THYRS IS. Ye gentle Mufes, leave your crystal spring, Let Nymphs and Sylvans cypress garlands bring, Ye weeping Loves, the ftream with myrtles hide, And break your bows, as when Adonis dy'd; And with your golden darts, now useless grown, 25 Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone : "Let nature change, let heav'n and earth deplore, "Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!" 'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay, See gloomy clouds obfcure the chearful day! 30 Now VARIATIONS. VER. 29. Originally thus in the MS. 'Tis done, and nature chang'd fince you are gone; REMARKS. WARBURTON. VER. 21. Let Nymphs and Sylvans, &c.] This line recalls a pathetic little ballad, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy: Lay a garland on my hearfe Of the difmal yew, Maidens, willow branches bear, Say I died true. My love was falfe, but I was true, From my hour of birth : Upon my buried body lie Softly, gentle earth! VER. 31. Now hung with pearls, c.] “And hung a pearl in every cowfiip's ear." Mid-summer Night's Dream.—STEVENS. IMITATIONS. VER, 23, 24, 25 “Inducite fontibus umbras Et tumulum facite, et tumulo fuperaddite carmen.” P. Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear, Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more! In notes more fad than when they fing their own; Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore, No grateful dews defcend from ev'ning skies, 35 41 45 No REMARKS. VER. 41. fweet Echo] This expreffion of fweet Eche is taken from Comus; as is another expreffion, loofe traces, Third Paft. v. 62. And he recommends these poems in high terms to Sir W. Trumball (see the Letters) so early as the year 1704. WARTON. VE. 41. In hollow caves fweet Echo filent lies.] Sweet Echo, fweetest nymph, that liv'dft unfeen. Oh if thou have, Hid them in fome flow'ry cave, Αχω δ' εν πέτρησιν οδύρεται, οττι σιωπή, Κεκετι μιμείται τα σα κειλεα. COMUS. Compare Mofchus's beautiful Epitaphium Bionis. "Echo mourns amid the rocks, that she must now be filent, nor ever imitate again thy lips." No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field, 50 No more the mounting larks, while Daphne fings, Or hufh'd with wonder, hearken from the sprays: Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, 55 бо And told in fighs to all the trembling trees; The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood, Her fate remurmur to the filver flood; The filver flood, fo lately calm, appears 65 Swell'd with new paffion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore, Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more! But REMARKS. VER. 54. Here the circumftances of the lark fufpending its wings in mid-air, is highly beautiful, because the image is diftinct, and there is a veri-fimilitudo in it, which is not the cafe where a waterfall is made to be suspended by the power of Mufic. VER. 61. &c. Her fate is whispered] All this is very poor, and unworthy Pope. First, the breeze whifpers the death of Daphne to the trees; then the trees inform the flood of it; then the flood "o'erflows But fee! where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high Above the clouds, above the starry sky! 70 Eternal beauties grace the fhining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green! 75 How REMARKS. "o'erflows with tears ;" and then they all deplore" together! Let us, however, fill remember the youth of Pope, and the example of prior poets. In Camden's remains there is acurious Epitaph, where such ideas are carried to the greatest excess. If I recollect rightly, the people, upon the death of the Queen, are called upon to fhed fo many tears, that the watermen might row to Whitehall in their eyes, instead of on the Thames. The whole Paftoral would have been much more claffical, correct, and pure, if these eight lines, (Her fate, &c. to Daphne is dead) had been omitted. VER. 70. Above the clouds,] In Spenfer's November, and in Milton's Lycidas, is the fame beautiful change of circumstances: in the latter moft exquifite, from line 165. Weep no more, woful fhepherds, weep no more- With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the inexpreffive nuptial fong In the bleft kingdoms meek of joy and love. IMITATIONS. WARTON. VER. 69, 70. "miratur limen Olympi, Sub pedibufque videt nubes et fydera Daphnis." Virg. P. LYCID A S. How all things liften, while thy Mufe complains! Such filence waits on Philomela's ftrains, In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze 80 While plants their fhade, or flow'rs their odours give, Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live! THYRSIS. But fee, Orion fheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Time conquers all, and we must Time obey. 85 VARIATIONS. Adieu, VER. 83. Originally thus in the MS. While vapours rife, and driving fnows defcend, REMARKS. VER. 85. unwholefome dews;] Obferve how the melody of those four verses is improved, by the pure iambic foot at the end of each line, except the fecond, Sæpe tener noftris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.” Virg. "folet effe gravis cantantibus umbra, VER. 86. Juniperi gravis umbra." Virg. VER. 88. Time conquers all, &c.] “Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori.” Vid. etiam Sannazarii Ecl. et Spenfer's Calendar. P. P. |