Fair Liberty, Britannia's Goddess, rears,
Her chearful head, and leads the golden years.

Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your blood,

And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,
Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset, 95
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope, he tries the furrow'd grounds;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couch'd close he lies, and meditates the prey;
Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,
'Till hov'ring o'er them sweeps the swelling net.
Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
When Albion sends her eager sons to war,
Some thoughtless Town, with ease and plenty blest,
Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 91.

O may no more a foreign master's rage,

With wrongs yet legal, curse a future age!

Still spread, fair Liberty! thy heav'nly wings,

Breathe plenty on the fields, and fragrance on the springs. P. Ver. 97.

When yellow autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And into wine the purple harvest bleeds,1
The partridge feeding in the new-shorn fields,
Both morning sports and ev'ning pleasures yields.

1 Perhaps the Author thought it not allowable to describe the season by a circumstance not proper to our climate, the vintage.

P.

Sudden they seize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize,
And high in air Britannia's standard flies.

110

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant

springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

115

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?

Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny. 120
To plains with well-breath'd beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare :
(Beasts, urg'd by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo.)
With slaught'ring guns th' unweary'd fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves ;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 107. It stood thus in the first Editions :

Pleas'd in the Gen'ral's sight, the host lie down
Sudden before some unsuspecting town;
The young, the old, one instant makes our prize,
And o'er their captive heads Britannia's standard flies.
Ver. 126. O'er rustling leaves around the naked groves.

This is a better line.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 115.

" nec te tua plurima, Pantheu,

Labentem pietas, vel Apollinis insula texit."

Warton.

Virg. Warburton.

He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky: 130
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death :
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade,
Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand :
With looks unmov'd, he hopes the scaly breed,
And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed. 140
Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright-ey'd perch with fins of Tyrian dye,
The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd,
The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold,
Swift trouts, diversify'd with crimson stains, 145
And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains.

Now Cancer glows with Phœbus' fiery car : The youth rush eager to the sylvan war, Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround, Rouze the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound. Th' impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein, And pawing, seems to beat the distant plain :

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 129. The fowler lifts his levell'd tube on high. P.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 134. "Præcipites alta vitam sub nube relinquunt." Virg. Ver. 151. Th' impatient courser, &c.] Translated from Statius, " Stare adeo miserum est, pereunt vestigia mille

Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum." These lines Mr. Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Fresnoy's

Hills, vales, and floods appear already cross'd,
And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.
See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning steep,
Rush through the thickets, down the valleys sweep,
Hang o'er their coursers' heads with eager speed,
And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.
Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,
Th' immortal huntress, and her virgin-train; 160
Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen
As bright a Goddess, and as chaste a Queen ;
Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,
The Earth's fair light, and Empress of the Main.

165

Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana stray'd, And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade; Here was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove, Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove ; Here arm'd with silver bows, in early dawn, Her buskin'd Virgins trac'd the dewy lawn. 170 Above the rest a rural nymph was fam'd, Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona nam'd ;

NOTES.

Ver. 171. Dr. Johnson seems to have past too severe a censure on this episode of Lodona. A tale in a descriptive poet has certainly a good effect. See Thomson's Lavinia, and the many beautiful tales interwoven in the loves of the Plants. Warton.

IMITATIONS.

noy's Art of Painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says, " they would cost him an hour, if he had the leisure, to translate them, there is so much of beauty in the original;" which was the reason, I suppose, why Mr. P. tried his strength with them. Warburton.

Ver. 158. And earth rolls back,] He has improved his original,

66

terræque urbesque recedunt." Virg. Warburton. Warton.

But no imitation of Virgil was here intended.

(Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,

The Muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last.) Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be

known,

But by the crescent and the golden zone.
She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care ;
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;

A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,

175

And with her dart the flying deer she wounds. 180
It chanc'd, as eager of the chace, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd,
Pan saw and lov'd, and burning with desire
Pursu'd her flight, her flight increas'd his fire.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, 185
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,

When through the clouds he drives the trembling

doves;

As from the God she flew with furious pace,
Or as the God, more furious urg'd the chace. 190

NOTES.

Ver. 179.] From the fourth book of Virgil, who copied it from Homer's beautiful figure of Apollo, Iliad, b. i. ver. 46. But, as Dr. Clark finely and acutely observes, even Virgil has lost the beauty and the propriety of the original. Homer says, the arrows sounded in the quiver because the step of the God was hasty and irregular, as of an angry person. Irati describitur incessus, paulo utique inæquabilior.

Warton.

Ver. 175.

IMITATIONS.

"Nec positu variare comas; ubi fibula vestem,
Vitta coërcuerat neglectos alba capillos."

Ver. 185, 188.

"Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbæ,
Ut solet accipiter trepidas agitare columbas."

Ovid.

Ovid.