How wilt thou now the fatal fifters move?

No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.

Now under hanging mountains,

Befide the falls of fountains,

95

my opinion, excellent: a line or two in the middle, which the

reader will immediately felect, are much inferior to the reft.

Ver. 95. This verse is formed from Virgil, Geo. iv. 505.
Quo fletu manes, quâ numina voce moveret ?

What tears could move, what pray'rs, relentless fate ?
Ver. 101. All this is far, very far indeed, below his master :
Geo. iv. 465.

Te, dulcis conjux, te folo in litore fecum,

Te veniente die, te decadente, canebat.

Thee, thee, fweet bride! he fang, in wilds, alone!
For thee at dawn, for thee at night his moan,

Ver. 108. This childish conceit of glowing amidst the Snows of Rhodope, is truly frigid, unworthy of our author's judgement, and in Ovid's moft licentious humour. These indecorums," fays Longinus, fect. v. a critic of most accurate taste ; "these “indecorums arise in compofition from an inceffant affectation of "novelty in fentiment; a rage, that infatuates the authors of our "time."

K 3

See,

See, wild as the winds, o'er the defert he flies; 110
Hark! Hamus refounds with the Bacchanals' cries-
Ah fee, he dies!

Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he fung,

Eurydice ftill trembled on his tongue,

Eurydice the woods,

Eurydice the floods,

Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

VII.

Mufic the fierceft grief can charm,

And fate's feverest rage disarm:

Mufic can foften pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please :

115

120

Ver. 113. This artful repetition of the name is not inferior to the fame beauty in Ovid and Virgil, though the praise of originality must be conceded to them without participation. Metam,

xi. 52.

Flebile nefcio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua,
Murmurat exanimis; refpondent flebile ripæ.

A moan his fault'ring tongue convulfive founds,
A moan his lyre; the bank a moan rebounds.

Virgil is more majestic, and is tranflated by our poet: Geo.
iv. 525.

Eurydicen vox ipfa et frigida lingua,

Ah! miferam Eurydicen! animâ fugiente vocabat :
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripa.

Ver. 121. Duke fays of the mufe, in some verses on the death of Charles II.

That sweetens forrow, and makes fadness please.

In the next verse the expletives it can are very mean and infipid.

Our

And to her Maker's praise confin'd the found. 125
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,

Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear;
Borne on the fwelling notes our fouls afpire,
While folemn airs improve the facred fire;
And angels lean from heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given;
His numbers rais'd a fhade from hell,
Her's lift the foul to heav'n.

130

Ver. 126. He had in view the divine ftrains of the Penferofo:
There let the pealing organ blow

To the full-voic'd quire below,

In fervice high, and anthems clear.

If the mere description by fuch poets lifts the foul to heaven, what
muft the reality? And what fhall we think of Mr. Gray, who
had the courage to contend with fuch illuftrious antagonists; and
to contend fuccefsfully? For even Milton's ftrains are furpaffed
by thofe, which every reader will immediately call to memory.
Where through the long-drawn ifle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem fwells the note of praise.

Ver. 129. Improve is an improper and inelegant word as applied to fire. Our poet acquits himself with more dexterity in his Effay on Criticism, verse one hundredth.

The gen'rous critic fann'd the poet's fire.

Ver. 130. Yalden in his ode on the same subject:
Then choirs of liftening angels ftood around.
Ver. 134. Shakespere, Henry VIII. act 2. fcene 1.
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,

And lift my foul to heaven.

K 4

TWO

.

TWO CHORUSES

TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS.*

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS,

STROPHE 1.

YE fhades, where facred truth is sought;
Groves, where immortal fages taught:
Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd,
And Epicurus lay infpir'd!

In vain your guiltless laurels ftood
Unfpotted long with human blood.

War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades,

And steel now glitters in the mufes' fhades.

Ver. 1. Horace, Epift. ii. 2.

Atque inter filvas Academi quærere verum.

And feek for truth in Academus' groves.

5

Of thefe two odes, the former is an elegant compofition, and much fuperior, in my opinion, to the second.

Ver. 4. The verb lay very happily expreffes the tranquil life of this philofopher, lecturing in his garden.

Ver. 7. He should have introduced a little variety here, and described the alarm both to the ear and eye; as thus:

The din of war ............

* Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose defire these two chorufes were compofed, to fupply as many wanting in his play. They were fet many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house. P.

ANTISTROPHE

ANTISTROPHE I.

Oh heav'n-born fifters fource of art!

Who charm the fenfe, or mend the heart; 1Q
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,

Moral truth, and myftic fong!

To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forfaken, friendless, shall ye fly?

Say, will ye blefs the bleak Atlantic fhore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

STROPHE II.

When Athens finks by fates unjust,
When wild barbarians fpurn her duft;
Perhaps ev❜n Britain's utmost shore
Shall cease to blush with strangers' gore,
See Arts her favage fons control,
And Athens rifing near the pole!

Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

15

20

Ver. 20. Horace only fays, hofpitibus feros, cruel to frangers: and, perhaps, even this was the flander of vexation upon our poor countrymen, because the Romans could not fubdue them, as Tibullus acknowledges, iv. 1. 149..

Te manet invictus Romano Marte Britannus:

where fee the commentators.

Ver. 21. The want of inflexions to nouns in our language occafions much ambiguity, and leaves no index of the conftruction but the scope of the paffage: as control, and them in the last verse, might relate either to arts or fons. Our authors should attempt to remedy this inconvenience, as Mr. Pope might on this occafion by writing:

See Arts each favage son control.

ANTISTROPHE