, furreptâ flevit Amor pharetra. Noli (Cypris ait) fic flere Cupido; pharetram Pulchra tibi rapuit Cælia, reftituit. Non opus eft illi calamis, non ignibus: urit Voce, manu, greffu, pectore, fronte, oculis.

CUPID MISTAKEN.

FROM THE SPORTS OF CUPID, WRITTEN IT
ANGERIANUS.

Imitated and enlarged.

As faft befide a murmuring stream,
In blissful vifions Cupid lay,

Chloe, as the foftly came,

Snatch'd his golden fhafts away. From place to place in fad furprise The little angry godhead flew : Trembling in his ruddy eyes

Hung the pearly drops of dew. So on the rofe (in blooming May, When purple Phoebus rifes bright) Liquid gems of filver lay,

Pierc'd with glitt'ring ftreams of light.
Fair Venus with a tender languish,
Smiling, thus her fon addreft,

As he murmur'd out his anguish
Trembling on her snowy breaft:
Peace, gentle infant, I implore,
| Nor lavish precious tears in vain;
Chloe, when the jett is o'er,
Brings the useless shafts again.

Can Chloe eel the fhafts of love,

Young blooming, witty, plump and fair?

Charms and raptures round her move, Murmuring fighs, and deep despair. Millions for her unheeded die, Millions to her their bleffings owe; Ev'ry motion of her eye

Murders more than Cupid's bow.

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WITH MR. FENTON'S MISCELLANY. THESE various ftrains, where ev'ry talent charms, Where humour pleases, or where paffion warms : Strains! where the tender and fublime confpire, Sappho's fweetnefs, and a Homer's fire) Attend their doom, and wait with glad furprise Th' impartial juftice of Cleora's eyes.

'Tis hard to fay, what myfteries of fate, What turns of fortune on good writers wait. The party-flave will wound 'em as he can, And damns the merit, if he hates the man. Nay, ev'n the bards with wit and laurels crown'd, Blefs'd in each strain, in ev'ry art renown'd: Mislead by pride, and taught to fin by pow'r, Still fearch around for thote they may devour : Like favage monarchs on a guilty throne, Who crush all might that can invade their own. Others who hate, yet want the foul to dare, So ruin bards—as beaux's deceive the fair: On the pleas'd ear their soft deceits employ; Smiling they wound, and praise but to destroy. Thefe are th' unhappy crimes of modern days, And can the beft of poets hope for praife?

How fmall a part of human bleffings share The wife, the good, the noble, or the fair! Short is the date unhappy wit can boast, A blaze of glory in a moment loft. Fortune ftill envious of the great man's praise, Curfes the coxcomb with a length of days. So (Hector dead) amid the female quire, Unmanly Paris tun'd the filver lyre. Attend ye Britons! in so just a caufe Tis fure a fcandal, to with-hold applause; Nor let pofterity reviling fay, Thus anregarded Fenton país'd away! Yet if the mufe may faith or merit claim. (A mufe too juft to bribe with venal fame) Soon fhalt thou fhine" in majesty avow'd; As thy own goddess breaking through a cloud." Fame, like a nation debt, though long delay'd, With mighty int'reft must at laft be paid.

Like Vinci's ftrokes, thy verfes we behold; Correctly graceful, and with labour bold. At Sappho's woes we breathe a tender figh, And the foft forrow steals from ev'ry eye. Here Spenfer's thoughts in folemn numbers roll, Here lofty Milton feems to lift the foul. There fprightly Chaucer charms our hours away With ftories quient, and gentle roundelay.

Mufe at that name each thought of pride re-
call,

Ah, think how foon the wife and glorious fall!
What though the fifters ev'ry grace impart,
To fmooth thy verfe, and captivate the heart:

Epiftle to Southerne.

What though your charms, my fair Cleora! fhine
Bright as your eyes, and as your fex divine:
Yet fhall the verses, and the charms decay,
The boast of youth, the bleffing of a day!
Not Chaucer's beauties could furvive the rage
Of wafting envy, and devouring age:
One mingled heap of ruin now we lee;
Thus Chaucer is, and Fenton thus fhall be!

TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE,

ON HIS PASSING THROUGH OXFORD, ON HIS RETURN FROM BATH.

AT length, in pity to a nation's prayer,
Thou liv'ft, O Naffau, providence's care!
Life's fun, which lately with a dubious ray
Gave the laft gleams of a fhort glorious day,
Again with more than noon-tide luftre burns
The dial brightens, and the line returns.

Some guardian power, who o'er thy fate prefides,

Whofe eye unerring Albion's welfare guides,
Taught yonder streams with new felt force to flow,
And bade th' exalted minerals doubly glow.
Thus cold and motionless Bethesda lood,
Till heavenly influence brooded o'er the flood.
Lo, while our isle, with one loud paan rings,
Equal, though filent, homage Ifis brings;
Hers is the talk of reafon, not of art,
Words of the mind, and actions of the heart!

