unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it, where not only the thought, but the language, is majestic, and the numbers sonorous;1 at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought or the expres sion in that stanza?

To drive the deer with hound and horn

Earl Piercy took his way: 2

The child may rue that is unborn

The hunting of that day!

This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles, which took their rise from this quarrel of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum

Rara juventus.

HOR. Od. 2. 1, 1. v. 23.

Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes,

Shall read with grief the story of their times.

What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?

1 V. D.

Blackwell's Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer.

Second edition, 8vo., 1736, sect. v. pp. 59, 60.-C.

2

* Found only in the modern poem, except the third line. —G.

The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,

His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take.

With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,

Who knew full well, in time of need,
To aim their shafts aright.

The hounds ran swiftly thro' the woods

The nimble deer to take,

And with their cries the hills and dales

An echo shrill did make.1

-Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon

Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:
Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit.

GEORG. 3, V. 43.

Citharon loudly calls me to my way;

Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,

Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed;
From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound;
For echo hunts along, and propagates the sound.

DRYDEN.

Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,

His men in armour bright;

Full twenty hundred Scottish spears,

All marching in our sight;

All men of pleasant Tividale,

Fast by the river Tweed, &c.

The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two las verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil.

Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis
Protendunt longè dextris; et spicula vibrant;

1 The greater part o. these three fine stanzas belongs to the modern poet.--G

Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabinæ
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt:- qui rosea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque et flumen Himelle:
Qui Tiberim Faburimque bibunt.

En. 11, v. 605, v. 582, 712.

Advancing in a line, they couch their spears-
-Præneste sends a chosen band,

With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land:
Besides the succours which cold Anien yields;
The rocks of Hernicus- -besides a band,
That followed from Velinum's dewy land-
And mountaineers that from Severus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play;
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.

DRYDEN.

But to proceed:

Earl Douglas, on a milk-white steed,

Most like a Baron bold,

Rode foremost of the company,

Whose armour shone like gold.1

Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, d.
Vidisti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibut in armis
Aureus-

Our English archers bent their bows,
Their hearts were good and true;

At the first flight of arrows sent,
Full threescore Scots they slew.

They clos'd full fast on ev'ry side,
No slackness there was found;
And

many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground.

- V No. 70, note on this stanza, p. 207.-G.

With that there came an arrow keeu

Out of an English bow,

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart
A deep and deadly blow.'

Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unkno

hand in the midst of a parley.

Has inter voces, media inter talia verba,
Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est,
Incertum quâ pulsa manu

En. 12, v. 318.

Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence,
A winged arrow struck the pious prince,
But whether from a human hand it came,
Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame.

DRYDEN.

But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none mo beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great for and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstance The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any oth poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil.

So thus did both these nobles die,
Whose courage none could stain;
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble Earl was slain.

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree,

An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Unto the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomery

So right his shaft he set,

The gray-goose wing, that was thereon,

In his heart-blood was wet.

Here, the modern poet, has improved upon his original, both i

incident and expression.-G.

This fight did last from break of day

Till setting of the sun;

For when they rung the evening bell,⚫

The battle scarce was done.

One may observe likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient pocts, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons.

And with Earl Douglas there was slain

Sir Hugh Montgomery;

Sir Charles Carrell, that from the field
One foot would never fly:

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,

His sister's son was he;

Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd,

Yet saved could not be.

The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil.

In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that passage ridiculed in Hudi