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CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS*.

SEMICHORUS.

H Tyrant Love! haft thou possest

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The prudent, learn'd, and virtuous breast? Wisdom and wit in vain reclaim,

And Arts but foften us to feel thy flame.

Love, foft intruder, enters here,

But entring learns to be fincere.

Marcus with blushes owns he loves,

And Brutus tenderly reproves.

NOTES.

5

* Some of Dryden's fhort lyrical odes and fongs are wonderfully harmonious; and not fufficiently noticed; particularly in King Arthur, A& III.

"O fight! the mother of defire," &c.

The fong also of the Syrens in A& IV: and the Incantations in the Third A&t of Edipus, put in the mouth of Tirefias;

"Chufe the darkest part oth grove,

Such as ghosts at noon-day love," &c.

Nor must his firft ode for St. Cecilia's Day be forgotten, in which are paffages almost equal to any of the second: especially its opening, and the second stanza that defcribes Tubal and his brethren. It is, methinks, impoffible to read, without astonishment and regret, such tasteless commendations and unmerited applauses as fuch a man as Dr. Johnson has bestowed on the ode to Mrs. Killigrew, and the ftrange preference he gives it, especially the first stanza, to any compofition in our language; which stanza is really unintelligible, and full of abfurd bombaft, and nearly approaching the realm of nonfenfe.

Why,

Why, Virtue, doft thou blame defire,
Which Nature has imprest?

Why, Nature, doft thou foonest fire
The mild and gen'rous breast?

CHORUS.

Love's purer flames the Gods approve;
The Gods and Brutus bend to love:
Brutus for abfent Portia fighs,

And fterner Caffius melts at Junia's eyes.
What is loose love? a transient gust,
Spent in a fudden storm of luft,
A vapour fed from wild defire,
A wand'ring, self-confuming fire.
But Hymen's kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one;

Chafte as cold Cynthia's virgin light,
Productive as the Sun.

SEMICHORUS.

Oh fource of ev'ry focial tye,

10

15

20

25

United wish, and mutual joy!

What various joys on one attend,

As fon, as father, brother, husband, friend?

Whether his hoary fire he fpies,

While thoufand grateful thoughts arife;

NOTES.

30

VER. 9. Why, Virtue, &c.] In allufion to that famous conceit

of Guarini,

"Se il peccare è sì dolce," &c.

W.

Bayle is fond of faying that Manicheism probably arofe from a ftrong meditation on this deplorable ftate of man.

Or

Or meets his spouse's fonder eye;
Or views his fmiling progeny;

What tender paffions take their turns,
What home-felt raptures move?

His heart now melts, now leaps, now burns,
With rev'rence, hope, and love.

CHORU S.

Hence guilty joys, diftastes, furmises,
Hence falfe tears, deceits, difguifes,
Dangers, doubts, delays, furprizes;

Fires that scorch, yet dare not shine:

Pureft love's unwasting treasure,
Constant faith, fair hope, long leifure,
Days of eafe, and nights of pleasure ;
Sacred Hymen! these are thine.

NOTES.

36

40

VER. 31. Or meets] Recalling to our minds that pathetic stroke in Lucretius;

" dulces occurrunt ofcula nati

Præripere, & tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangunt."
Lib. iii. 909.

VER. 42.] Not to the purpofe; long leifure.

a These two Chorus's are enough to fhew us his great talents for this fpecies of Poetry, and to make us lament he did not profecute his purpose in executing fome plans he had chalked out; but the Character of the Managers of Playhouses at that time, was what (he faid) foon determined him to lay afide all thoughts of that nature. Nor did his morais, less than the just sense of his own importance, deter him from having any thing to do with the Theatre. He remembered that an ancient Author hath acquainted us with this extraordinary circumftance; that, in the conftruction of Pompey's magnificent Theatre, the feats of it were fo contrived, as to ferve, at the fame time, for fteps to a temple

VOL. I.

M

temple of Venus, which he had joined to his Theatre. The moral Poet could not but be truck with a story where the Móyos and the μlos of it ran as imperceptibly into one another, as the Theatre and the Temple.

W.

How lamentable is it, that a writer of great talents, should mifemploy them in ftriving to difcover new meanings, and analogies, in things not alike, and not founded on plain truth and reafon! Thus, the Vine in Lycidas is called gadding, because, though married to the Elm, like bad wives fhe goes abroad. Thus, in Shakespear, the flower called Love-in-idleness intimates that this paffion has its chief power when people are idle. Thus, in Macbeth, screams of death and prophefying, should be read, Aunts, prophefying, old women. And thus, in Midfummer Night's Dream, instead of Cupid all-arm'd, read Cupid alarm'd; that is, alarmed at the chaftity of Lady Elizabeth, which leffened his power.

ODE ON SOLITUDE'.

APPY the man, whose wish and care

HA

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whofe herds with milk, whofe fields with bread,
Whose flocks fupply him with attire,
Whose trees in fummer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Bleft, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years flide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound fleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixt; fweet recreation:
And innocence, which moft does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unfeen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

a This was a very early production of our Author, written at

P.

about twelve

old. years

M 2

Scaliger,

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