haps Milton, in the text, yet with a conceit, alludes to his blindnefs, day brought back my NIGHT. See much the fame conceit in SONN. xix. 7.

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd.

* These 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 rhymist, 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 seen inscribed 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 reprefents 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, struck upon Charles the fecond, abroad, without any legend, having a correfpondent device.

VOL. I.

Z z

TRANSLA.

TRANSLATION S.

THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I.*

HAT flender youth bedew'd with liquid
odours

WH

Courts thee on rofes in fome pleafant 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 meafure alfo, an elegant Ode was written on the PARADISE LOST, by the late captain Thomas, formerly a student of Chrift-church Oxford, at the time that Mr. Benson gave medals as prizes for the beft verfes that were produced on Milton at all our great schools. It seems to be an agreed point, that Lyric poetry cannot exist 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 fubject.

There are extant two excellent Odes, of the trueft 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 prefent archbishop of York, is addreffed to George Onflow,

efquire,

1

Pyrrha? For whom bind'ft thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatnefs? O how oft fhall he

On faith and changed Gods complain, and feas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable
Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they

my vow'd

T' whom thou untry'd' feem'ft fair. Me, in
Picture, the facred wall declares t' have hung
My dank and dropping weeds

To the ftern God of fea.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.

BRUTUS thus addreffes DIANA in the country of
LEOGECIA.

Goddess of fhades, and huntrefs, who at will

15

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 verfes indeed are heroic, but the whole confifts of quatrains. I will exhibit the first stanza.

Melpomene, the mufe of tragicke fongs

With mournful tunes, in stole of difmall hue;
Affift a filly nymphe to waile her woe,

And leave thy luftie company behind.

5. Plain in thy neatness?-] Rather, " plain in your orna"ments." Milton mistakes the idiomatical ufe and meaning of of Munditia. She was plain in her dress: or, more paraphraftically, in the manner of adorning herself. The sense 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.” ZZ 2

I am

Walk'ft on the rowling* fpheres, and through the

deep;

On thy third reign the earth look now, and tell
What land, what feat of reft, thou bidft me feek,
What certain feat, where I may worship thee
For aye, with temples vow'd, and virgin quires.

To whom, fleeping before the altar, DIANA answers in a vifion the fame night.

Brutus, far to the west, 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 courfe, there fhalt thou find a lasting seat ;
There to thy fons another Troy shall rife,

And kings be born of thee, whose dreadful might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold."

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 addrefs of Brutus, Diva potens, and Diana's anfwer, which follows, were tranflated by Pope for Thompson's ufe. But fee this information confirmed by an additional passage, first published by Curll, in the SUPPLEMENT to Pope's WORKS, for M. Cooper, 1757. p. 39. See alfo Thomfon's GEOFFRY,

PP. 23, 24.

* Tickell and Fenton read lowring.

b From Milton's HIST. ENGL. B. i. PR. W. ii. 5. Thefe Fragments of translation were collected by Tickell from Milton's PROSE-WORKS. 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 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.C

Ah Conftantine, of how much ill was cause,
Not thy converfion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy pope receiv'd of thee.

DANTE.

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.

ARIOSTO.f

Then past he to a flowry mountain green,
Which once smelt fweet, now stinks as odiously:
This was the gift, if you the truth will have,
That Constantine to good Sylvefter gave.

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 firft 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. 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, SON N. 108. "Fundata in cafta et humili povertate, &c." Expunged in fome editions of Petrarch for obvious reasons.

• 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.