And fure that unbought praise which learning

brings,

Outweighs the vaft acclaim that deafens kings;
For fouis, fupremely fenfible and great,
See through the farce of noife, and pomp of state;
Mark when the fools huzza, or wife rejoice,
And judge exactly between found and voice.

Hail, and proceed! be arts like ours thy care,
Nor flight thofe laurels thou wert born to wear:
Adorn and emulate thy glorious line,
Take thy forefathers worth, and give them thine.
Bleft with each gift that human hearts can move,
In fcience bleft, but doubly bleft in love.

Power, beauty, virtue, dignify thy choice, Each public fuffrage, and each private voice.

TO MR. POPE.

To move the fprings of nature as we please,
To think with fpirit, but to write with eafe:
With living words to warm the confcious heart,
Or please the foul with nicer charms of art,
For this the Grecian foar'd in epic strains,
And fofter Maro left the Mantuan plains:
Melodious Spenfer felt the lover's fire,
And awful Milton ftrung his heav'nly lyre.

'Tis yours, like thefe, with curious toil to trace
The pow'rs of language, harmony, and grace,
How nature's felf with living luftre fhines;
How judgment strengthens, and how art refines;
How to grow bold with confcious fenfe of fame,
And force a pleasure which we dare not blame:
To charm us more through negligence than pains,
And give ev'n life and action to the ftrains:

Led by fome law, whofe pow'rful impulfe guides
Each happy ftroke, and in the foul prefides:
Some fairer image of perfection, giv’n
T' infpire mankind, itfelf deriv'd from heav'n.
O ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise;
Bleft in thy life, and bleft in all thy lays!
Add that the fifters ev'ry thought refine:
Or ev'n thy life be faultlefs as thy line;
Yet envy ftill with fiercer rage pursues,
Obfcures the virtue, and defames the mufe.
A foul like thine, in pains, in grief refign'd,
Views with vain fcorn the malice of mankind:
Not critics, but their planets prove unjust:
And are they blam'd who fin because they must?
Yet fure not fo muft all perufe thy lays;
I cannot rival-and yet dare to praise.
A thousand charms at once my thoughts engage,
Sappho's foft fweetness, Pindar's warmer rage,
Statius' free vigour, Virgil's ftudious care,
And Homer's force, and Ovid's cafier air.

So feems fome picture, where exact defign,
And curious pains, and strength and fweetness join:
Where the free thought its pleafing grace beftows,
And each warm ftroke with living colour glows:

Soft without weakness, without labour fair;
Wrought up at once with happiness and care!

How bleft the man that from the world remov
To joys that Mordaunt, or his Pope approves;
Whofe tafte exact each author can explore,
And live the present and past ages o'er.
Who free from pride, from penitence, or ftrife,
Move calmly forward to the verge of life:
Such be my days, and fuch my fortunes be,
To live by reafon, and to write by thee!

Nor deem this verse, though humbie, thy dif

grace;

All are not born the glory of their race:
Yet all are born t'adore the great man's name,
And trace his footsteps in the paths to fame.
The mufe who now this early homage pays,
First learn'd from thee to animate her lays:
A mufe as yet unhonour'd, but unstain'd,
Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd:
Unbiafs'd or to cenfure or commend,
Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend,
Perhaps too fond to make thofe virtues known,
And fix her fame immortal on thy own.

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EDIPUS the fon of Laius, king of Thebes, was, in his infancy, exposed to wild beasts upon the m tains; but, by fome miraculous prefervation, he escaped this danger, and, afterwards, by miżar, flew his own father, as they contended for the way. He then married Jocasta, Queen of Thebes, whom he knew not to be his mother, and had by her two fons, Etheocles and Polynices; who, aft their father had put out his eyes, and banished himself from Thebes, agreed between themselves govern year by year interchangeably. But this agreement was ill obferved. Etheocles, when his date of government was expired, refused to refign it to Folynices; who, in his rage, fled to Adrafity King of Argos, to implore afliftance against his brother. Adraftus received the young prince with all imaginable tenderness, and gave him in marriage to his fair daughter Deipyle, as the oracles had appointed. He then, with the afliftance of his allies, undertakes to fettle Polynices on the throne, and to depofe Etheocles. Upon this, Thebes is befieged, and, after feveral encounters, the difference is at laft decided by the duel and death of the two brothers. This is the main action of the

poem.

