And suck out clammy dews from herbs and flowers,
To smear the chinks, and plaster up the por s:
For this they hoard up glue, whose clingingdrops,
Like pitch, or birdlime, hang in stringy ropes.
They oft, 'tis said, in dark retirements dwell,
And work in subterraneous caves their cell;
At other times th' industrious insects live
In hollow rocks, or make a tree their hive.

Point all their chinky lodgings round with mud,
And leaves must thinly on your work be strow'd;
But let no baleful yew-tree flourish near,
Nor rotten marshes send out steams of mire;
Nor burning crabs grow red, and crackle in the fire:
Nor neighbouring caves return the dying sound,
Nor echoing rocks the doubled voice rebound.
Things thus prepar'd-

When th' under-world is seiz'd with cold and night, And summer here descends in streams of light, The bees through woods and forests take their They rifle every flower, and lightly skim [flight. The crystal brook, and sip the running stream: And thus they feed their young with strange delight, And knead the yielding wax, and work the slimy

sweet.

But when on high you see the bees repair,
Borne on the wind, through distant tracts of air,
And view the winged cloud all blackening from afar;
While shady coverts and fresh steams they choose,
Milfoil and common honey-suckles bruise,
And sprinkle on their hives the fragrant juice.
On brazen vessels beat a tinkling sound,
And shake the cymbals of the goddess round;
Then all will hastily retreat, and fill
The warm resounding hollow of their cell.

If once two rival kings their right debate,
And factions and cabals embroil the state,
The people's actions will their thoughts declare;
All their hearts tremble, and beat thick with war;
Hoarse broken sounds, like trumpet's harsh alarms,
Run thro' the hive, and call them to their arms;
All in a hurry spread their shivering wings,
And fit their claws and point their angry stings:
In crowds before the king's pavilion meet,
And boldly challenge out the foe to fight;
At last, when all the Heavens are warm and fair,
They rush together out, and join; the air
Swarms thick, and echoes with the humming war
All in a firm round cluster mix, and strow
With heaps of little corps the earth below;
As thick as hail-stones from the floor rebound,
Or shaken acorns rattle on the ground.
No sense of danger can their kings control,
Their little bodies lodge a mighty soul:
Fach obstinate in arms pursues his blow,
Till shameful flight secures the routed foe.
This hot dispute, and all this mighty fray
A little dust flung upward will allay.

But when both kings are settled in their hive,
Mark him who looks the worst, and lest he live
Idle at home in ease and luxury,
The lazy monarch must be doom'd to die;
So let the royal insect rule alone,
And reign without a rival in his throne.

The kings are different: one of better note,
All speckt with gold, and many a shining spot,
Looks gay,
and glistens in a gilded coat;

But love of ease, and sloth in one prevails,
That scarce his banging paunch behind him trails:
The people's looks are different as their kings;
Some sparkle bright, and glitter in their wings;

|

Others look loathsome and diseas'd with sloth,
Like a faint traveller whose dusty mouth
Grows dry with heat, and spits a maukish froth.
The first are best-

From their o'erflowing combs, you'll often press
Pure luscious sweets, that, mingling in the glass,
Correct the harshness of the racy juice,

And a rich flavour thro' the wine diffuse.
But when they sport abroad, and rove from home,
And leave the cooling hive, and quit th' unfinish'd
Their airy ramblings are with ease confin'd, [comb,
Clip their kings' wings, and if they stay behind
No bold usurper dares invade their right,
Nor sound a march, nor give the sign for flight.
Let flowery banks entice them to their cells,
And gardens all perfum'd with native smells;
Where carv'd Priapus has his fix'd abode,
The robber's terrour, and the scare crow god.
Wild thyme and pine-trees from their barren hill
Transplant, and nurse them in the neighbouring
soil.

Set fruit-trees round, nor e'er indulge thy slotb,
But water them, and urge their shady growth.

