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Warburton, always too deep for his hearers, went on refining. A critic of his caft would, on the paffage of Burns about people going firks, viz. large calves, to college, affirm that the poet meant to pun on the word Oxford, Vadum bovum.

As learned commentators view,

In Homer, what he never knew.

4. Our dwelling's in the mom, &c.-Several of the ancient philofophers believed the moon was inhabited; and Plutarch tells us of a lion which fell from it to Peloponefus. It has been a favourite subject of romantic description by poets, and by aftronomical romancers, as Kircher, Cyrano de Bergerac, and others. Ariofto tells us, in his 34th canto:

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Milton in his third book, "talking of the Paradise of Fools, fays that Vanities,

Wander here;

Not in the neighbouring moon as fome have dream'd,
Thofe argent fields more likely habitants,

Translated faints, or middle fpirits hold,

Betwixt the angelical and human kind.

-iii. 462.

There is a story of the celebrated Bishop Wilkins, which has at last got into the jest book, but which is still not a bad story. The Bishop having afferted the poffibility of a journey to the moon, the Dutchefs of Newcastle faid fhe would be happy to go, if she knew a place te

bait at. Why, fays the Bishop, your ladyfhip need be at no loss, fince you have built fo many castles in the air that you may lodge at one of them every night.

In the original sketch of the FALLS of CLYDE, formed at fixteen or feventeen years of age, the fourth act was laid in the moon, of whose scenes there are several descriptions; however I thought it would be as well to keep to unity of place.

5. A new-born infant you were ftole away.-Warton, in his notes on Milton's leffer poems, p. 312, fays: "It is not yet fatisfactorily decided what Shakespeare means by calling Mab the fairies midwife, Romeo and Juliet, act 1. fc. 4. Dr Warburton would read the Fancy's Midwife, for he argues it cannot be understood that the performed the office of midwife to the fairies. Mr Steevens much more plaufibly fuppofes her to be called the fairies midwife, "because it was her department to deliver the fancies of fleeping men of their dreams." But I apprehend, and with no violence of interpretation, that the poet means the midwife among the fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to steal the new-born babe in the night, and to leave another in its place. Johnson, in his entertainment at Altrope, says of Queen Mab,

This is the that empties cradles.

6. Him who gave its laws to Fairy land.—This contradicts a remark of the celebrated German poet Mr Wieland, who obferves fomewhere, "The land of the fairies is fituated beyond the confines of nature. It is governed by its own laws; or, to fpeak more accurately, like certain republics, which I do not chufe to name, it has no laws at all.”

6. Deep in our fairy foreft there's a well.-In Fletcher's Faithful Shepher defs, Perigot describes to Amoret a foreft, where he wishes her to meet him to plight their troths.

For to that holy well is confecrate,
A virtuous well; about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moonshine; dipping oftentimes
Their ftolen children, fo as to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality.Ac 1.

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To work like a Turk, is a common country faying; originating either for the fake of the metre, or perhaps from irony. We are told by Bofwell, that Johnson, three or four days before his death, lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlefsnefs: "I used formerly, (he added) when fleeplefs in bed, to read like a Turk."The faying might however have been introduced when that people were exceedingly active. To fight like a Turk feems to have been the original expreffion.

8. D'ye think that our Bill-blo.---Blo is an ufual addition in Scotland to the word bill (a bull), and is very fuccessfully called by the boys fometimes to put that furly gentleman into bad humour.“ Haud inexpertus loquor"---Or, to use the words of the pious Æneas,

Quaeque ipfe miferrima vidi,

Et quorum pars magna fui.

9. SCENE IH.---When Love gaed frae my heart away.---These two stanzas are part of an early tranflation of Metaftafio's Libertà a Nice, into the Scotifh dialect.

Quando lo ftral spezzai,

(Confeffo il mio roffore)

Spezzar m'intefi il core,

Mi parve di morir;

Ma per ufcir di guai,

Per non vederfi oppreffo
Per racquiffar se steffo,

Tutto fi può foffrir.

Nel vifco in cui s'avenne,

Quel augellin talora ;
Lafcià le penne ancora,
Ma torna in libertà.

Poi le perdute penne,
In pochi di`rinova;
Cauto divieh per prova,
Nè più tradirfi fâ.

ACT III.

SCENE I. The gillyflower, the eglantine, an' rose :
Aboon the cherry blufbes, while below

The Spotted ftrawberries luxuriant grow.

In the notes upon one of the verfes of the ballad of Clerk Saunders, which pretends to give a description of heaven, faying of women who die in child-birth,

Their beds are made in the heavens high

Down at the foot of our good Lord's knee;

Well fet about with gillyflowers;

I wot sweet company for to fee.

Mr Scott, the ingenious editor, obferves, That, from whatever fource the popular ideas of heaven are derived, the mention of gillyflowers is not uncommon. Thus in the dead man's fong:

The fields about this city faire,
Were all with roses fet;

Gilly flowers and carnations fair,
Which canker could not fret.

2. Oh, gin my love were yon red rose.---I was much pleafed with the four first lines of this fong, which I faw in the Minstrelfy of the Scotish Border, prefixed to a number of others of very inferior merit; and wrote those that follow, in order to complete, as well as I could, the fong in the fame tender manner.

Upon perusing afterwards the Works of Burns, vol. iv. p. 76. I faw other four lines of the original worthy of the four first, and so excellent, that, had I feen them before I wrote my own, I fhould not have compofed others. Befides this, there is a stanza written by Burns himself, but I think of very inferior merit. I beg leave to extract the paffage relating to this fubject.

"Do you know (writes Burns to Mr Thomson) the following beautiful little fragment in Witherspoon's Collection of Scots Songs:

O gin my love were yon red rofe,
That grows upon the castle wa';
And I myfel' a drap o' dew,
Into her bonny breast to fa'!
Oh! there beyond expreffion blest,
I'd feast on beauty a'the night;
Seal'd on her filk faft faulds to reft,

Till fley'd awa' by Phoebus light.

"This thought (proceeds the poet) is expreffibly beautiful, and quite, fo far as I know, original. It is too fhoit for a song, else I would forfwear you altogether unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a ftanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a mufing five minutes on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, I produced the following.

"The verfes are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confefs; but, if worthy of infertion at all, they might be first in place; as every

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