When to the clouds, along th' æthereal plain,
His airy way the Theban Swan purfues,
Strong rapid gales his founding plumes fuftain:
While, wondering at his flight, my timorous Muse
In short excurfions tires her feeble wings,

And in fequefter'd shades and flowery gardens fings.
There, like the bee, that, from each odorous bloom,
Each fragrant offspring of the dewy field,

With painful art, extracts the rich perfume,
Solicitous her honied dome to build,

Exerting all her industry and care,

She toils with humble fweets her meaner verfe to rear.

The remainder of this Ode has no relation to the prefent fubject, and is therefore omitted.

The following Collection of Poems (to borrow the metaphor made use of by Horace) confifts wholly of fweets, drawn from the rich and flowery fields of Greece. And if in thefe Translations any of the native spirit and fragrancy of the Originals fhall appear to be transfused, I shall content myself with the humble merit of the little laborious infect above-mentioned. But I must not here omit acquainting the Reader, that among these, immediately after the Odes of Pindar, is inferted a tranflation of an Ode* of Horace, done by a Gen

* This Ode, in full conformity to Mr. Weft's intention, is ftill (though restored to its proper writer) preferved in the prefent volume. See above p. 75. N.

a Gentleman, the peculiar excellence of whofe genius hath often revealed what his modesty would have kept a fecret. And to this I might have trufted to inform the world, that the Translation I am now speaking of, though inferted amongst mine, was not done by me, were I not desirous of testifying the pride and pleasure I take in seeing, in this and fome other inftances, his admirable pieces blended and joined with mine; an evidence and emblem at the fame time of that friendship, which hath long subfifted between us, and which I shall always esteem a fingular felicity and honour to myself.

The Authors, from whom the other pieces are tranflated, are fo well known, that I need fay nothing of them in this place; neither shall I detain the Reader with any farther account of the tranflations themfelves, than only to acquaint him, that I tranflated the Dramatic Poem of Lucian upon the Gout, when I was myself under an attack of that incurable diftemper, which I mention by way of excufe; and that all the other pieces, excepting only the Hymn of Cleanthes, were written many years ago, at a time when I read and wrote, like most other people, for amufement only. If the Reader finds they give any to him, I fhall be very glad of it; for it is doing fome service to human society, to amuse innocently; and they know very little of human nature, who think it can bear to be always employed either in the exercise of its duties, or in high and important meditations.

ALBION, exult! thy fons a voice divine have heard,

The Man of Thebes hath in thy vales appear'd! Hark! with fresh rage and undiminish'd fire, The fweet enthusiast fimites the British lyre; The founds that echoed on Alpheus' ftreams, Reach the delighted ear of listening Thames; Lo! fwift across the dusty plain

Great Theron's foaming courfers strain! What mortal tongue e'er roll'd along Such full impetuous tides of nervous song?

I. 2.

The fearful, frigid lays of cold and creeping art,
Nor touch, nor can transport th' unfeeling heart;
Pindar, our inmoft bofom piercing, warms
With glory's love, and eager thirst of arms:
When freedom speaks in his majestic strain,
The patriot-paffions beat in every vein :
We long to fit with heroes old,
'Mid groves of vegetable gold,
*Where Cadmus and Achilles dwell,
And ftill of daring deeds and dangers tell.

I. 3. Away,

* See 2 Olymp. Od.

I. 3.

Away, enervate Bards, away,

Who fpin the courtly, filken lay,

* As wreaths for fome vain Louis' head,
Or mourn fome foft Adonis dead:

No more your polish'd Lyricks boast,
In British Pindar's ftrength o'erwhelm'd and loft:
As well might ye compare

The glimmerings of a waxen flame
(Emblem of Verse correctly tame)

To his own Ætna's fulphur-fpouting caves,
When to Heaven's vault the fiery deluge raves,

When clouds and burning rocks dart through the trou

In roaring Cataracts down Andes' channel'd steeps
Mark how enormous Orellana fweeps!

Monarch of mighty Floods! fupremely strong,
Foaming from cliff to cliff he whirls along,
Swoln with an hundred hills' collected fnows:
Thence over nameless regions widely flows,
Round fragrant ifles, and citron-groves,
Where ftill the naked Indian roves,
And fafely builds his leafy bower,

From flavery far, and curft Iberian power;

K 2

II. 2. So

Alluding to the French and Italian Lyrick Poets.

+ See 1 Pyth. Od.

II. 2.

So rapid Pindar flows.-O Parent of the Lyre,
Let me for ever thy fweet fons admire!

O ancient Greece, but chief the Bard whose lays
The matchless tale of Troy divine emblaze;
And next Euripides, foft pity's priest,
Who melts in ufeful Woes the bleeding breast;
And him, who paints th' inceftuous king,
Whose foul amaze and horror wring;
Teach me to taste their charms refin'd,
The richest banquet of th' enraptur'd mind:

II. 3.

For the bleft man, the Mufe's child *, On whofe aufpicious birth the fmil'd, Whofe foul fhe form'd of purer fire, For whom the tun'd a golden lyre, Seeks not in fighting fields renown : No widows' midnight fhrieks, nor burning town, The peaceful Poet please :

Nor ceafelefs toils for fordid gains,

Nor purple pomp, nor wide domains,

Nor heaps of wealth, nor power, nor statesman's

schemes,

Nor all deceiv'd ambition's feverish dreams,

Lure his contented heart from the sweet vale of ease.

*Hor. lib. IV. Od. iii.

ODES