A noble verfe! nor is Collins lefs delicious on this subject: With him, sweet bard! may FANCY die,

And Joy defert the blooming year.

Ver. 289. To fing those honours you deferve to wear. Philips:

And paint thofe honours thou art fure to wear. S.

Ver. 303. With Edward's acts adorn the fhining page : alluding to the illuminated manufcripts of our fathers; as again more obviously in his Moral Effays:

To Cato Virgil paid one honest line :

Oh! may my country's friends illumine mine: to which Mr. Mafon has confeffed his obligation: When St. John's name illumines Glory's page.

Ver. 310. And bleed for ever under Britain's fpear.
Pope had in his head this couplet of Hallifax :

The wounded arm would furnish all their rooms,
And bleed for ever fcarlet in the looms.

See Dunciad, ii. 155. and the note.

W.

Ver. 311. And palms eternal flourish round his urn. A very appropriate fpecification, as emblems of religious sanctity in a state of triumph. "After this, I beheld, "and lo! a great multitude-before the throne and "before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms "in their hands:" Revelations, vii. 9. And our poet, with characteristic beauty, in his epistle to Addison: Beneath her palm here fad Judaa weeps.

Ver 316. From old Belerium to the northern main. Cape Cornwall is called by geographers Promontorium Bolericum, but by Diodorus Siculus, v. 21. Belerium. The fame place is intended in Milton's Lycidas, ver. 160.

Sleep'ft

Sleep'ft by the fable of Bellerus old:

as Mr. Steevens alfo obferved.

Ver. 317. The grave unites.

An awful truth, and a folemn leffon against every feeling
of animofity and refentment. Propertius touches on this
topic with equal beauty, and in fimilar strains, iii. 3. 35.
Haud ullas portabis opes Acherontis ad undas :
Nudus ab infernâ, ftulte, vehere rate.
Victor cum victis paritèr mifcebitur Indis;
Confule cum Mario, capte Jugurtha, fedes.

Thou, ftripp'd of wealth, to Death's dark realm fhalt go;
A naked pilgrim through the vale below!
Victors and vanquifh'd cross the Stygian tide:
Jugurtha fits with Marius at his fide.

Ver. 318. Oppret. The proper forms of this, and all verbs with fimilar termination, I conceive to be, in the present tenfe, opprefs; in the paft, oppreft; and in the participle, oppreffed. Our poet, therefore, is irregular in this place, but accurate in the Rape of the Lock, iv. 1. But anxious cares the penfive nymph oppreft.

Ver. 319. Make facred Charles's tomb for ever known. He feems to have had in memory here Dr. Chetwood's verfes to Rofcommon on his Essay:

Make warlike James's peaceful virtues known,

The fecond hope and genius of the throne.

Ver. 320. Obfcure the place, and uninfcrib'd the ftone. Clarendon relates at fome length, that, after the Refloration, fearch was made to discover the spot in the chapel of Windfor Caftle, where the royal corpfe had been interred; but that all inquiry proved fruitlefs. See the continuation of the life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, vol. ii. P. 191. 8vo. W.

D 2

Ver. 322.

Ver. 322. Heav'ns! what new wounds! and how her old have bled!

Denham's verfion of Virg. Æn. ii. the beginning:
Madam, when you command us to review

Our fate, you make our old wounds bleed anew.

Ver. 324. Her facred domes involv'd in rolling fire. So Virgil, En. iv. 671.

flammæque furentes

Culmina perque hominum volvuntur perque deorum. S. The rolling ruin, with their lov'd abodes,

Involv'd the blazing temples of their gods.

Dryden's verfion.

Ver. 329..

..In that bleft moment from his oozy
Old father Thames advanc'd his reverend head.

bed

An admirable paffage of Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, ftanza
232 fupplied, I prefume, it's affiftance here:
Old father Thames rais'd up his rev'rend head,
But fear'd the fate of Simois would return:
Deep in his ooze he fought his fedgy bed,

And Thrunk his waters back into his urn.

And again, at the conclufion of his Threnodia Auguftalis: Whilft, ftarting from his oozy bed,

Th' afferted Ocean rears his rev'rend head.

And compare with this couplet the Effay on Criticism, ver. 700.

Ver. 331. His treffes dropt with dews, and o'er the stream
His fhining horns diffus'd a golden gleam.

I follow the correct orthography of the Mifcellanies: the
later editions viciously give dropp'd. In the fame manner,
Virgil has given golden horns to the Po, Geo. iv. 371.
Et gemina auratus taurino cornua vultu

Eridanus.

Two

Two golden borns on his large front he wears. Dryden. And on the fubject of these horns affigned to rivers by the ancients, the learned reader may confult my note on the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, ver. 518. Spenfer has a fine paffage like this before us, Faery Queene, iv. 11. 25.

But Thame was ftronger, and of better stay, Yet feem'd full aged by his outward fight,

With head all hoary, and his beard all gray, Dewed with filver drops that trickled downe alway. But our poet feems to have imitated the first verses of a parallel reprefentation in Claudian, de VI. Conf. Honor. ver. 160. wrought with the customary richness of that author. The entire paffage is well worthy of perusal; replete with ornament; and that ornament appropriate and original: to which I refer the reader. He is fpeaking of the Po:

-Ille caput placidis fublime fluentis

Extulit; et, totis lucem fpargentia ripis,
Aurea roranti micuerunt cornua vultu.
He fpake the Flood rears up his towering head
O'er the fmooth furface of his fwelling bed.

His horned front, through streams of glistening dew,

Round the wide banks a golden radiance threw.

The reader will be pleafed also with fome lines of

Milton's Lycidas, ver. 105.

Next Camus, reverend fire, went footing flow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet fedge,

Inwrought with figures dim.

Where that truly claffical phrase, footing flow, will be
properly illuftrated by a verse from Lucretius, v. 272.
inde fuper terras fluit agmine dulci,

Quâ via fecta femèl liquido pede detulit undas:

where my note will furnish a copious illuftration of this

circumftance from other poets. The figures dim, which fo much divides the commentators, must be interpreted, beyond doubt, by the state of MOURNING, in which the river then was, characterifed by fqualid gloominess: to which circumstance alfo the no lefs puzzling accompanyment of the hairy mantle must be referred, in allufion to a garb of fackcloth. And the phrafe golden gleam, as Mr. Steevens obferves, Gray has borrowed:

Thro' richest purple to the view

Betray'd a golden gleam:

where the language is peculiarly happy. Our poet, in his Temple of Fame, ver. 253.

And lucid amber cafts a golden gleam.

Ver. 349. The reader will be gratified by the fame fubject in the hands of Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 29. And round about him many a pretty page Attended, duely ready to obey;

All little rivers, which owe vaffallage

To him, as to their lord, and tribute pay-:
The chaulky Kenet, and the Thetis gray,
The morifh Cole, and the foft flyding Breare,
The wanton Lee, that oft doth loose his way,

And the ftill Darent, in whofe waters cleare

Ten thousand fishes play, and decke his pleasant streame.

Ver. 347. And fullen Mole, that hides his diving flood. Drayton, in his Poly-Olbion, fong 17.

Mole digs herself a path, by working day and night; According to her name, to fhew herself aright.

And Milion, whom our poet follows:

Or fullen Mole, that runneth underneath.

Ver. 354. And the hufh'd waves glide foftly to the fhore. Dryden, in his Annus Mirabilis, ftanza 98.

And