The ftory of Phoebus and Daphne apply'd.

The paffion of Apollo for Daphne is related by Ovid in the first book of his Metamorphofes; the application of which has produc'd one of the most beautiful Poems in our own, or any other modern language. Yet, I cannot think Mr. Waller was fo peculiarly fond of it, as likewife to be author of the following version; but, rather give credit to a Memorandum which I once found in the margin of an old edition, which affirmed that Sir John Suckling tranflated it into Latin.

Such as ander by the brook of Lethe, &c.] See the • fixth book of Virgil's Æneis, ver. 703.

Interea videt Æneas in valle reductâ
Seclufum nemus, & virgulta fonantia fylvis,
Lethæumque domos placidas qui prænatat amnem.
Hunc circum innumeræ gentes populique volabant.
Ac veluti in pratis, ubi apes aftate ferená
Floribus infidunt variis, & candida circum
Lilia funduntur: firepit omnis murmure campus.
Horrefcit vifu fubito, causasque requirit
Infcius Æneas: quæ fint ea flumina porro,
Quive viri tanto complerint agmine ripas.
Tum pater Anchifes: animæ, quibus altera fato
Corpora debentur, Lethæi ad fluminis undam
Securos latices, & lenga oblivia potant.

Now in a fecret vale the Trojan fees

A feparate grove, thro' which a gentle breeze
Plays with a paffing breath, and whispers through

the trees.

And just before the confines of the wood,

The gliding Lethe leads her filent flood.

About the boughs an airy nation flew,

Thick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;
In fummer's heat on tops of lillies feed,

And creep within their bells to fuck the balmy seed:

The

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The winged army roams the field around;
The rivers, and the rocks, remurmur to the found.
Æneas wond'ring ftood: then ask'd the cause
Which to the stream the crowding people draws.
Then thus the Sire. The fouls that throng the flood
Are those, to whom by Fate are other bodies ow'd:.
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste;

Of future life fecure, forgetful of the past.
Mr. Dryden.

This notion is improv'd by Milton, who had not only the happy fecret of turning whatever he touch'd into gold, but could give new luftre, weight, and purity, to what he found in the richest mines of antiquity.

Far off from thefe a flow and filent Stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls

Her wat'ry labyrinth; whereof who drinks
Forthwith his former ftate, and Being forgets;
Forgets both joy and grief, pleafure and pain. ***
At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Muft ferry over this Lethean Sound,

Both to and fro, their forrow to augment:
And wifh, and firuggle as they pass, to reach
The tempting fiream, with one fmall drop to lofe
In fweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and fo near the brink!
But, Fate withstands; and to oppofe th' attempt,
Medufa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford; and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight; as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus, * * *

Paradife Loft, Book II.

*So, in thofe nations which the fun adore &c.] This fimile is reftor'd from the edition that was printed in the year 1645; in all others it is omitted.

R 4

While

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+ While in this Park I fing, the lift'ning deer

Attend my paffion &c.] Plutarch in the seventh book of his Sympofiacs mentions horses, and deer, for being, of all irrational creatures, the most affected with harmony.

For, do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud;
(Which is the hot condition of their blood.)
If they but bear, perchance, a trumpet found;
Or any air of mufic touch their ears;

You shall perceive them make a mutual fiand;
Their favage eyes turn'd to a modeft gaze,
By the fweet pow'r of music! ***

Shakespear.

That cloven rock produc'd thee &c.] Thefe verses feem to allude to the hill which is commonly call'd Mount Sion, from the foot of which the mineral waters near Tunbridge iffue: and in writing them, Mr. Waller, I believe, had this paffage in the 16th Iliad in view, which hath been imitated by Virgil, Catullus, and others before him.

O Man unpitying! if of man thy race;
But, fure thou fpring'ft not from a foft embrace:
Nor ever am'rous Heroe caus'd thy birth;
Nor ever tender Goddess brought thee forth:
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging feas produc'd thee in a storm:
A foul well-fuiting that tempeftuous kind,
So rough thy manners, fo untam'd thy mind!.

Mr. Pope.

I might like Orpheus &c.] See page xxxviii.

The title of this Poem is reprinted here as I find it in the first edition of Mr. Waller. The Lady to whom

it

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Ibid.

* Page 43.

it is addrefs'd was the Lady Dorothy's younger fifter: she was born in the 1625, and marry'd to Sir John Pelham, Grandfather to his Grace the prefent Duke of Newcastle.

.

Hope waits upon the flow'ry prime &c.] Ver enim tanquam adolefcentiam fignificat, oftenditque fructus futuros: reliqua tempora demetendis fructibus, & percipiendis, accommodata funt. Cicero de Senect.

+ To Amoret

I remember to have heard his Grace the late Duke of Buckinghamshire fay, that the perfon whom Mr. Waller celebrated under the title of Amoret was the Lady Sophia Murray.

*** The Milky Way

Fram'd by many nameless fars!] Sir John Suckling has the fame fimile, where Brenoralt ftands gazing. on Francelia while she fleeps ;

Her face is like the Milky Way i'th' skye,
A meeting of gentle lights without name.

1. Manilius in his first book recites the various opinions of antiquity concerning the Milky Way; and ha-. ving mention'd the whimsical conjectures of Diodorus, Theophraftus, Metrodorus, the fable of Phaeton, and the fictitious reafon of its name, he adds one caufe which is receiv'd by the modern Philofophers, and another which in all ages has been agreeable to the poetical fyftem.

Nec mihi celanda eft famæ vulgata vetuftas
Mollior; è niveo latis fluxiffe liquorem
Pectore regina Divum, cælumque colore
Infeciffe fuo; quapropter Lacteas Orbis

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R. 5

Dicitur

Dicitur,&nomen causâ defcendit ab ipsa.
"An major densâ ftellarum turba coronâ
"Contexit flammas, & craffo lumine candet,
"Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis?”
An fortes anima, dignataque nomina cœlo,
Corporibus refoluta fuis, terræque remissa,
Huc migrant ex orbe, fuumque habitantia cœlum
Æthereos vivunt annos, mundoque fruuntur.

** Nor muft the fofter fable dye,

That Juno's breaft o'er flowing ftain'd the sky;
And made that Milky Way, which justly draws
Its name, The Milky Circle, from its caufe.
"Or, is the fpatious Bend ferenely bright
"From little ftars; which there their beams
"unite;

"And make one folid and continu'd light?
Or fouls (which loos'd from the ignoble chain
Of clay, and fent to their own heav'n again)
Purg'd from all dross by virtue, nobly rise;
In æther, wanton; and enjoy the skies?
Mr. Creech.

|| *** Hermes' rod.] Homer in the last books of the Ilias and Odyffey defcribes Mercury bearing à wand; which in the latter of thofe Poems is employ'd to drive the fouls of the fuitors, whom Ulyffes had flain, to the Shades.

Cyllenius now to Pluto's dreary reign Conveys the dead, a lamentable train! The golden wand (that causes fleep to fly 3 Or, in foft flumbers feals the wakeful eye; That drives the ghosts to realms of night, or day,) Points out the long uncomfortable way.

Mr. Pope.

This enfign of his power was call'd Caduceus, with which he is always defcrib'd by Virgil and others;

but,

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