And here, perhaps, were not I giving o'er,
And striking sail, and making to the shore,
I'd show what art the gardener's toils require,
Why rosy pæstum blushes twice a year:
What streams the verdant succory supply,
And how the thirsty plant drinks rivers dry;
What with a cheerful green does parsly grace,
And writhes the bellying cucumber along the
twisted grass;

Nor would I pass the soft acanthus o'er,
Ivy nor myrtle-trees that love the shore;
Nor daffodils, that late from earth's slow womb
Unrumple their swoln buds, and show their yel-
low bloom.

For once I saw in the Tarentine vale,
Where slow Galesus drencht the washy soil,
An old Corycian yeoman, who had got
A few neglected acres to his lot,

Where neither coru nor pasture grac'd the field,
Nor would the vine her purple harvest yield;
But savory herbs among the thorns were found,
Vervain and poppy flowers his garden crown'd,
And drooping lilies whiten'd all the ground.
Blest with these riches he could empires slight,
And when he rested from his toils at night,
The earth unpurchas'd dainties would afford,
And his own garden furnish out his board:
The spring did first his opening roses blow,
First ripening autumn bent his fruitful bough.
When piercing colds had burst the brittle stone,
And freezing rivers stiffen'd as they run,
He then would prune the tenderest of his trees,
Chide the late spring, and lingering western breeze:
His bees first swarm'd, and made his vessels foam
With the rich squeezing of the juicy comb.
Here lindons and the sappy pine increas'd;
Here, when gay flowers his smiling orchard drest,
As many blossoms as the spring could show,
So many dangling apples mellow'd on the bough,
In rows his elms and knotty pear-trees bloom,
And thorns ennobled now to bear a plum,
And spreading plane-trees, where supinely laid
He now enjoys the cool, and quaffs beneath the
But thes for want of room I must omit, [shade.
And leave for future poets to recite.

Now I'll proceed their natures to declare,
Which Jove himself did on the bees confer;

Because, invited by the timbrel's sound,
Lodg'd in a cave th' almighty babe they found,
And the young god nurst kindly under ground.
Of all the wing'd inhabitants of air,
These only make their young the public care;
In well-dispos'd societies they live,
And laws and statutes regulate their hive;
Nor stray, like others, unconfin'd abroad,
But know set stations, and a fix'd abode.
Each provident of cold in summer flies
Thro' fields, and woods, to seek for new supplies,
And in the common stock unlades his thighs.
Some watch the food, some in the meadows ply,
Taste every bud, and suck each blossom dry;
Whilst others, labouring in their cells at home,
Temper Narcissus' clammy tears with gum,
For the first ground-work of the golden comb;
On this they found their waxen works, and raise
The yellow fabric on its gluey base.
Some educate the young, or hatch the seed
With vital warmth, and future nations breed;
Whilst others thicken all the slimy dews,
And into purest honey work the juice;
Then fill the hollows of the comb, and swell
With luscious nectar every flowing cell.
By turns they watch, by turns with curious eyes
Survey the Heavens, and search the clouded skies
To find out breeding storms, and tell what tem
pests rise.

By turns they ease the loaden swarms, or drive
The drone, a lazy insect, from their hive.
The work is warmly ply'd through all the cells,
And strong with thyme the new-made honey smells.
So in their caves the brawny Cyclops sweat,
When with huge strokes the stubborn wedge they
beat,

And all th' unshapen thunder-bolt complete;
Alternately their hammers rise and fall;
Whilst griping tongs turn round the glowing ball.
With puffing bellows some the flames increase,
And some in waters dip the hissing mass;
Their beaten anvils dreadfully resound,

And Ætna shakes all o'er and thunders under ground.

[spoils.

