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Now purfuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meets
To brifk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow-melting strains their Queen's approach
declare;

Where-e'er the turns, the Graces homage

pay;

With arms fublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her eafy way;

O'er her warm cheek, and rifing bofom,

move

The bloom of young Defire, and purple light of Love.

II. I

Man's feeble race what ills * await,. Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

* To compenfate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Mufe was given to mankind by the fame Providence that fends the day, by its chearful prefence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night.

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, fad refuge from the ftorms of Fate!

The fond complaint, my fong, difprove, And juftify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heav'nly Mufe !

3

Night, and all her fickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding

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He gives to range the dreary fky:

"Till down the Eaftern cliffs afar +

Hyperion's march they fpy, and glitt'ring fhafts of war.

+ Or feen the morning's well-appointed star Come marching up the Eaftern hills afar.

Cowley

Dz

II. 2.

In climes + beyond the folar road ‡, Where fhaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains

roam,

The Mufe has broke the twilight gloom
To chear the fhiv'ring native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the od'rous shade
Of Chili's boundlefs forefts laid,

She deigns to hear the favage Youth repeat,
In loofe numbers wildly fweet,

[Loves.

Their feather-cinctur'd Chiefs, and dusky
Her track, where-e'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's
holy flame.

+ Extenfive influence of Poetic Genius over the remoteft and most uncivilized nations: its connection with Liberty, and the virtues that that naturally attend on it. (See the Erfe, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments, the Lapland and American Songs.)

Virg.

‡ "Extra anni folifque vias----" "Tutta lontana dal camin del fole." Petrarch, Canzon ii.

II. 3.

Woods +, that wave o'er Delphi's fteep,
Ifles that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Iliffus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves,
In lingering lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful Echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Infpiration breath'd around;

Ev'ry fhade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a folemn found:

Till the fad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnaffus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant power,.
And coward vice that revels in her chains.

Progrefs of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante, or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenfer imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: D 3

but

When Latium had her lofty spirit loft,

They fought, Oh Albion! next thy feaencircled coaft.

III. 1.

Far from the fun and fummer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laidt, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, To Him, the mighty Mother did unveil Her awful face; the dauntlefs Child Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil’d. This pencil take (fhe faid) whofe colours clear

Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too thefe golden keys, immortal Boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the facred fource of fympathetic Tears.

but this School expired foon after the Reftoration, and a new one arofe on the French model, which has fubfifted ever fince.

+ Shakespeare.

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