Ver. 37. Let op'ning rofes knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

Bowles, in his tranflation of Theocritus, Idyll. v. affisted our bard:

On brambles now let violets be born,

And op'ning rafes blush on every thorn.

Ogilby's line at the original paffage in Virgil, is very pleafing

and melodious:

And pureft amber flow from every tree.

Ver. 43. Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty fwain,
Not balmy fleep to lab'rers faint with pain,

Not fhow'rs to larks, or fun-fhine to the bee,
Are half fo charming as thy fight to me.

With these polished lines a paffage in Drummond's Wandering Mufes (pointed out alfo by Mr. Steevens) may be very agreeably compared:

To virgins, flow'rs; to fun-burnt earth, the rain;

To mariners, fair winds, amidit the main;
Cool fhades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn,
Are not fo pleating as thy bleft return.

Ver. 9. I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred ;
Wolves gave thee fuck, and favage tigers fed.
Not unlike Stafford's verfion of the original in Dryden's Mil-
cellanies,

I know thee, Love! on mountains thou waft bred,
And Thracian rocks thy infant fury fed.

The paffage ran thus in our Poet's first edition :
I know thee, Love! wild as the raging main;
More fell than tigers on the Lybian plain.

PASTORAL IV. P. 90.

Ver 39. The filver fwans her haplefs fate bemoan,

In notes more fad than when they fing their own. The hint of this turn was derived from a verse in Philips's Paftorals, where the circumstances of the cafe render it ridiculous: Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair, With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair, In bitter anguish beat your breasts, and moan Her death untimely as it were your own.

THE

Ver. 5.

THE MESSIAH. P. 105.

O thou my voice inspire,

Who touch'd Ifaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!

Milton had already made the fame allufion to Isaiah, vi. 7. at the clofe of his Hymn on the Nativity:

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his facred altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

Cowley alfo, David. i. 25. admits comparison :

Ev'n thou my breast with fuch bleft rage infpire,
As mov'd the tuneful ftrings of David's lyre.

But a noble paffage in Milton's Reafon of Church Government is ftill more appofite; "By devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, "who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and fends out his Seraphim, with the hallow'd fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases."

Ver 22. Oh fpring to light, aufpicious babe! be born. This feems a palpable imitation of Callimachus, but where our Poet fell upon it, I cannot difcover: Hymn. Del 214.

Γείνεο, γείνεο, καρε και ηπιο εξιθι κόλπε,

Ver. 39. He from thick films fhall

purge

the visual ray.

Thus Milton, Par. Loft, iii. 620.

and th' air,

No where fo clear, sharpen'd his visual ray

To objects diftant far:

and in his Samfon Agonistes, ver. 162.

For inward light alas!

Puts forth no vifual beam.

Ver. 99. No more the rifing fun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her filver horn.

There is a general refemblance in thefe charming lines to the beginning of Ovid's Metamorphofes, and Sandys's excellent transla

tion there:

Nullus adhuc mundo præbebat lumina Titan,
Nec nova crefcendo reparabat cornua Phœbe.

No

No Titan yet the world with light adornes.

Nor waxing Phobe fill'd her wained hornes.

Our Poet's attachment to Sandys from early intimacy is well known.

WINDSOR FOREST. P. 121.

Ver. 1. Thy forest, Windfor, and thy green retreats,
At once the Monarch's and the Mufe's feats,

Invite my lays.

Thus Hopkins, in his Hiftory of Love, published in the fame year at least, if not earlier, than the poem before us :

Ye woods and wilds, ferene and bleft retreats,

At once the lovers' and the Mufes' feats,

To you I fly.

Ver. 331. His treffes dropt with dews, and o'er the stream
His fhining horns diffus'd a golden gleam.

Spenfer has a fine paffage like this before us, Faery Queene, iv. 11. 25.

But Thame was stronger, and of better stay, Yet feem'd full aged by his outward fight,

With head all hoary, and his beard all gray,

Dewed with filver drops that trickled downe alway.

But our Poet feems to have imitated the first verses of a parallel representation in Claudian, de VI. Conf. Honor. ver. 160. wrought with the customary richness of that author. The entire paffage is well worthy of perufal; replete with ornament; and that ornament appropriate and original: to which I refer the reader. He is fpeaking of the Po:

Ille caput placidis fublime fluentis
Extulit; et, totis lucem fpargentia ripis,
Aurea roranti micuerunt cornua vultu.

He spake: the Flood rears up his towering head

O'er the smooth surface of his swelling bed.

His horned front, through ftreams of glistening dew,
Round the wild banks a golden radiance threw.

The reader will be pleased also with fome lines of Milton's Lycidas,

ver. 105.

Next Camus, reverend fire, went footing flow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim.

Ver. 340. The reader will be gratified by the fame subject in the hands of Spenfer, F. Q. iv. 11. 29.

And round about him many a pretty page

Attended, duely ready to obey;

All little rivers, which owe vaffallage

To him, as to their lord, and tribute pay- 99

The chaulky Kenet, and the Thetis gray,

The morifh Cole, and the foft flyding Breare,

The wanton Lee, that oft doth loose his

way,

And the ftill Darent, in whose waters cleare

Ten thousand fishes play, and decke his pleasant ftreame.

Ver. 379. I fee, I fee, where two fair cities bend

Their ample bow, a new Whitehall afcend.

This feems imitated from Hopkins' Court Profpect in Dryden's
Mifcellanies, ii. p. 385.

As far as fair Augufta's buildings reach,
Bent, like a bow, along a peaceful beach.

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY, P. 163.

Ver. 96. No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love. Dryden's tranflation of Dido to Æneas:

Who know no crime, but too much love of thee:

and afterwards in the fame epiftle :

Some pity let a fuppliant princefs move,

Whose only fault was an excefs of love.

FIRST CHORUS TO THE TRAGEDY

OF BRUTUS.

P. 174.

Ver. 2. Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd,

And Epicurus lay infpir'd.

This is an imitation of fome verfes by J. A. of King's College, Cambridge, to Creech on his Lucretius:

I thought

I thought indeed, before I heard your fame,
No laurels grew but on the banks of Cam ;
Where Chaucer was by facred fury fir'd,
And everlasting Cowley lay infpir'd;
Where Milton first his wond'rous vision saw,
And Marvel taught the painter how to draw.
For the second verse Pope originally gave,
And godlike Zeno lay infpir'd.

ESSAY ON CRITICISM. P. 193.

Ver. 144.—nameless graces, which no methods teach.
A writer in Dryden's Mifcellanies, ii. p. 343.
Ah! where the nameless graces, that were seen
In all thy motions, and thy mien ?

Ver. 193. Nations unborn your mighty names shall found,
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!

An imitation of Cowley, David. ii. 833.

Round the whole earth his dreaded name fhall found,
And reach to worlds that must not yet be found.

Ver.

243.

In wit as nature, what affects our hearts,
Is not th' exactnefs of peculiar parts;

'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full refult of all.

This feems an improvement on fome lines in Dryden's Art of
Poetry, Canto i.

'Tis not enough, when swarming faults are writ,
That here and there are scattered sparks of wit;
Each object must be fix'd in the due place,
And differing parts have correfponding grace:
Till, by a curious art difpos'd, we find
One perfect whole, of all the pieces join'd.

Ver. 623. Nor is Paul's church more fafe than Paul's church

yard.