Thus, if great things we may with small compare, The busy swarms their different labours share. Desire of profit urges all degrees; The aged insects, by experience wise, Attend the comb, and fashion every part, And shape the waxen fret-work out with art: The young at night, returning from their toils, Bring home their thighs clog'd with the meadows On lavender and saffron-buds they feed, On bending osiers, and the balmy reed: From purple violets and the teile they bring Their gather'd sweets, and rifle all the spring. All work together, all together rest. The morning still renews their labours past; Then all rush out, their different tasks pursue, Sit on the bloom, and suck the ripening dew; Again when evening warns them to their home, With weary wings, and heavy thighs they come, And crowd about the chink, and mix a drowsy hum. Into their cells at length they gently creep, There all the night their peaceful station keep, Wrapt up in silence, and dissolv'd in sleep. None range abroad when winds and storms are nigh, Nor trust their bodies to a faithless sky, But make small journeys, with a careful wing, And fly to water at a neighbouring spring;

And, lest their airy bodies should be cast
In restless whirls, the sport of every blast,
They carry stones to poise them in their flight,
As ballast keeps th' unsteady vessel right.

But of all customs that the bees can boast,
'Tis this may challenge admiration most;
That none will Hymen's softer joys approve,
Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love,
But all a long virginity maintain,
And bring forth young without a mother's pain.
From herbs and flowers they pick each tender bee,
And cull from plants a buzzing progeny;
From these they choose out subjects, and create
A little monarch of the rising state;
Then build wax kingdoms for the infant prince,
And form a palace for his residence.

But often in their journeys, as they fly, On flints they tear their silken wings, or lie Groveling beneath their flowery load, and die. Thus love of honey can an insect fire, And in a fly such generous thoughts inspire. Yet by repeopling their decaying state, Tho' seven short springs conclude their vital date, Their ancient stocks eternally remain,

And in an endless race their children's children reign.

No prostrate vassal of the east can more
With slavish fear his mighty prince adore;
His life unites them all; but when he dies,
All in loud tumults and distractions rise;
They waste their honey and their combs deface,
And wild confusion reigns in every place.
Him all admire, all the great guardian own,
And crowd about his courts, and buzz about his
throne.

Oft on their backs their weary prince they bear,
Oft in his cause embattled in the air,
Pursue a glorious death, in wounds and war.

Some from such instances as these have taught, "The bees extract is heavenly; for they thought The universe alive; and that a soul,

Diffus'd throughout the matter of the whole,
To all the vast unbounded frame was given,
And ran thro' earth, and air, and sea, and all the
deep of heaven;

That this first kindled life in man and beast,
Life that again flows into this at last.
That no compounded animal could die,
But when dissolv'd, the spirit mounted high,
Dwelt in a star, and settled in the sky."

Whene'er their balmy sweets you mean to seize,
And take the liquid labours of the bees,
Spirt draughts of water from your mouth, and drive
A loathsome cloud of smoke amidst their hive.

Twice in the year their flowery toils begin, And twice they fetch their dewy harvest in; Once when the lovely Pleiades arise, And add fresh lustre to the summer skies: And once when hastening from the watery sign They quit their station, and forbear to shine.

The bees are prone to rage, and often found To perish for revenge, and die upon the wound; Their venom'd sting produces aching pains, And swells the flesh, and shoots among the veins. When first a cold hard winter's storms arrive, And threaten death or famine to their hive, If now their sinking state and low affairs Can move your pity and provoke your cares, Fresh burning thyme before their cells convey, And cut their dry and husky wax away;

For often lizards seize the luscious spoils,
Or drones that riot on another's toils:
Oft broods of moths infest the hungry swarms,
And oft the furious wasp their hive alarms,
With louder hums, and with unequal arms;
Or else the spider at the entrance sets
Her snares, and spins her bowels into nets.

When sickness reigns (for they as well as we
Feel all th' effects of frail mortality),
By certain marks the new disease is seen,
Their colour changes, and their looks are thin,
Their funeral rights are form'd, and every bee
With grief attends the sad solemnity;
The few diseas'd survivors hang before
Their sickly cells, and droop about the door,
Or slowly in their hives their limbs unfold,
Shrunk up with hunger, and benumb'd with cold;
In drawling hums the feeble insects grieve,
And doleful buzzes echo through the hive,
Like winds that softly murmur through the trees,
Like flames pent up, or like retiring seas.
Now lay fresh honey near their empty rooms,
In troughs of hollow reeds, whilst frying gums
Cast round a fragrant mist of spicy fumes.
Thus kindly tempt the famish'd swarm to eat,
And gently reconcile them to their meat.
Mix juice of galls, and wine, that grow in time
Condens'd by fire, and thicken to a slime;
To these dry'd roses, thyme, and centaury join,
And raisins ripened on the Psythian vine.

