While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat, Resound, ye hills, refound my mournful lay! 65 Resound, ye hills, refound my mournful strain! Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain, Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine, And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine; Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove; Just Gods! shall all things yield returns but love? 70 i 75 Refound, ye hills, refound my mournful lay! The shepherds cry, " Thy flocks are left a prey"Ah! what avails it me, the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preferv'd my sheep. 80 Pan REMARKS. VER. 68. While she with garlands hung the bending bowς :] This line forcibly recalls the beautiful description of the " Poor Ophelia." There with fantastic garlands did she come, STEVENS. Pan came, and ask'd, what magic caus'd my fmart, Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains ! Resound, ye hills refound my mournful lay! 84 90 95 Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light, REMARKS. When VER. 82. dart?] It should be darted; the present tense is used for the fake of the rhyme. WARTON. VER. 97. Thus sung] Among the multitude of English Poets who wrote Paftorals, Fairfax, to whom our Versification is thought to be so much indebted, ought to be mentioned. He wrote ten ΙΜΙΤΑΤΙONS, VER. 82. Or what ill eyes] or " Nefcio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos." VER. 89. "Nunc fcio quid fit Amor: duris in cotibus illum," P. &c. P. from whence it is taken. This from Virgil is much inferior to the passage in Theocritus, WARTON. 3 When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low fun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade. REMARKS. 100 or twelve Eclogues after the accession of James I. They were like those of Mantuan and Spenser, allegorical, and alluded to the manners and characters of the times, and contained many fatyrical strokes against the King and his Court. They were loft in the fire that confumed the Banquetting House at Whitehall; but it is said that Mr. W. Fairfax, his fon, recovered them from his father's papers; the fourth of them was published by Mrs. Cooper in the Muses Library, 1737. WARTON. I wonder Dr. Warton should have omitted Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, an almost forgotten work, but containing some images of rural beauty which Milton did not disdain sometimes to copy. See T. Warton's edition of Milton's smaller poems, page 53. VER. 98. 100.] There is a little inaccuracy here; the first line makes the time after fun-fet; the second, before. WARBURTON. WINTER: THE FOURTH PASTORAL, OR DAPHNE. TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST. LYCIDAS. THYRSIS, the mufic of that murm'ring spring Is not so mournful as the strains you fing; Nor rivers winding through the vales below, So fweetly warble, or fo fmoothly flow. now REMARKS. WINTER.] This was the Poet's favourite Paftoral. Mrs. Tempest.] This Lady was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the Author's friend Mr. Walsh *, who having celebrated her in a Pastoral Elegy, defired his friend to do the fame, as appears from one of his Letters, dated Sept. IMITATIONS. VER. 1. Thirfis, the music, &c.] Αδύ τι, &c. Theocr. Id. i. * On lately reading Mr. Walsh's Preface to Dryden's tranflation of Virgil's Eclogues, I was convinced he had a greater share of learning than he is usually allowed to poffefs. His strictures on the French language and manners, and on Fontenelle's affected and unnatural Eclogues, as well as on his vain attempt to depreciate the Ancients, are very folid and judicious. To what he has faid of Virgil may be added, that one of the most natural strokes in all his Eclogues, is the shepherd's reckoning his years by the fucceffion of his loves; Poftquam nos Amaryllis habet This paftoral chronology is much in character. Now fleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie, THYRSIS. Behold the groves that shine with filver froft, LYCIDAS. So may kind rains their vital moisture yield, And fwell the future harvest of the field. Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave, And faid, " Ye shepherds fing around my grave!" Sing, while befide the shaded tomb I mourn, And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn. 5 το 15 20 Ye REMARKS. Sept. 9, 1706. "Your last Eclogue being on the same subject with mine, on Mrs. Tempest's death, I should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn, as if it were to the memory of the same lady." Her death having happened on the night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this Eclogue, which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the Pastoral lies in a grove, the time at midnight. POPE. I do not find any lines that allude to the great storm of which the Poet speaks. WARTON. VER. 13. Thames heard, &c.] " Audiit Eurotas, juffitque ediscere lauros." Virg. P. |