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NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

Ver. 1.

ON THE PASTORALS.

PASTORAL I. P. 61.

FIRST

IRST in these fields I try the fylvan strains,
Nor blush to sport on Windsor's blissful plains.

Our Poet seems to have confulted Dryden's verfion of the place imitated here, Virg. Ecl. vi. 1.

I first transferr'd to Rome Sicilian ftrains:

Nor blufh'd the Doric Muse to dwell on Mantuan plains. Rofcommon alfo, a terfe, judicious, unaffected, and moral writer, justly esteemed and celebrated by Pope, may be agreeably compared on this occafion :

I first of Romans ftoop'd to rural ftrains,

Nor blush'd to dwell among Sicilian fwains.

Ver. 5. Let vernal airs through trembling ofiers play.

A beautiful paffage of this kind occurs in Paradise Regain'd, ii. 26. Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,

Where winds with reeds and ofiers whisp'ring play

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A paffage in Lucan, viii. 493. is very appofite to this fentiment:

exeat aulâ,

Qui vult effe pius. Virtus et fumma poteftas

Non coëunt.

He, who would spotlefs live, from courts must go :
No union power fupreme and virtue know.

Ver. 23. Hear how the birds, on ev'ry bloomy spray,
With joyous mufic wake the dawning day!

Surry, in his Sonnet on Spring:

Somer is come, for every spray now springes.

Millon,

Milton, Paradife Regain'd, iv. 437. in moft delicate ftrains of the Doric Mufe:

the birds

Clear'd up their choiceft notes in bush and spray,

To gratulate the fweet return of morn.

And in his first fonnet, which Pope certainly had in view :

O! Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray

Warbleft at eve!

Some lines in Broome's Paraphrafe of Job xxxix. on a congenial subject, will be acceptable to the reader, who delights in the fraof thefe bloffoms of the Mufes :

grance

By thy command does fair Aurora rise,

And gild with purple beams the blushing skies?
The warbling lark falutes her chearful ray,
And welcomes with his fong the rifing day.

Ver. 25. Why fit we mute, when early linnets fing;
When warbling Philomel falutes the spring?

He is indebted here to Waller's Chloris and Hylas; a paffage, pointed out alfo by Mr. White;

Hylas, oh Hylas! why fit we mute,

Now that each bird faluteth the fpring?

Ver. 35.

where wanton ivy twines, And fwelling clufters bend the curling vines. Dryden, in his State of Innocence, A& iii. Scene 1.

And creeping 'twixt 'em all, the mantling vine
Does round their trunks her purple cluflers twine.

Ver. 37. Four figures rifing from the work appear.
So Dryden, En. viii. 830.

And Roman triumphs rifing on the gold.

Ver. 62. And trees weep amber on the banks of Po.

This fweet line is indebted, perhaps, to Milton, Par. Loft, iv. 248, Groves, whofe rich trees wept odorous gums and balm.

The claffical reader will thank me for producing fome elegant verfes of Marius Victor, an author but little known, from his defcription of Paradife :

quod

quod Medus redolet, vel crine foluto
Fragrat Achæmenius, quod molli dives amomo
Affyrius, meffifque rubens Mareotica nardo.
Quod Tarteffiaci frutices, quod virga Sabæi,
Quodque Palæftinus lacero flet vulnere ramus.

Ver. 73. All nature laughs; the groves are fresh and fair. It flood in the first edition, and, I think, as well :

All nature laughs; the groves fresh honours wear.

It is probable, that our author had in view fome lines of the true
Doric delicacy and most unaffected tenderuefs in Dryden's State
of Innocence, Act v. Scene 1. where Adam thus addreffes Eve :
What joy, without your fight, has earth in ftore?
While you were abfent, Eden was no more.
Winds murmur'd through the leaves your long delay,
And fountains o'er the pebbles chid your stay.

But, with your prefence cheer'd, they cease to mourn,
And walks wear fresher green at your return.

PASTORAL II. P. 73.

Ver. 45. Oh! were I made, by fome transforming pow'r,
The captive bird that fings within thy bow'r.

Romeo and Juliet:

I would I were thy bird.

A fimilar with occurs in Ovid, Met. viii. 51.

O! ego ter felix, fi pennis lapfa per auras
Gnoffiaci poffim caftris infiftere regis.
Oh! had I wings to glide along the air!
To his dear tent l'd fly, and fettle there.

Ver. 69. Here bees from bloffoms fip the rofy dew.

Milton, in his Penferofo:

And every herb, that fips the dew.

PASTORAL III. P. 82.

STEEVENS.

CROXALL.

Ver. 30. Say, is not absence death to those who love?

This whole paffage is imitated from Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, Book iii. p. 712. 8vo edition :

Earth, brook, flow'rs, pipe, lamb, dove,

Say all, and I with them,

Abfence is death, or worse, to them that love.

Ver. 37. Let op'ning roses knotted oaks adorn,

And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

Bowlas, in his tranflation of Theocritus, Idyll. v. affifted our bard:

On brambles now let violets be born,

And op'ning rofes blufh on every thorn.

Ogilby's line at the original paffage in Virgil, is very pleasing

and melodious:

And pureft amber flow from every tree.

Ver. 43. Not bubbling fountains to the thirfty fwain,
Not balmy fleep to lab'rers faint with pain,

Not fhow'rs to larks, or fun-fhine to the bee,
Are half fo charming as thy fight to me.

With thefe polifhed lines a paffage in Drummond's Wandering Mufes (pointed out alfo by Mr. Steevens) may be very agreeably compared:

To virgins, flow'rs; to fun-burnt earth, the rain;

To mariners, fair winds, amidit the main;
Cool fhades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn,
Are not fo pleafing as thy bleft return.

Ver. 9. I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred;
Wolves gave thee fuck, and favage tigers fed.
Not unlike Stafford's verfion of the original in Dryden's Mif-
cellanies,

I know thee, Love! on mountains thou waft bred,
And Thracian rocks thy infant fury fed.

The paffage ran thus in our Poet's first edition:

I know thee, Love! wild as the raging main;
More fell than tigers on the Lybian plain.

PASTORAL IV. P. 90.

Ver 39. The filver fwans her hapless fate bemoan,

In notes more fad than when they fing their own.

The hint of this turn was derived from a verse in ́Philips's Paftorals, where the circumstances of the cafe render it ridiculous; Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair, With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair, In bitter anguish beat your breasts, and moan Her death untimely as it were your own.

THE

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