Be mine to read the vifions old, Which thy awakening bards have told : And, left thou meet my blafted view, HOLD EACH STRANGE TALE DÉVOUT, LY TRUE. On that thrice hallow'd eve, &c. There is an old traditionary fuperftition, that on St. Mark's eve the forms of all fuch perfons as fhall die within the enfuing year, make their folemn entry into the churches of their refpective parishes, as St. Patrick fwam over the channel, without their heads. ODE ODE TO SIMPLICITY. HE measure of the ancient ballad feems TH Ito have been made choice of for this ode, on account of the fubject, and it has, indeed, an air of fimplicity not altogether unaffecting. By all the honey'd ftore On Hybla's thymy fhore, By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear, By her whofe love-lorn woe, In evening mufings flow, Sooth'd sweetly fad Electra's poet's ear. This allegorical imagery of the honey'd store, the blooms, and mingled murmurs of Hybla, alluding to the fweetness and beauty of the attic poetry has the finest and the happiest effect: yet, poffibly, it will bear a question whether whether the ancient Greek tragedians had a general claim to fimplicity in any thing more than the plans of their drama. Their language, at least, was infinitely metaphorical; yet it must be owned that they justly copied Dature and the paffions, and fo far, certainly, they were entitled to the palm of true fimplicity the following most beautiful speech of 9 Polynices, will be a monument of this fo long 2 poetry fhall last. πολυδακρυς δ' αφικομην Χρόνιος ιδων μέλαθρα, και βωμες θεων, Ναιω, δι ἴσσων όμμ' έχων δακρυροῦν. Αλλ' (εκ γαρ άλγος άλγος) αν σε δερκομαι Καρα ξύρηκες, και πεπλος μελαγχιμες Έπεσαν. But ftaid to fing alone EURIP. To one diftinguish'd throne. The The poet cuts off the prevalence of Simplicity among the Romans with the reign of Augustus, and indeed, it did not continue much longer, moft of the compofitions, after that date, giving into false and artificial ornament. No more in hall or bower, The paffions own thy power, Love, only love her forceless numbers mean. In thefe lines the writings of the provencial poets are principally alluded to, in which, fimplicity is generally facrificed to the rhapsodies of romantic love. ODE O DE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER. Procul! O! procul efte profani! HIS ode is fo infinitely abftracted and THIS replete with high enthusiasm, that it will find few readers capable of entering into the fpirit of it, or of relishing its beauties. There is a ftyle of fentiment as utterly unintelligible to common capacities, as if the fubject were treated in an unknown language; and it is on the fame account that abstracted poetry will never have many admirers. The authors of fuch poems must be content with the approbation of those heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a fimilarity of taste and fentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high myfteries of inspired fancy, and to pursue the loftieft 9 |