haps Milton, in the text, yet with a conceit, alludes to his blindness, day brought back my NIGHT. See much the fame conceit in SONN. xix. 7. Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd. * Thefe Sonnets are not without their merit: yet, if we except two or three, there is neither the grace nor exactness of Milton's hand in them. The fort of compofition in our language is difficult to the best rhymift, and Milton was a very bad one. Befides, his genius rises above, and, as we may fay, overflows, the banks of this narrow confined poem, pontem indignatus Araxes. H. 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 inscribed on the glass of a window in that place. LIFE, p. xxxviii. It has the word SHEENE as a fubftantive. But Milton was not likely to commit a fcriptural mistake. For the Sonnet improperly reprefents David as punished by a peftilence for his adultery with Bathsheba. 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. VOL. I. Ꮓ Ꮓ TRANSLA. TRANSLATION S. THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I.* W HAT flender youth bedew'd with liquid odours Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, * This piece did not appear in the first edition of the year 1645. 1. What flender youth. In this measure, my friend and fchool-fellow 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 student of Christ-church Oxford, at the time that Mr. Benfon gave medals as prizes for the best verses that were produced on Milton at all our great schools. It seems to be an agreed point, that Lyric poetry cannot exift without rhyme in our language. Some of the Trochaics, in Glover's MEDEA, are harmonious, however, without rhyme. Dr. J. WARTON. 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 truest taste, written in unrhyming metre many years ago by two of the students of Chrift-church Oxford, and among its chief ornaments, fince high in the church. One is on the death of Mr. Langton who died on his travels, by the late Dr. Shipley, bishop of S. Afaph: the other, by the present archbishop of York, is addreffed to George Onflow, efquire, Pyrrha? For whom bind'ft thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatnefs? O how oft fhall he Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, 5 Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they Who always vacant, always amiable ΤΟ T'whom thou untry'd feem'ft fair. Me, in my vow'd 15 Picture, the facred wall declares t' have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the ftern God of fea. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.a BRUTUS thus addreffes DIANA in the country of Goddess of shades, and huntress, who at will efquire, the Speaker. But it may be doubted, whether there is fufficient precifion and elegance in the English language without rhyme. In England's HELICON, there is Oenone's complaint in blank verfe, by George Peele, written about 1590. Signat. Q. 4. edit. 1614. The verses indeed are heroic, but the whole confists of quatrains. I will exhibit the first ftanza. Melpomene, the muse of tragicke songs With mournful tunes, in ftole of dismall hue; And leave thy luftie company behind. 5. Plain in thy neatness ?] Rather, " plain in your orna"ments." Milton mistakes the idiomatical use and meaning of of Munditia. She was plain in her dress: or, more paraphraftically, in the manner of adorning herself. The fense of the context is, "For whom do you, who study no ornaments of dress, thus un"affectedly bind up your yellow locks ?" a * HIST. BRIT. i. xi. "Diva potens nemorum, &c." I am 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, And kings be born of thee, whofe dreadful might I am informed by Mr. Steevens, who had it from Mr. Spence, that in Aaron Thompson's Translation of Geoffry of Monmouth, published 1718, this address of Brutus, Diva potens, and Diana's anfwer, which follows, were tranflated by Pope for Thompfon's ufe. But fee this information confirmed by an additional paffage, first published by Curll, in the SUPPLEMENT to Pope's WORKS, for M. Cooper, 1757. p. 39. See also Thomson's GEOFFRY, pp. 23, 24. *Tickell and Fenton read lowring. b From Milton's HIST. ENGL. B. i. PR. W. ii. 5. These Fragments of tranflation were collected by Tickell from Milton's PROSE-WORKS. More are here added. But the reader is to be informed, that thofe taken from the DEFENSIo are not Milton's, but are in Richard Washington's Translation 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 Profe-works. Of fingle lines others might have been added from this English DEFENSIO. DANTE. Ah Conftantine, of how much ill was caufe, a DANTE. Founded in chafte and humble poverty, 'Gainst them that rais'd thee doft thou lift thy horn, ARIOSTO.f Then past he to a flowry mountain green, I take this Washington, a lawyer, to be the fame that published "A History of the Ecclefiaftical Jurifdiction of the Kings of Eng"land, 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 Hcole's ARIOSTO, B. xvii. v. 552. vol. ii. p. 271. From OF REFORMATION in England. PR. W. vol. i. p. 10, d PARAD. C. xx. So fay Tickell and Fenton, from Milton himself. But the fentiment only is in Dante. The translation is from Petrarch, SONN. 108. "Fundata in casta et humili povertate, &c." Expunged in fome editions of Petrarch for obvious reafons. 66 e From OF REFORMATION, &c. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. p. 10. f C. xxxiv. 80. Tickell and Fenton have added fome lines from Harrington's verfion. From OF REFORMATION, &C. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. p. 10, HORACE.. |