VII. Music the fierceft grief can charm, And fate's feverest rage difarin: Mufic can foften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please : And antedate the blifs above. 120 This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praife confin'd the found. 125 Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; 130 To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv❜n; His numbers rais'd a fhade from hell, Her's lift the foul to heav'n. NOTES. VER. 131. It is obfervable that this ode, as well as that of Dryden, concludes with an epigram of four lines; a fpecies of witty writing as flagrantly unfuitable to the dignity, and as foreign to the nature of the lyric, as it is of the epic mufe. WARTON. IF we caft a tranfient view over the most celebrated of the modern lyrics, we may obferve that the ftanza of Petrarch, which has been adopted by all his fucceffors, displeases the ear, by its tedious uniformity, and by the number of identical cadences. And, indeed, to speak truth, there appears to be little valuable in Petrarch, except the purity of his diction. His fentiments, even of love, are metaphyfical and far-fetched. Neither is there much variety in his fubjects, or fancy in his method of treating them. Fulvio Tefti, Chiabrera, and Metaftafio, are much better lyric poets. When Boileau attempted an ode, he exhibited a glaring proof of what will frequently be hinted in the course of these notes, that the writer, whofe grand characteristical talent is fatiric or moral poetry, will never fucceed, with equal merit, in the higher branches of his art. In his ode on the taking Namur, are inftances of the bombaftic, of the profaic, and of the puerile; and it is no fmall confirmation of the ruling paffion of this author, that he could not conclude his ode, but with a severe stroke on his old antagonist Perrault, though the majefly of this fpecies of compofition is fo much injured by defcending to perfonal fatire. "We have had (fays Mr. Gray) in our language, no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day: for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for fuch a task. That of Pope is not worthy of fo great a master. Mr. Mafon, indeed of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in fome of his chorufes above all in the last of Caractacus ; Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread?" &c... The bard of Gray must be mentioned as ranking next to Dry den's ode, if it be not fuperior. TWO CHORUS'S TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS', CHORUS OF ATHENIANS. YE STROPHE I. E fhades, where facred truth is fought; Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd, And Epicurus lay infpir'd! In vain your guiltlefs laurels stood War, horrid war, your thoughtful Walks invades, NOTES. 5 Oh a Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whofe defire these two Chorus's were compofed to supply as many wanting in his play. They were fet many years afterward by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house. РОРЕ. VER. 3. Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd, And Epicurus lay infpir'd!] The propriety of thefe lines arifes from hence, that Brutus, one of the Heroes of this play, was of the Old Academy; and Caffius, the other, was an Epicurean. WARBURTON. I cannot be perfuaded that Pope thought of Brutus and Caffius, as being followers of different fects of philofophy. WARTON. ANTISTROPHE I. Oh heav'n-born fifters! fource of art! Who charm the fenfe, or mend the heart; 10 To what new clime, what distant sky, Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic fhore? STROPHE II. When Athens finks by fates unjust, Shall cease to blufh with ftranger's gore, And Athens rifing near the pole! Till fome new Tyrant lifts his purple hand, 15 20 NOTES. Ye VER. 12. Moral Truth, and myftic Song!] The conftruction is dubious. Does the poet address Moral Truth and Mystic Song, as being the Heaven-born Sifters; or does he address himself. to the Mufes, mentioned in the preceding line, and fo make Moral Truth and Myftic Song to be a part of Virtue's train? as Hefiod begins his poem. Dr. Warburton's propofed correction is not confiftent with either conftruction, when he fays, the poet had expreffed himself better had he said Moral Truth in Myftic Song. Moral Truth, a single person, can neither be the Heaven-born Sifters, nor yet, alone, the train of Virtue. If it could, the emendation might have been spared, because this is no uncommon figure in poetry. WARTON. ANTISTROPHE II. Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball? Oh curs'd effects of civil hate, In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state! Still, when the lust of tyrant pow'r fucceeds, VER. 32. Some Athens] NOTES. 25 30 This ode is of the kind which M. D'Alembert, judging like a mathematician, prefers to odes that abound with imagery and figures, namely, what he calls the Didactic ode; and then proceeds to give reafons for preferring Horace to Pindar as a lyric poet. Marmontel in his Poetic oppofes him. WARTON. THESE chorufes are elegant and harmonious; but are they not chargeable with the fault, which Ariftotle imputes to many of Euripides, that they are foreign and adventitious to the subject, and contribute nothing towards the advancement of the main action? Whereas the chorus ought, 46 Μοριον είναι τε όλε, και συναγωνίζεσθαι, to be a part or member of the one whole, co-operate with, and help to accelerate the intended event; as is conftantly, adds the philofopher, the practice of Sophocles. Whereas these reflections. of Pope on the baneful influences of war, on the arts and learning, and on the universal power of love, feem to be too general, are not fufficiently appropriated, do not rise from the fubject and occafion, and might be inferted with equal propriety in twenty other tragedies. This remark of Ariftotle, though he does not himfelf produce any examples, may be verified from the following, among many others. In the Phoenicians of Euripides, they fing a long and |