Nor winding fireams that through the vallies glide.

Dryden

Ver. 20. And with fresh bays her rural fhrine adorn. Rowe's Ambitious Step-Mother:

And with fresh roses ftrew thy virgin urn. S.

Ver. 22. Let Nymphs and Sylvans cypress garlands bring: Ye weeping Loves, the stream with myrtles hide. Our poet unfortunately followed Dryden's turn of the original phrase in Virgil:

With cypress boughs the crystal fountains hide. Lauderdale is much more judicious:

Ye fwains, fpread all the ground with facred flow'rs, And o'er your fountains raise sweet shady bow'rs.

Ver. 27. Let Nature change, let Heav'n and Earth deplore Fair Daphne's dead, and Love is now no more.

This is imitated from the anonymous author of the
Pastoral Eclogue, on the death of the fame lady, Mrs.
Tempest, in Dryden's Mifcellanies, v. p. 323.

Now, fhepherds! now lament, and now deplore!
Delia is dead, and beauty is no more:

1

and from Sedley's Elegy on the fame subject :

Nature herfelf laments thy early death.

Ver. 31. Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear. Midfummer's Night's dream:

And hang a pearl in every cowflip's ear. S.

And I have prefumed in my edition of these poems, that our author originally wrote drooping trees; nor can I doubt the justice of this correction. Thus in his Spring, ver. 70. a fimilar paffage :

All nature mourns: the fkies relent in fhow'rs;
Hufh'd are the birds, and clos'd the drooping flow'rs.

Milton,

Milton, in Par. Reg. iv. 434. leaves the folution doubt

ful:

And now the fun with more effectual beams

Had chear'd the face of earth, and dry'd the wet

From drooping plant, or dropping tree:

but in his Samf. Agun. ver. 727. countenances my conjecture:

but now, with head declin'd,

Like a fair flow'r furcharg'd with dew, fhe weeps. The fame typographical error appears in the first edition of the Iliad, xix. 166.

Shrunk with dry famine, and with toils declin'd,,

The dropping body will defert the mind;

very properly altered to drooping in the fubfequent impreffions.

་

Ver. 38. The thirsty heifers fhun the gliding flood. The change of conftruction in the first edition makes the verse more agreable, than the prefent uniformity, to my taste :

Nor thirsty heifers feek the gliding flood.

Ver. 39. The filver fwans her haplefs fate bemoan,

In notes more fad than when they fing their own. The hint of this turn was derived from a verfe in Philips's Paftorals, where the circumftances of the cafe render it ridiculous:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair,

With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair,
In bitter anguish beat your breasts, and mɔan
Her death untimely as it were your own.

The ftrictures of Martinus Scriblerus occafioned a cor-
rection of the paffage in future editions.
8

Ver. 41.

Ver. 41. In hollow caves fweet Echo filent lies,

Romeo and Juliet:

the cave where Echo lies. S.

This couplet was thus originally varied :
Echo no more the rural fong rebounds;
Her name alone the mournful Echo founds.

Ver. 49. The balmy Zephyrs, filent fince her death,
Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath.

In a ftrain not unlike Carew, in the Comparison :
And when thou breath'ft, the winds are ready ftraight
To filch it from thee; and do therefore wait

Clofe at thy lips; and, fnatching it from thence,
Bear it to heaven, where 'tis Jove's frankincense.
But our poet had Sedley, I prefume, before him, in the
poem on the fame fubject, quoted above:

Here sportive Zephyrs cease their selfish play,
Defpairing now to fetch perfumes away.

And a few lines before :

No fragrant odours now the fmell conveys:
Behind thy rofie breath, what sweetness stays?

Ver. 55. Thus originally :

No more the nightingales repeat her lays.

Ver. 58. A fweeter mufic than their own to hear.

Sedley, as above:

And softeft mufic with thy voice did flee.

Ver. 65. The filver flood, fo lately calm, appears
Swell'd with new paffion, and o'erflows with

tears.

Sedley, in his Paftoral Dialogue:

Swell'd with thy tears, why does the neighbouring brook Bear to the ocean, what fhe never took?

And

And Duke, in his verfion of Virgil's fifth eclogue:

Witness, you floods, fwolln with their weeping eyes. So too Fenton, in his Pastoral on the Marquis of Blandford's death:

And, fwoln with tears, to floods the riv'lets rife.

There is, however, to my taste, an extravagant puerility in the thought.

Ver. 12. Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green.

The ftructure of both claufes fhould have been uniform. Thus?

Fields ever fresh, and foliage ever green.

Ver. 89. Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains, ftreams, and groves;

Adieu, ye fhepherds' rural lays, and loves;
Adieu, my flocks; farewell, ye fylvan crew;
Daphne, farewell; and all the world adieu !

There is a pretty paffage refembling this in Walsh's

third eclogue:

Adieu, ye flocks, no more fhall I pursue !

Adieu, ye groves; a long, a long adieu !

And you, coy nymph, who all my vows disdain,
Take this last present from a dying swain.

And Hopkins, whom our poet has imitated more than
once, has a paffage of the fame kind at the end of his
Hiftory of Love, which will gratify the reader:
Farewell, ye charming chorifters, that dwell
In facred groves; ye warbling birds, farewell.
Adieu, ye nymphs, adieu, ye fellow fwains;
Ye filver ftreams, sweet swans, and flow'ry plains.
Farewell, all happy days, and fmiling hours,
Refreshing valleys, and delightful bow'rs:
Adieu to ev'ry grotto, ev'ry grove,

Adieu to poetry, adieu to love!

THE MESSIAH.

VER. 5.

O thou my voice inspire,

Who touch'd Ifaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!

I meet with a similar impropriety in a very beautiful song by Mrs. Barbauld:

Come here, fond youth! whoe'er thou be,

That boasts to love as well as me.

In truth, the proper orthography, in these and all fuch inftances, is much too harsh for poetry, and should therefore be avoided altogether, either by the choice of a different word, or a change of construction. To escape a

much more trivial harshness of this kind, but with needlefs and faulty caution, our poet originally gave ver. 220. of his Windfor-Foreft, as follows:

Thou too, great father of the British floods,

With joyful pride furvey our lofty woods.

Milton had already made the fame allusion to Efaiah, vi. 7. at the close of his Hymn on the Nativity:

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his facred altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

Cowley alfo, David. i. 25. admits comparison :

Ev'n thou my breaft with fuch bleft rage infpire,
As mov'd the tuneful ftrings of David's lyre.

But a noble paffage in Milton's Reafon of Church-Government is still more appofite; "By devout prayer to

"that