Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying, and what then fhall follow? Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corfe attend; With eyes averted light the folemn pyre, Till all around the doleful flames afcend, Then, flowly finking, by degrees expire? To footh the hovering foul be thine the care, With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band. In fable weeds the golden vafe to bear, And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand; Panchaia's odours be their coftly feast, And all the pride of Afia's fragrant year, Give them the treasures of the farthest East, And, what is still more precious, give thy tear. Surely no blame can. fall upon the nymph who rejected a fwain of fo little meaning. His His verfes are not rugged, but they have no sweetness; they never glide in a ftream of melody. Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten fyllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has been pronounced by Dryden, whofe knowledge of English metre was not inconfiderable, to be the most magnificent of all the measures which our language affords. THE THE following Elegy was acciden tally omitted: TO MISS DASHWOOD. In the Manner of OVI D. O fay, thou dear poffeffor of my breast, Where's now my boasted liberty and rest! Where the gay moments which I once have known! O, where that heart I fondly thought my own! From place to place I folitary roam, Abroad uneafy, not content at home. I fcorn the beauties common eyes adore; The more I view them, feel thy worth the more; Wir Wit can't deceive the pain I now endure, When from thy fight I waste the tedious day, And could I speak with eloquence and ease, Till now not ftudious of the art to please, Could I, at woman who so oft exclaim, Expofe (nor blush) thy triumph and my shame,. Own thou hast foften'd my obdurate mind, I Thousands will fain thy little heart enfnare, |