Besides there grows a flower in marshy ground, Its name amellus, easy to be found;

A mighty spring works in its root, and cleaves
The sprouting stalk, and shows itself in leaves;
The flower itself is of a golden hue,

The leaves inclining to a darker blue;

The leaves shoot thick about the flower, and grow
Into a bush, and shade the turf below:
The plant, in holy garlands, often twines
The altars' posts, and beautifies the shrines;
Its taste is sharp, in vales new-shorn it grows,
Where Mella's stream in watery mazes flows.
Take plenty of its roots, and boil them well
In wine, and heap them up before the cell.

But if the whole stock fail, and none survive;
To raise new people, and recruit the hive,
I'll here the great experiment declare,
That spread th' Arcadian shepherd's name so far.
How bees from blood of slaughter'd bulls have fled,
And swarms amidst the red corruption bred.

For where th' Egyptians yearly see their bounds Refresh'd with floods, and sail about their grounds, Where Persia borders, and the rolling Nile Drives swiftly down the swarthy Indians' soil, Till into seven it multiplies its stream, And fattens Egypt with a fruitful slime: In this last practice all their hope remains, And long experience justifies their pains.

First then a close contracted space of ground, With straiten'd walls and low-builtroof they found; A narrow shelving light is next assign'd To all the quarters, one to every wind; Thro' these the glancing ravs obliquely pierce: Hither they lead a bull that's young and fierce, When two years growth of horn he proudly shows; And shakes the comely terrours of his brows: His nose and mouth, the avenues of breath, They muzzle up, and beat his limbs to death. With violence to life and stifling pain He flings and spurus, and tries to snort in vain,

Loud heavy mows fall thick on every side, 'Till his bruis'd bowels burst within the hide. When dead, they leave him rotting on the ground, With branches, thyme, and cassia, strow'd around. All this is done when first the western breeze Becalms the year, and smooths the troubled seas; Before the chattering swallow builds her nest, Or fields in spring's embroidery are drest. Mean while the tainted juice ferments within, And quickens as it works: and now are seen A wondrous swarm, that o'er the carcass crawls, Of shapeless, rude, unfinish'd animals: No legs at first the insect's weight sustain, At length it moves its new-made limbs with pain; Now strikes the air with quivering wings, and tries To lift its body up, and learns to rise; Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears Full grown, and all the bee at length appears; From every side the fruitful carcass pours Its swarming brood, as thick as summer showers, Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows, When twanging strings first shoot them on the foes. Thus have I sung the nature of the bee; While Caesar, towering to divinity, The frighted Indians with his thunder aw'd, And claim'd their homage and commenc'd a god: I flourish'd all the while in arts of peace, Retir'd and shelter'd in inglorious ease; I who before the songs of shepherds made, When gay and young my rural lays I play'd, And set my Tityrus beneath his shade.

A SONG,

FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, AT OXFORD.
CECILIA, whose exalted hymns

With joy and wonder fill the blest,

In choirs of warbling seraphims

Known and distinguish'd from the rest;
Attend, harmonious saint, and see
Thy vocal sons of harmony;

Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our prayers;

Enliven all our earthly airs,

[thee: And, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of Tune every string and every tongue,

Be thou the Muse and subject of our song.

Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,*
Employ the echo in her name.
Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise,
At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;
The organ labours in her praise.
Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From every voice the tuneful accents fly,
In soaring trebles now it rises high,
And now it sinks and dwells upon the base.
Cecilia's name thro' all the notes we sing,
The work of every skilful tongue,

The sound of every trembling string,
The sound and triumph of our song.

