Then Petrarch follow'd, and in him we fee,
What rhyme improv'd in all its height can be:
At beft a pleasing found, and fair barbarity.
The French purfu'd their steps; and Britain,
laft,
In manly sweetness all the rest surpass'd.
The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome,
Appear exalted in the British loom:
The Muses empire is reftor'd again,
In Charles his reign, and by Rofcommon's pen.
Yet modeftly he does his work furvey,
And calls a finish'd Poem an Effay ;
For all the needful rules are scatter'd here;
Truth fmoothly told, and pleasantly severe;
So well is art difguis'd, for nature to appear.
and Charlemagne; which, from the circumftance of the style
being a mixture of the Tuscan with other Italian dialects, ap-
pears to be prior to Dante. There was an edition of it at Ve-
nice, 1615. It is become extremely rare, and is a great curio
fity. It is mentioned by Quadrio in his Hiftory of Italian
Poetry.
Dr. J. WARTON.
Ver. 21. Then Petrarch follow'd,] It was on the fixth of April, 1327, that Petrarch fell in love with Laura, in the twentythird year of his age. Paul Jovius reports, that it was a common faying in Italy, that Petrarch did not fucceed in writing profe, nor Boccacio in writing verfe. Few books are fo entertaining as the Abbé Sade's circumftantial Life of Petrarch, which contains alfo a curious picture of the manners and opinions of that age. It is pleafant to obferve, that Petrarch's Laura was allegorized to mean the Chriftian Religion by one commentator; the Soul by another; and the Virgin Mary by a third. Dr. J. WARTON.
Ibid. Then Petrarch follow'd,] No reafoning from the Italian language to the English about rhyme and blank verfe. One language (fays Johnfou) cannot communicate its rules to another. JOHN WARTON.
Nor need those rules to give translation light;
His own example is a flame fo bright;
That he who but arrives to copy well,
Unguided will advance, unknowing will excel.
Scarce his own Horace could fuch rules ordain,
Or his own Virgil fing a nobler ftrain.
How much in him may rising Ireland boast,
How much in gaining him has Britain loft!
Their island in revenge has ours reclaim'd;
The more inftructed we, the more we ftill are
fham'd.
"T'is well for us his generous blood did flow, 45 Deriv'd from British channels long ago,
That here his conqu'ring ancestors were nurst ;
And Ireland but translated England first :
By this reprifal we regain our right,
Elfe muft the two contending nations fight; 50
A nobler quarrel for his native earth,
Than what divided Greece for Homer's birth.
To what perfection will our tongue arrive,
How will invention and tranflation thrive,
When authors nobly born will bear their part, 55
And not difdain the inglorious praise of art!
Great generals thus, defcending from com-
mand,
With their own toil provoke the foldier's hand.
How will fweet Ovid's ghost be pleas'd to hear
His fame augmented by an English peer;
How he embellishes his Helen's loves,
Outdoes his foftness, and his fenfe improves ?
When thefe tranflate, and teach tranflators too,
Nor firstling kid, nor any vulgar vow,
Should at Apollo's grateful altar ftand:
Rofcommon writes: to that aufpicious hand,
Mufe, feed the bull that fpurns the yellow
Rofcommon, whom both court and camps com
True to his prince, and faithful to his friend;
Rofcommon, first in fields of honour known,70
First in the peaceful triumphs of the gown;
Who both Minervas juftly makes his own.
Now let the few belov'd by Jove, and they
Whom infus'd Titan form'd of better clay,
On equal terms with ancient wit engage,
Nor mighty Homer fear, nor facred Virgil's
page:
Our English palace opens wide in flate ;
And without ftooping they may pass the gate.
Ver. 67. Mufe, feed the bull]
Jam cornu petat, et pedibus qui fpargat arenam.
Ver. 74. Whom infus'd Titan]
E meliore lutu finxit præcordia Titan.
RETURN FROM SCOTLAND IN THE YEAR 1682.
WHEN factious rage to cruel exile drove
The queen of beauty, and the court of love,
The Mufes droop'd, with their forfaken arts,
And the fad Cupids broke their useless darts :
Our fruitful plains to wilds and defarts turn'd, 5
Like Eden's face, when banish'd man it
mourn'd.
Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
The great fupporter of his awful throne.
On the twenty-firft of November 1673, the duke of York was married to the princefs Mary d'Efte, then about fifteen years of age, and extremely handfome. The ceremony was performed at Dover by the bishop of Oxford. It was against the rules of policy for him at that time to wed a Roman Catholic; and the Parliament addreffed against it.
Love could no longer after beauty stay,
But wander'd northward to the verge of day,
As if the fun and he had loft their way.
But now the illuftrious nymph, return'd again,
Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
The wond'ring Nereids, though they rais'd no
Foreflow'd her paffage, to behold her form: 15 Some cry'd, A Venus; fome, A Thetis past ; But this was not fo fair, nor that fo chafte. Far from her fight flew Faction, Strife, and Pride;
And Envy did but look on her, and dy'd.
Whate'er we fuffer'd from our fullen fate,
Her fight is purchas'd at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years againft this day were fet;
But this one mighty fum has clear'd the debt :
Like Jofeph's dream, but with a better doom,
The famine past, the plenty still to come.
For her the weeping heavens become ferene;
For her the ground is clad in cheerful green:
For her the nightingales are taught to fing,
And Nature has for her delay'd the spring.
The Mufe refumes her long-forgotten lays, 30-
3༠)
And Love reftor'd his ancient realm furveys,
Recals our beauties, and revives our plays ;
His wafte dominions peoples once again,
And from her prefence dates his fecond reign.
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