Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet;
To brisk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow-melting strains their Queen's approach

declare;
Where-e'er she turns, the Graces homage

pay ; With arms sublime, that float

upon

the ais, In gliding state she wins her easy way; O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom,

move

The bloom of young Defire, and purple

light of Love

*

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

* To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Mufe was given to mankind by the Jame Providence that fends the day, by its chearful presence, to dispel the gloom and ter. rors af the night.

1

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, fad refuge from the storms of

Fate!
The fond complaint, my fong, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he given in vain the heav'nly

Mufet
Night, and all her fickly dews,
Her fpectres wan, and birds of boding

cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky:
"Till down the Eastern cliffs afar +
Hyperion's march they fpy, and glitt'ring

thafts of war.

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

Cowley.

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

roam, The Muse has broke the twilight gloom To chear the shiv'ring native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the od'rous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage Youth repeat, In loose numbers wildly sweet, [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.

+ Extensive influence of Poetic Genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations : its connection with Liberty, and the virtues that that naturally attend on it. (See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments, the Lapa land and American Songs.) I“ Extra anni folisque vias..." " Tutta lontana dal camin del sole,"

Petrarch, Canzon ü.

Virg.

II. 3•

Woods t, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Ifles that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus 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
Inspiration breath'd around;
Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmar'd deep a solemn found :
Till the sad 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 chainse

.

+ Progress 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; Spenser imitated the Italian writers ; Milton improved on them : D 3

but

When Latium had her lofty spirit loft,
They fought, Oh Albion! next thy fea-

encircled coast.

1.

III.
Far from the fun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laidt,
What time, where lucid Avon ítray'd,
To Him, the mighty Mother did unveil
Her awful face; the dauntless Child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd..
This pencil take (she said) whose colours

clear
Richly paint the vernal year :
Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of. Joy;
Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
Or ope the facred source of sympathetic

Tears.

but this School expired foon after the Restora-
tion, and a new one arose on the French model,
which has fubfifted ever

fince.
+ Shakespeare.