For ever consecrate the day,
To music and Cecilia;

Music the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of Heaven we have below.
Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love;

With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.

trite

When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre,
The streams stand still, the stones admire;
The listening savages advance,

The wolf and lamb around him trip,
The bears in awkward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance.
The moving woods attended as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.

Music religious heats inspires,

It wakes the soul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with sublime desires,

And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Th' Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue,
And seems well-pleas'd and courted with a song.
Soft moving sounds and heavenly airs [prayers.
Give force to every word, and recommend our
When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,
Music shall then exert its power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee :

All Heaven shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.

CHORUS.

Consecrate the place and day
To music and Cecilia.

Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,
Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,

Nor spoil the fleeting sounds.
Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard,

But gladness dwell on every tongue;
Whilst all, with voice and strings prepar'd,
Keep up the loud harmonious song,
And imitate the blest above,
In joy, and harmony, and love.

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS. TO MR. HENRY SACHEVERELL, APRIL 3, 1694. SINCE, dearest Harry, you will needs request A short account of all the muse-possest, That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times, Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes; Without more preface, writ in formal length, To speak the undertaker's want of strength, I'll try to make their several beauties known, And show their verses worth, though not my own. Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine; Till Chaucer first, a merry bard, arose, And many a story told in rhyme and prose. But age has rusted what the poet writ, Worn out his language, and obscur'd his wit: In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain, And tries to make his readers laugh in vain. Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage, In ancient tales amus'd a barbarous age; An age that yet uncultivate and rude, Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods, To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods. But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more; VOL. IX.

The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the sights,
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights.
But, when we look too near, the shades decay,
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote,
O'er-run with wit, and lavish of his thought:
His turns too closely on the reader press:
He more had pleas'd us, had he pleas'd us less.
One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With silent wonder, but new wonders rise.
As in the milky way a shining white
O'erflows the Heavens with one continued light;
That not a single star can show his rays,
Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great poet, that I dare to name
Th' unnumber'd beauties of thy verse with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excess:
But wit like thine in any shape will please.
What Muse but thine can equal hints inspire,
And fit the deep-mouth'd Pindar to thy lyre:
Pindar, whom others in a labour'd strain,
And forc'd expression, imitate in vain ?
Well-pleas'd in thee he soars with new delight,
And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a
[lays

nobler flight.

Blest man! whose spotless life and charming Employ'd the tuneful prelate in thy praise; Blest man! who now shall be for ever known, In Sprat's successful labours and thy own.

But Milton next, with high and haughty stalk, Unfetter'd in majestic numbers walks: No vulgar hero can his Muse engage; Nor Earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage. See! see he upwards springs, and towering high Spurns the dull province of mortality, Shakes Heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms, And sets th' Almighty thunderer in arms. Whate'er his pen describes I more than see, Whilst every verse, array'd in majesty, Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws, And seems above the critics nicer laws. How are you struck with terrour and delight, When angel with arch-angel copes in fight! When great Messiah's out-spread banner shines, How does the chariot rattle in his lines! What sound of brazen wheels, what thunder, scare, And stun the reader with the din of war! With fear my spirits and my blood retire, To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire'; But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise, And view the first gay scenes of Paradise; What tongue, what words of rapture can express A vision so profuse of pleasantness! Oh, had the poet ne'er profan'd his pen, To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men; His other works might have deserv'd applause! But now the language can't support the cause; While the clean current, though serene and bright, Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.

But now, my Muse, a softer strain rehearse, Turn every line with art, and smooth thy verse; The courtly Waller next commands thy lays: Muse, tune thy verse, with art, to Waller's praise; While tender airs and lovely dames inspire Soft melting thoughts, and propagate desire: So long shall Wailer's strains our passion move, And Saccharissa's beauty kindle love,

M M

Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flattering song, Can make the vanquish'd great, the coward strong.

Thy verse can show e'en Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storm that bore him hence.
Oh, bad thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne!
How had his triumphs glitter'd in thy page,
And warm'd thee to a more exalted rage!
What scenes of death and horrour had we view'd,
And how had Boyne's wide current reek'd in

blood!

