poets,

with the Italian, French, and Spanish.— It is obfervable that none of his poems bear the marks of an amorous difpofition, and that he is one of those few who have failed to Delphi, without touching at Cythera. The allufions of this kind that appear in his Oriental Eclogues were indifpenfable in that fpecies of poetry; and it is very remarkable that in his Paffions, an ode for mufic, love is omitted, though it should have made a principal figure

there.

ORI

ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.

B

ECLOGUE I.

SELIM; OR, THE SHEPHERD'S MORAL.

SCENE, A VALLEY NEAR BAGDAT.

TIME, THE MORNING.

E Perfian maids, attend your poet's lays,

YE

And hear how fhepherds pafs their golden
days.

Not all are bleft, whom Fortune's hand fuftains
With wealth in courts, nor all that haunt the plains:
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the blifs, where'er we dwell.

Thus Selim fung, by facred Truth infpir'd; Nor praise, but fuch as Truth bestow'd, defir'd: Wife in himself, his meaning fongs convey'd Informing morals to the fhepherd maid; Or taught the fwains that fureft blifs to find, What groves nor ftreams bestow, a virtuous mind.