Love, sweetness, goodness, in her perfon fhin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me the inclin'd, I wak'd, fhe fled, and day brought back my night*. Birch has printed a Sonnet faid to be written by Milton, in 1665, when he retired to Chalfont on account of the plague, and to have been lately feen infcribed on the glass of a window in that place. LIFE, p. xxxviii. It has the word SHEENE as a substantive. But Milton was not likely to commit a fcriptural mistake. For the Sonnet improperly represents David as punished by a peftilence for his adultery with Bathfheba. Birch, however, had been informed by Vertue, that he had seen a fatirical medal, ftruck upon Charles the fecond, abroad, without any legend, having a correspondent device. TRANS TRANSLATIONS. The FIFTH ODE of HORACE, Lib. I. * WH HAT flender youth bedew'd with liquid Courts thee on roses in fome pleasant cave, In wreaths thy golden hair, * This piece did not appear in the first edition of the year 1645. 1. What flender youth.] In this measure, my friend and schoolfellow Mr. William Collins wrote his admired Ode to EVENING; and I know he had a defign of writing many more Odes without rhyme. In this measure alfo, an elegant Ode was written on the PARADISE LOST, by the late captain Thomas, formerly a ftudent of Chrift-church Oxford, at the time that Mr. Benfon gave medals as prizes for the best verfes that were produced on Milton, at all our great schools. It feems to be an agreed point, that Lyric poetry cannot exist without rhyme in our language. The following Trochaics of Mr. Glover are harmonious, however, without rhyme. Pride of art, majestic columns, Of that God's refulgent manfion Lift your flow'r-infculptur'd heads Plain in thy neatnefs? O how oft shall he On faith and changed Gods complain, and seas Unwonted fhall admire! Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they 5 10 To whom thou untry'd feem'ft fair. Me in my vow'd Picture, the facred wall declares t' have hung Dr. J. WARTON might have added, that his own ODE to EVENING was written before that of his friend Collins; as was a Poem of his, entitled the ASSEMBLY OF THE PASSIONS, before Collins's favourite Ode on that subject. There are extant two excellent Odes, of the trueft tafte, written in unrhyming metre many years ago by two of the ftudents of ChriftChurch Oxford, and among its chief ornaments, now high in the church. One is on the death of Mr. Langton who died on his travels: the other is addreffed to George Onilow efquire. But it may be doubted, whether there is fufficient precifion and elegance in the English language for metre without rhyme. In England's HELICON, there is Oenone's complaint in blank verfe, by George Peele, written about 1590. Signat Q4. edit. 1614. The verfes indeed are heroic, but the whole confifts of quatrains. I will exhibit the firft ftanza. Melpomene, the muse of tragicke fongs With mournfull tunes, in ftole of difmall huc; And leave thy luftie company behind. v. 5. Plain in thy neatness?-] Rather, "plain in your ornaments.” Milton mistakes the idiomatical ufe and meaning of Munditie. She was plain in her dress: or, more paraphraftically, in the manner of adorning herself. The fenfe of the context is, "For whom do you, who study no ornaments of dress, thus unaffectedly bind up your "yellow locks ?" A a a My My dank and dropping weeds To the ftern God of fea. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'. 15 BRUTUS thus addresses DIANA in the country of LEOGECIA. Goddess of shades, and huntress, who at will Walk'st on the rowling* fpheres, and through the deep; On thy third reign the earth look now, and tell To whom, fleeping before the altar, DIANA answers in a vifion the fame night. Brutus, far to the weft, in th' ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, Sea-girt it lies, where gyants dwelt of old, Now voyd, it fits thy people: thither bend Thy course, there fhalt thou find a lafting feat ; There to thy fons another Troy fhall rife, And kings be born of thee, whofe dreadful might • HIST. BRIT. i. xi. "Diva potens nemorum, &c." Tickell and Fenton read lowering. Shall Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold". DANTE C. Ah Constantine, of how much ill was caufe, Founded in chafte and humble poverty, 'Gainst them that rais'd thee doft thou lift thy horn, Impudent whore, where haft thou plac'd thy hope? In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wealth? Another Conftantine comes not in hafte. From Milton's HIST. ENGL. B. i. PROSE-WORKS, ii. 5. These Fragments of tranflation were collected by Tickell from Milton's PROSEWORKS. More are here added. But the reader is to be informed, that those taken from the DEFENSIO are not Milton's, but are in Richard Washington's Tranflation of the DEFENSIO into English. Tickell fuppofing that Milton tranflated his own Latin DEFENSIO into English, has inferted them among these fragments of tranflations as the productions of Milton. As they appear in Fenton, and others, I have fuffered them to be retained. Birch has reprinted Richard Washington's tranflation, which appeared in 1692, 8vo, among our author's Profeworks. Of fingle lines others might have been added from this Englifh DEFENSIO. I take this Washington, a lawyer, to be the fame that published "A Hiftory of the Ecclefiaftical Jurifdiction of the Kings "of England, 1688." It is here first noted which belong to Washington and which to Milton. To complete what others had begun, many are here newly added from Washington. INFERN. C. xix. See Hoole's ARIOSTO, B. xvii. v.552. vol. ii. P. 271. From OF REFORMATION in England. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i, p. 10. PARAD. C. xx. See Petrarch, SONN. 108. Expunged in fome editions. • From OF REFORMATION, &C. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. p. 10. ARIOSTO. Aaa 2 |