loftiest flights of enthufiaftic imagination. Nevertheless the praife of the diftinguished few is certainly preferable to the applause of the undifcerning million; for all praise is valuable in proportion to the judgement of those who confer it.

As the subject of this ode is uncommon, fo are the ftyle and expreffion highly metaphorical and abftracted; thus the fun is called "the "rich-hair'd youth of morn," the ideas are termed "the fhadowy tribes of mind," &c. We are ftruck with the propriety of this mode of expreffion here, and it affords us new proofs of the analogy that fubfifts between language and fentiment.

NOTHING can be more loftily imagined than the creation of the Ceftus of Fancy in this ode: The allegorical imagery is rich and fub

lime and the observation that, the dangerous paffions kept aloof, during the operation, is founded on the ftricteft philofophical truth; for poetical fancy can exist only in minds that are perfectly ferene, and in fome measure abftracted from the influences of fenfe.

THE scene of Milton's "infpiring hour" is perfectly in character, and described with all thofe wild-wood-appearances of which the great poet was fo enthusiastically fond:

I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
By which, as Milton lay, his evening ear,
Nigh fpher'd in heaven its native strains
could hear.

O DE,

O DE,

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXLVI.

T

ODE TO MERCY.

HE ode written in 1746, and the ode to

Mercy, feem to have been written on the fame occafion, viz. the late rebellion; the former in memory of thofe heroes who fell in the defence of their country, the latter to excite fentiments of compaffion in favour of those unhappy and deluded wretches who became a facrifice to public justice.

THE language and imagery of both are very beautiful, but the scene and figures defcribed in the strophe of the ode to Mercy are exquifitely ftriking, and would afford a painter one of the finest subjects in the world.

T

ODE TO LIBERTY.

HE ancient ftates of Greece, perhaps

the only ones in which a perfect model

of liberty ever exifted, are naturally brought to view in the opening of the poem.

Who shall awake the Spartan fife,

And call in folemn founds to life,

The youths whofe locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in fullen hue,

There is fomething extremely bold in this imagery of the locks of the fpartan youths, and greatly fuperior to that defcription Jocafta gives us of the hair of Polynices:

Βοτρύχων τε κυανόχρωτα χαίτας

Πλοκαμον.

What

What new Alcæus, fancy-bleft,

Shall fing the fword, in myrtles dreft, &c.

This alludes to a fragment of Alcæus ftill remaining, in which the poet celebrates Harmodius and Ariftogiton, who flew the tyrant Hipparchus, and thereby restored the liberty of Athens.

THE fall of Rome is here most nervously defcribed in one line:

With heaviest found, a giant-statue, fell.

The thought feems altogether new, and the imitative harmony in the ftructure of the verfe is admirable.

AFTER bewailing the ruin of ancient liberty, the poet confiders the influence it has retained, or ftill retains among the moderns; and here the free republics of Italy naturally engage his