ON THE YOUNG STATESMEN. CLARENDON had law and sense, Bennet's grave look was a pretence, And Danby's matchlefs impudence Help'd to fupport the knave. But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory, When fidlers fing at feasts. 5 10 Ver. 6. But Sunderland,] This nobleman had certainly great and various abilities, with a complete verfatility of genius, and a most infinuating addrefs; but he was totally void of all principles, moral or religious, and a much more abandoned character than Shaftesbury, whom it is fo common to calumniate. He certainly urged James II. to purfue arbitrary and illegal meafures, that he intended fhould be his ruin, and betrayed him to the Prince of Orange. The Abbé de Longuerue relates, that Dr. Maffey, of Christ Church, affured him, he once received an order from King James to expel twenty-four ftudents of that college in Oxford, if they did not embrace popery. Maffey, aftonished at the order, was advised by a friend to go to London, and fhew it to the king; who affured him he had never given fuch an order, and commended Maffey for not having obeyed it; yet ftill this infatuated monarch continued to truft Sunderland. Dr. J. WARTON. Protect us, mighty Providence, What would these madmen have? First, they would bribe us without Deceive us without common fenfe, And without power enflave. pence, Shall free-born men, in humble awe, Who from confent and custom draw Which kings pretend to reign? The duke fhall wield his conquering sword, The king fhall pass his honeft word, So have I feen a king on chefs (His rooks and knights withdrawn, His queen and bishops in distress) Shifting about, grow lefs and lefs, With here and there a pawn. 15 20 25 39 SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. I. FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony And cou'd not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, And Mufic's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony From harmony to harmony Through all the compafs of the notes it ran, 5 10 15 Ver. 1. From harmony,] The picture of Jubal in the second ftanza is finely imagined; but this Ode is loft in the luftre of the fubfequent one upon this fubject. Dr. J. WARTON. II. What paffion cannot Music raise and quell? 20. Lefs than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that fhell, That spoke fo fweetly and fo well. What paffion cannot Music raise and quell? III. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, With fhrill notes of anger, And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, hark! the foes come; Charge, Charge, 'tis too late to retreat. IV. The foft complaining flute In dying notes difcovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whofe dirge is whifper'd by the warbling lute. V. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and defperation, 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 favage race; But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder higher: 40 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. |