Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! 45
The fond complaint, my Song! disprove,
And juftify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he giv’n in vain the heav'nly Muse ?
Night and all her fickly dews,
Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky,
Till down the eastern cliffs afar +
Hyperion's march they spy and glitt'ring shafts of

50

war.

II. 2.

In climes † beyond the Solar Road, $
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom 56
To cheer the shiv’ring native's dull abode :
And oft' beneath the od'rous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

60 In loose numbers, wildly sweet,

+ Or seen the morning's well-appointed star, Come marching up the eastern hills afar.

Coreley. # Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and moft uncivilized nations; it's connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. (See the Frfe, Norwegian, and Welíh Fragments, the Lapland ar? Imerican Songs, &c.)

$ Extra anni folisque vias. Virgil.
Tuita lontana dal camin del fole.

Petrarch, Canz. 26

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame,

64 Th' unconquerable mind and freedom's holy flame.

I. 3.

Woods that wave o'er Delphi’s steep, !|
Ines that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In ling’ring lab'rinths creep,

70 How do

your

tuneful echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of Anguish ?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around,
Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain

75
Murmur'd deep a solemn found,
'Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains :
Alike they fcorn the pomp of tyrant Pow'r
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit loft, (coast.
They fought, oh, Albion ! next thy sea-encircled

|| Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. I'he Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there : Spencer imitated the Italian writers, Milton improved on them: but this school expired foon after the Restoration, and a new one arose, on the French model, which has fubfifted ever since,

III. I.

85

Far from the sun and fummer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling + laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd
To him the mighty Mother did unvail
Her awful face; the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year ;
Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy,
Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
Or
ope

the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

90

III. 26

Nor second he f that rode sublime

95 Upon the feraph-wings of Ecftacy, The secrets of th' abyss to spy, He pass’d the flaming bounds of place and time:S The living throne, the fapphire-blaze, || Where angels tremble while they gaze,

IOO He saw, but, blafted with excess of light, Clos'd his eyes in endless night. Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Io4

+ Shakespeare. # Milton. $ -fiammantia monia mundi. Lucretius. l For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the lik ness of a throne, as the appearance of a fapphire stone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28.

Two coursers of ethereal race, t

[ing pace. With necks in thunder cloth'd † and long-resound

III. 3.

IIO

IIS

Hark! his hands the lyre explore !
Bright-ey'd Fancy, hov’ring o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn; $
But ah! 'tis heard no more -
Oh, lyre divine ! what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? tho’he inherit
Nor the pride nor ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bear, f
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' the azure deep of air,
Yet oft' before his infant

eyes

would run Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray

+ Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

# Haft thou clothed his neck with thunder ? Job. Ś Words that weep and tears that speak. Cowley.

|| We have had in our language no other odes of the fublime kind than that of Dryden on St. Ceci. lia’s day; for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, siyle, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mafon, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and, with a masterly hand, in fome of his chorusles -above all, in the last of Caracłacus;

Hark! heard ye not yon' footstep dread? &c. 9 Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues it's fight regardless of their noifc.

I 20

With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun;
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

ADVERTISEMENT. The following Ode is founded on a Tradition cur

rent in Wales, that Edward I. when he completed the Conquest of that Country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his Hands to be put to Death.

I. I.

RUIN seize thee, ruthless King !

Confusion on thy banners wait ; • Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, 'They mock the air with idle state. * 'Helm nor hauberk'st twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant ! shall avail • To save thy fecret foul from nightly fears; 'From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!' Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride # Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,

Mocking the air with colours idly spread.

Shikesp. King John. + The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that fat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. * The crefied adder's pride. Dryden's Indian Queen,