Befides this, by way of an under action, the poet has interwoven another diftinct ftory. The godd Venus is refolved to revenge herself upon the Lemnians, because they neglected all facrifices to her. She first difgufts the men with their wives, and then, in return, spirits up the women into a refoistion of murdering their husbands. This horrible defign was executed by each of them, except Hyp fipyic, who faved her father Thoas. Some time afterward this alfo was difcovered. Hyppyi to avoid the fury of the women, fled to the fea-fhore, where he was taken by the pirates, and prefented by them to King Lycurgus, who made her nurse to his fon Archemorus. The dominions et this prince lay directly in the way from Argos to Thebes. As Adraftus and his Allies were marching thither, the troops were ready to perish for want of water. They chanced in a wood to meet

Hypfipyle, who, pitying their misfortunes, lays down in hafte her young child, and fhows them a fpring that could never be drained. She receives the thanks of Adraftus; and having, at his request, recited her own adventures, returns back, and finds the young infant Archemorus juft killed by a ferpent. Her confufion and fears are defcribed in an excellent fpeech upon that occafion. The Grecians kill the ferpent; and, in honour of the dead prince, perform all the rites of burial; which is the fubject of this prefent book.

First of all, it begins with an hiftorical account of the Nemezan games, then follows the funeral, with a more particular defcription of hewing the forefts, and offering their hair to the deceased. The anguifh of Adraftus, the lamentations of Eurydice, and the filence of Hypfipyle, are extremely well adapted to nature. A monument is erected to the memory of Archemorus, which is ornamented with the whole ftory in fculpture. After this fucceed the funeral games; the chariot-race, the footrace, the difcus, the fight with the cæftus, the wrestling, and hooting with arrows; which last ends with a prodigy, foreboding that none of the confederate princes should return from the war except Adraltus.

SOON mournful fame through ev'ry town pro-
The rites of fepulture, and Grecian games: [claims
What mighty chiefs should glory give or gain,
Prepar'd to combat on the lifted plain.
Thefe honours first the great Alcides paid
To pleate old Pelops' venerable fhade.
What time near Pifa he inhum'd the dead,
And bound with olive wreaths his dufty head.
Thefe, with new hopes, glad Phocis next bestow'd,
When Python funk beneath her bowyer god. 10
Thefe ftill religion to Palamon pays,
(Religion blinded with a length of days)
When hanging o'er the deep in anguish raves
His royal mother to the founding waves;
O'er either Ifthmus floats the mingled moan,
And diftant Thebe anfwers groan for groan.

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The pious games begin, with loud alarms, Here the young warriors first prelude in arms: Each blooming youth Aonia fends to fame, And each dear object to the Tyrian dame; Who once imbru'd in blood, fhall heap around High hills of flain, and deluge all the ground.

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The youthful failors thus with early care
This arms experience, and for fea prepare:
On fome fmooth lake their lighter oars effay,
And learn the dangers of the wat'ry way;
But once grown bold, they launch before the wind
Eager and fwift, nor turn their eyes behind.

Aurora now, fair daughter of the day,
Warm'd the clear orient with a blufhing ray; 39
Swift from mankind the pow'r of flumbers flew ;
And the pale moon her glimm'ring beams with-
O'er the long woods the mattin dirges run, [drew.
And fhricks of forrow wake the rifing fun.

Th' unhappy father, father now no more,
His bofom heat, his aged hairs he tore :
Befide him lay each ornament of state,

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To make him wretched, as they made him great.
With more than female grief the mother cries,
And wringing both her hands, obtefts the skies;
Bending the weeps upon th' extended flain,
Bathes ev'ry wound, returns, and weeps again.
But when the kings in fad and folemn woe,
Enter'd the dome, majeftically flow:
(As if just then the trembling babe was found,
And life's laft blood came iffuing through the

wound)

Leucotboe.

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Which foon muft fade, and wither like the dead.
Arabian odours from the third diffufe
A grateful fmoke, and weep in fragrant dews.
Above from heaps of gold bright colours ftream,
And deeper purple fhoots a fanguine gleam.

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Inwoven on the pall, young Linus lay
In lonely woods, to mangling dogs a prey..
Heart-wounded at the fight, in anguish stands
Eurydice, and fpreads her trembling hands;
Then turns her eyes, half dying with a groan,
For kindred miferies fo like her own.
Arms, fceptres, jewels, on the dead they throw,
And facrifice all grandeur to their woe.
As if the hero, deck'd with warlike spoil,
Was born in triumph to the fun'ral pile.
Yet as due rites with kid affection paid,
Can add fome honours to the infant fhade;
Hence rofe magnificence, and folemn tears,
With prefents fuited to maturer years.
Long time with early hopes Lycurgus fed
A breed of courfers facred to the dead.
A glitt'ring helm was fafely plac'd apart,
And purple trappings of Sidonian art:
And confecrated fpears (a deadly ftore),
Radiant and keen, as yet unftain'd with gore,
The pious mother thus, deceiv'd too late,
Like her fond fpoufe, referv'd a crown of ftate,
And royal robes, o'erwrought with rifing flow'rs;
The filent growth of folitary hours.

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