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More foft than rills that through the valley flow,
Or vernal gales that o'er the vi'lets blow;

He sung the tender woes of artless swains,

Their tuneful contests, and their am'rous pains,
When early spring has wak'd the breathing flow'rs,
Or winter hangs with frost the filv'ry bow'rs:
*But Colinet in ruder numbers tells

The loves of rufticks, and fair-boding spells,

Sings how they fimply pass the livelong day,

And foftly mourn, or innocently play.

Since them no fhepherd rules th' Arcadian mead,

But filent hangs Menalcas' fatal reed.

NOTE.

See the Shepherd's Week of Gay.

T

F

CAISSA,

OR,

THE GAME AT CHESS,

A POEM.

ADVERTISEMENT.

HE firft idea of the following piece was taken from

TH

a Latin poem of Vida, entitled SCACCHIA LUDUS, which was tranflated into Italian by Marino, and inserted in the fifteenth Canto of his Adonis: the author thought it fair to make an acknowledgment in the notes for the paffages, which he borrowed from those two poets; but he must also do them the justice to declare, that most of the descriptions, and the whole ftory of Caïffa, which is written in imitation of Ovid, are his own, and their faults must be imputed to him only. The characters in the poem are no less imaginary than those in the episode; in which the invention of Chess is poetically ascribed to Mars, though it is certain that the game was originally brought from India.

XXX

CAISSA,

OR,

THE GAME AT CHESS,

A POEM.

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Written in the Year 1753.

F armies on the chequer'd field array'd,

And guiltless war in pleasing form display'd,

IMITATIONS.

Ludimus effigiem belli, fimulataque veris
Prælia, buxo acies fictas, et ludicra regna:
Ut gemini inter se reges, albusque nigerque,
Pro laude oppofiti certent bicoloribus armis.
Dicite, Seriades Nymphæ, certamina tanta, Vida.

When

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