Or if Maria's charms thou wouldst rehearse,
In smoother numbers and a softer verse;
Thy pen had well describ'd her graceful air,
And Gloriana would have seem'd more fair.

Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by,
That makes e'en rules a noble poetry:
Rules whose deep sense and heavenly numbers
show

The best of critics, and of poets too.

Nor, Denham, must we e'er forget thy strains, While Cooper's Hill commands the neighbouring plains.

But see where artful Dryden next appears, Grown old in rhyme, but charming e'en in years. Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words. Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs

She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears:
If satire or heroic strains she writes,
Her hero pleases, and her satire bites.
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.
How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourish'd, should decay with thee;
Did not the Muses' other hope appear,
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear:
Congreve! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promis'd more.
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive,
And Dryden's Muse shall in his friend survive.
I'm tir'd with rhyming, and would fain give
o'er,

But justice still demands one labour more:
The noble Montague remains unnain'd,
For wit, for humour, and for julement fam'd;
To Dorset he directs his artful Muse,

In numbers such as Dor-et's self might use.
How negligeatly graceful he unreins

His verse, and writes in loose familiar strains;
How Nassau's godlike acts adorn his lines,
And all the bero in full glory shines!
We se his a my set in just arrav,

And Byne's dy'd waves run purple to the sea. Nor Simois chok'd with men, and arms, and blood,

Nor rapid Xantbus' celebrated flood,
Shall longer be the poet's hi hest themes,
Though gods and heroes fought promiscuous in
their streams.

But now, to Nassau's sceret councils rais'd,
He aids the hero, whom before he prais'd.

I've done at length; and now, dear friend, receive

The last poor present that my Muse can give.
I leave the arts of poetry and verse

To them that practise them with more success.
Of greater truths I'll now prepare to tell,
And so at once, dear friend and Muse, farewell.

A LETTER FROM ITALY,

TO THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES LORD HALIFAX, IN
THE YEAR MDCCI.

Salve magna parens frugum Saturnia tellus,
Magua virum! tibi res antiquæ 'audis & artis
Aggredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes.
VIRG. Georg. ii.

WHILE you, my lord, the rural shades admire,
And from Britannia's public posts retire,
Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please,
For their advantage sacrifice your ease;
Me into foreign realms my fate conveys
Through nations fruitful of immortal lays,
Where the soft season and inviting clime
Conspire to trouble your repose with rhyme.

For whereso 'er I turn my ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And stil! I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung,
Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.

How am I pleas'd to search the hills and woods
For rising springs and celebrated floods!
To view the Nar, tumultuous in his course,
And trace the smooth Clitumrus to his source,
To see the Mincio draw his watery store,
Through the long windings of a fiuitful shore,
And hoary Albula's infected tide
O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide.
Fir'd with a thousand raptures, I survey
Eridanus through flowery meadows stray,
The king of floods! that, rolling o'er the plains,
The towering Alps of half their moisture drains,
And proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows,
Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows.

Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,
I look for streams immortalis'd in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,
(Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry)
Yet run for ever by the Muse's skill,
And in the smooth description murmur still.
Sometimes to gentle Tiber I retire,

And the fam'd river's empty shores admire,
That destitute of strength derives its course
From thrifty urns and an uofruitful source;
Yet sung so often in p etic lays,

With scorn the Danube and the Nile surveys;
So high the deathless Muse exaits ber thenie!
Such was the Boyne, a poor inglorious stream,
That in Hibernian vales obscurely stray'd,
And unobserv'd in wild meanders play'd;
Till by your lines and Nassau's sword renown'd,
Its rising Lillows through the world resound,
Where'er the hero's godlike acts can pierce,
Or where the fame of an immortal verse.

Oh could the Muse my ravish'd breast inspire
With warmth like yours, and raise an equal fire,
Unumber'd beautics in my verse should shine,
And Virgil's Italy should yield to mine!,

See how the golden groves around me smile, That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle, Or, when transplanted and preserv'd with care, Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air. Here kindly warmth their mountain juice ferments To nobler tastes, and more exalted scents: