Now, now I feize, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burft (ah cruel!) from my arms; And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or foftly glide by the Canal,
Now shown by Cynthia's filver ray,
And now, on rolling waters fnatch'd away.

I HAVE often wondered that our author fhould have chofen one of the most exceptionable odes in Horace for his imitation. Every reader of the original is always disgufted with the obje& of it.

Νε

E forte credas interitura, quae
Longe fonantem natus ad Aufidum
Non ante vulgatas per artes
Verba loquor focianda chordis;
Non, fi priores Maeonius tenet
Sedes Homerus, Pindaricae latent
Ceaeque, et Alcaei minaces.
Stefichorique graves Camenae:
Nec, fi quid olim lufit Anacreon,
Delevit aetas: fpirat adhuc amor,
Vivantque commiffi calores
Acoliae fidibus puellae.

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; fed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentür ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate facro.

NOTES.

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VER. 8. Original-Stefichorique graves] The lofs of the works of no two writers is perhaps more to be lamented than of Stefichorus and Menander. The former is thus characterized by Quintilian, 1. 10. "Stefichorus quam fit Ingenio validus, materiæ quoq. oftendunt, maxima bella et clariffimos duces canentem, et epici carminis onera Lyrå Suftinentem. Reddit enim perfonis in agendo fimul loquendoque debitam dignitatem; ac fi tenuiffet modum, videtur æmulari proximus Homerum potuiffe. Of the fragments of Menander, fee a paper in the Adventurer, vol. iv.

PART OF THE NINTH ODE

LEST

OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

A FRAGMENT.

EST you should think that verse shall die, Which founds the Silver Thames along, Taught on the wings of Truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar fong;

Tho' daring Milton fits fublime,
In Spencer native Muses play:
Nor

yet fhall Waller yield to time,
Nor penfive Cowley's moral lay---
Sages and Chiefs long fince had birth
Ere Caefar was, or Newton nam'd;
Those rais'd new Empires o'er the Earth,

And These, new Heav'ns and Systems fram'd.
Vain was the Chief's, the Sage's pride!
They had no Poet, and they dy'd.
In vain they fchem'd, in vain they bled!
They had no Poet, and are dead.

NOTES.

6

VIR. 6. In Spencer] How much this author was his favourite from his early to his later years, will appear from what be faid to Mr. Spence, from whofe Anecdotes I tranfcribe literally this pas fage: There is fomething in Spencer that pleafes one as ftrongly in one's old age as it did in one's youth. I read the Fairy Queen when I was about twelve with a vaft deal of delight; and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago."

VIR, 13. Milled by his ufual love of antithefis, he has formed trifling epigram, inftead of giving us the manly plain sense of Horace.

1