The Rev. William Jackson (afterwards Bishop of Oxford) was Tutor to Lord Wellesley when he was elected from Eton a Student of Christ Church. Wishing that Lord Wellesley should be a candidate for the University Prize, and anxious to try his powers of writing Hexameter Verses, he desired Lord Wellesley, then in his nineteenth year,* to translate a passage from the Arcades of Milton into that metre. The following are the verses which Lord W. wrote on that occasion. Mr. Jackson approved them and encouraged Lord W. to write for the Prize, which he did accordingly in the year 1780, and won it by a Poem on the death of the celebrated navigator Captain Cooke.
* Lord W. was born June 20th, 1760.
SPEECH OF THE GENIUS OF THE WOOD.
For know, by lot from Jove, I am the power
Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower,
To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove
With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove :
And all my plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill:
And from the boughs brush off the evil dew,
And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites,
Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites.
When evening gray doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground;
And early, ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassell'd horn
Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,
Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless :
Formosi Custos nemoris, Jove lectus ab ipso,
Hos saltus tueor præsens, quernâque sub umbrâ,
Cura mihi nutrire novâ crescentia fronde
Virgulta, et graciles ramorum intexere flexus,
Nocturnosque meis ventos avertere plantis,
Frigoraque, infestasque auras; roremque malignum
Verrere de foliis ; seu lævi fulguris ignes
Liventem rupto signârint cortice tractum,
Sive venenato turgentia germina morsu
Noxius infecit vermis, seu perculit astrum
Exitiale tuens; studium mihi dulce sacrumque
Vulnera sanare, et varias depellere pestes.—
Vesper ubi pallente diem jam claudit amictu,
Assuetos peragro cursus, spatiorque per omnes
Secessus nemorum, et fontes, collesque sacratos:
Ante aut æthereis quam vivus odoribus almæ
Halitus Auroræ sopitas suscitet herbas
Frondesque, aut clarum quatiat nemora ardua cornu,
Jam per lustra vagor celeri pede, jamque revisens
Ordine quamque suo plantas, numerumque recensens
Carmine lætifico, verbisque potentibus adsum.
But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial sirens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in musick lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law,
And the low world in measured motion draw After the heavenly tune, which none can hear Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear.
Ast altâ sub nocte, ubi vis lethæa soporis
Mortales clausit sensus, juvat æthere aperto
;-Illæ usque novenos
Desuper implexos Orbes, clarosque meatus
Astrorum procul assidunt, ternasque Sorores
Divino mulcent cantu, dum fœdere certo
Sirenum exaudire modos
Fila adamanteis torquent vitalia fusis,
Unde Deûm atque Hominum devolvi æquo ordine fata.
Usque adeò, miti imperio, Vis blanda modorum
Delenire ipsas sacrâ dulcedine Parcas,
Instabilemque suas intra compescere leges
Naturam, et trahere æquato modulamine Mundum
Ad cæleste melos; atqui non ire per aures
Humanas, sensumque hebetem, terrenaque claustra.
|