V.

Sharp violins proclaim

Their jealous pangs, and defperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,

Depth of pains, and height of paffion,

For the fair, difdainful, dame.

VI.

But oh! what art can teach,

What human voice can reach,

The facred organ's praife?

Notes infpiring holy love,

Notes that wing their heavenly ways

To mend the choirs above.

VII.

Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre:

But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for heaven.

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45

50

Ver. 37. Sharp violins] It is a judicious remark of Mr. Mafon, that Dryden with propriety gives this epithet to the inftrument; because, in the poet's time, they could not have arrived at that delicacy of tone, even in the hands of the best masters, which they now have in thofe of an inferior kind. See Effays on English Church Mufick, by the Rev. W. Mafon, M. A. Precentor of York, 12mo. 1795, p. 218.

TODD.

GRAND CHORUS.

As from the power of facred lays
The fpheres began to move,
And fung the great Creator's praise
To all the blefs'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead fhall live, the living die,
And Mufic fhall untune the sky.

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60

SONG.

FAREWELL, FAIR ARMIDA*.

FAREWELL, fair Armida, my joy and my

grief,

In vain I have lov'd you, and hope no relief;

This fong, written on the death of Captain Digby, has been given by Mr. Malone in his Life of Dryden, on account, he fays, of its "not having been preferv'd in Dryden's works, and being found entire only in a Scarce Mifcellany, viz. Covent Garden Drollery." I muft, however, obferve, that the Song is printed entire in New Court-Songs and Poems, by R. V. Gent. 8vo. 1672, p. 78. In this collection the second line runs thus :

"In vain I have lov'd you, and find no relief.”

The fixth,

"A fate which in pity, &c,"

The twelfth,

"My fate from your fight, &c."

An anfwer from Armida, as fhe is called, follows the Song in this collection; but it is not worth citing. The ridiculous parody on this Song in the REHEARSAL is too well known to require copying here. But the following ludicrous ftanza, which I have feen in MS. and which is a coeval parody on Dryden's Song to Armida, deferves to be cited :

"Or if the king pleafe that I may, at his charge,
"Juft under your window be brought in a barge;
"Nay, 'twill be enough, as I died a brave fighter,
"If but to your window I come in a lighter;
"Or, rather than faile to flew my love fuller,
"I would be content to arrive in a fculler;
"But if me thefe favours my fate hath deny'd,
"I hope to come floating up with a fpring tyde.

Undone by your virtue, too ftrict and fevere, Your eyes gave me love, and you gave me defpair:

Now call'd by my honour, I feek with content 5
The fate which in pity you would not prevent:
To languish in love, were to find by delay
A death that's more welcome the speedieft way.

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On feas and in battles, in bullets and fire,
The danger is lefs than in hopeless defire ;
My death's wound you give, though far off I
bear

My fall from your fight-not to cost you a tear:
But if the kind flood on a wave should convey
And under your window my body should lay,
The wound on my breaft when you happen to

fee,

You'll fay with a figh-it was given by me.

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Armida is faid to have been the beautiful Frances Stuart, wife of Charles, Duke of Richmond. Captain Digby was killed at fea in the engagement between the English and Dutch fleet, off Southwold Bay, in 1672,

Topp.

THE

LADY'S SONG.

I.

A CHOIR of bright beauties in spring did

appear,

To choose a May-lady to govern the year; All the nymphs were in white, and the shepherds in green;

5

The garland was given, and Phyllis was queen:
But Phyllis refus'd it, and fighing did fay,
I'll not wear a garland while Pan is away.

II.

While Pan and fair Syrinx are fled from our

shore,

The Graces are banish'd, and Love is no more: The foft god of pleasure, that warm'd our defires,

Has broken his bow, and extinguish'd his fires: And vows that himself, and his mother, will

mourn,

"Till Pan and fair Syrinx in triumph return.

11