that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance "and knowledge, and fends out his Seraphim, with the "ballow'd fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips "of whom he pleases."

Ver. 14. And in soft filence shed the kindly show'r. Dryden's Don Sebastian :

But shed from Nature like a kindly shower. S.

Ver. 21.

rife, th' expected morn:

imitated from a charming verse of Virgil, Ecl. viii. 17. Nafcere, præque diem veniens, age, Lucifer! almum : Rise, star of morning! and lead on the day.

Ver. 22. Oh spring to light, aufpicious babe! be born. This feems a palpable imitation of Callimachus, but where our poet fell upon it, I cannot discover: Hymn. Del. 214.

Γεινεο, γείνεο, κέρε· και ηπιΘ- εξιθι κολπα.

Ver. 24. With all the incense of the breathing spring. Hence, perhaps, Gray; as Mr. Steevens also observed: The breezy call of incenfe-breathing morn.

Drayton, very beautifully, Idea 53.

Where fweet myrrhe-breathing Zephir in the spring
Gently diftils his nectar-dropping showers.

Fairfax's Taffo, iv. 75.

When the fair morn first blufheth from her cell,

And breatheth balm from opened Paradise.

And Samfon Agonistes, ver. 10.

The breath of heav'n fresh blowing, pure and fweet, With day-fpring born.

Ver. 36, Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods! give way.

There are two fine verfes in the fame ftrain in Tate's verfion of Ovid's Epiftles, Hero to Leander:

Be hufh'd, ye winds! ye raging billows! fleep,

And yield my love safe paffage through the deep.

But our poet feems to have had in his eye Cromwell's translation of the paffage from Ovid quoted in my note, p. 122. of his own Mifcellany:

Then, as you pass, let mountains homage pay,

And bow their tow'ring heads to smooth your way.

Ver. 39. He from thick films fhall purge the visual ray, Thus Milton, Par. Loft, iii. 620.

and th' air,

No where fo clear, fharpen'd his visual ray

To objects diftant far:

and in his Samfon Agonistes, ver. 162.

For inward light alas!

Puts forth no visual beam.

Ver. 42. And bid new mufic charm th' unfolding ear. The epithet unfolding is extremely happy, and physically appropriate. A line in Sandys' Christ's Paffion, A& iii. may be put into competition with the verfe before us in this refpect:

Shut up the winding entry of thine ear.

Ver. 46. From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear.

Milton had before fanctified English poetry with the paffage from Efaiah and the Apocalypfe, in his Lycidas,

ver. 181.

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Ver. 48. And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. Eternumque daret matri fub pectore volnus :

Lucretius, ii. 638. and Cowley, David. i. 15.

Whilft bell's black tyrant trembled to behold
The glorious light he forfeited of old.

Ver. 58. Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes.
King Henry IV. Part i. Scene 1.

thofe oppofed eyes. S.

where I can perceive no occafion of apology for the writer. What is more common in poetry, than a fubftitution of a part of a man for the man himself? See to this purpose my note on Soph. Trachin. 528. and hereafter on Lucret. v. 24.

Ver. 60. The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more. Mr. Steevens aptly quotes Virgil, Æn. vi.

Ære ciere viros:

With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms. Dryden.

Ver. 66. And the fame hand, that fow'd, fhall reap the field.

So Callimachus, Hymn. Cer. fin.

αμαση :

Φερβε και ειραναν, ἵν ̓, ὅς αρεσε, κεινΘ
And fofter peace; that he, who fow'd, may reap.

Ver. 84. This verfe was originally written thus: And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play: an error still continuing in his mind from the vulgar representations of these creatures with ftings in their tails. The alteration was made, therefore, to banish a fuperfluity of expreffion.

Ver. 94. And heap'd with products of Sabæan fprings. Dryden, in his Aureng-Zebe:

What fweets foe'er Sabaan Springs disclose, Our Indian jasmine, or the Syrian rofe. S. So above, ver. 24.

With all the incenfe of the breathing fpring.

Nabathæi munera veris,

as Dr. Johnson properly translates.

Ver. 97. See heav'n its sparkling portals wide difplay.

Of this verfe, I prefume, Mr. Mason was not unmindful in the epitaph on his wife:

Heaven holds its everlasting portals high:

with the improvement of a more dignified epithet from Pfalm, xxiv. 7.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors:

And the king of glory will come in,

Ver. 98. And break upon thee in a flood of day.

A magnificent verfe; but fufceptible of improvement,
perhaps, by the substitution of a more forcible expreffion :
And burst upon thee in a flood of day.
Compare Effay on Criticism, ver. 630.
Waller, to the king:

With fuch a flood of light invade our eyes.
Pope's Mifcellanies, p. 104. from Broome:
The fiery courfers and the coach display
A ftream of glory and a flood of day.
As in the Eloifa:

From op'ning fkies may fireams of glory fhine.
Dryden's State of Innocence, Act iv. Scene 1.
Their glory fhoots upon my aching fight;
Thou stronger may'st endure the flood of light.
From which paffage the reader will recollect Gray to
have plucked a flower for his bard:

Vifions of glory! spare my aching fight.

The Vi&im, a tragedy by C. Johnson, one of Pope's Dunces it was acted in 1714.

:

Or her pale beams are loft in floods of day.

This paffage was furnished by Mr. Steevens, who was not unmindful of that from Dryden also.

Our poet in his Effay on Criticism, ver. 212. nearly repeats the verse before us :

Truth breaks upon us with refifless day.

Ver. 99. No more the rifing fun fhall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her filver horn.

There is a general resemblance in these charming lines to the beginning of Ovid's Metamorphofes, and Sandys' excellent tranflation there:

Nullus adhuc mundo præbebat lumina Titan,
Nec nova crefcendo reparabat cornua Phoebe.
No Titan yet the world with light adornes,

Nor waxing Phoebe fill'd her wained hornes.

Our poet's attachment to Sandys from early intimacy is well known.

Ver. 101. But, loft, diffolv'd, in thy fuperior rays,

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,
O'erflow thy courts.

The conftruction is: "But one tide of glory fhall over"flow thy courts, the fun and moon being diffolved and "loft in thy rays." In the fame language Dryden, Religio Laici:

So pale grows Reason at Religion's fight;

So dies, and fo diffolves in fupernatʼral light. This exquifitely beautiful and fublime metaphor I have attempted to illuftrate above at ver. 98. and I fhall touch further upon it at a most enchanting paffage in Dunciad, ii. 11. The reader, who delights in thefe claffic flowers, will find more to regale his fenfes in my notes on Lucretius, ii. 147. v. 282. which I hope to present to the public fpeedily.