Bat if my Lycidas will ease my pains,
And often visit our forsaken plains,

To him the towering ash shall yield in woods;
In gardens pines, and poplars by the floods.

MEL. These rhymes I did to memory commend,
When vanquish'd Thyrsis did in vain contend;
Since when 'tis Corydon among the swains,
Young Corydon without a rival reigns,

THE EIGHTH BASTORAL;

OR, PHARMACEUTRIA,

THE ARGUMENT.

This pastoral contains the songs of Damon and Alphesibœus. The first of them bewails the loss of his mistress, and repines at the success of his rival Mopsus. The other repeats the charms of some enchantress, who endeavoured, by her spells and magic, to make Daphnis in love with her.

THE mournful Muse of two despairing swains,
The love rejected, and the lover's pains,
To which the savage lynxes listening stood,

The rivers stood on heaps, and stopp'd the running flood:

The hungry herd their needful food refuse;

Of two despairing swains I sing the mournful Muse.
Great Pollio, thou for whom thy Rome prepares
The ready triumph of thy finish'd wars,
Whether Timavus or th' Illyrian coast,
Whatever land or sea thy presence boast;
Is there an hour in fate reserv'd for me,
To sing thy deeds in numbers worthy thee?
In numbers like to thine, could I rehearse
Thy lofty tragic scenes, thy labour'd verse;
The world another Sophocles in thee,
Another Homer should behold in me:
Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine,
Thine was my earliest Muse; my latest shall be
drew;

thine.

Searce from the world the shades of night withScarce were the flocks refresh'd with morning dew, When Damon, stretch'd beneath an olive shade, And wildly staring upwards, thus inveigh'd Against the conscious gods, and curs'd the cruel maid:

"Star of the morning, why dost thou delay?
Come, Lucifer, drive on the lagging day?
While I my Nisa's perjur'd faith deplore;
Witness, ye powers, by whom she falsely swore!
The gods, alas! are witnesses in vain;

Yet shall my dying breath to Heaven complain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.
"The pines of Menalus, the vocal grove,
Are ever full of verse, and full of love:
They hear the hinds, they hear their god complain;
Who suffer'd not the reeds to rise in vain.

Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.

Mopsus triumphs; he weds the willing fair : When such is Nisa's choice, what lover can despair! Now griffons join with mares; another age Shall see the hound and hind their thirst asswage

Promiscuous at the spring: prepare the lights,
O Mopsus! and perform the bridal rites.
Scatter thy nuts among the scrambling boys:
Thine is the night, and thine the nuptial joys.
For thee the Sun declines: O happy swain !
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.

O, Nisa! justly to thy choice condemn'd! Whom hast thou taken, whom hast thou contemn'd; For him, thou hast refus'd my browsing herd, Scorn'd my thick eyebrows, and my shaggy beard. Unhappy Damon sighs, and sings in vain: While Nisa thinks no god regards a lover's pain. Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.

I view'd thee first, how fatal was the view! And led thee where the ruddy wildings grew High on the planted hedge, and wet with morning

dew.

Then scarce the bending branches I could win,
The callow down began to clothe my chin;
I saw, I perish'd; yet indulg'd my pain:
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.
"I know thee, Love; in deserts thou wert bred;
And at the dugs of savage tigers fed :
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains:
[strains.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian
"Relentless love the cruel mother led,
The blood of her unhappy babes to shed:
Love lent the sword; the mother struck the blow;
Inhuman she; but more unhappy thou.
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains:
[strains.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian
"Old doting Nature, change thy course anew:
And let the trembling lamb the wolf pursue :
Let oaks now glitter with Hesperian fruit,
And purple datiodils from alder shoot.
Fat amber let the tamarisk distil :

And hooting owls contend with swans in skill.
Hoarse Tityrus strive with Orpheus in the woods;
And challenge fam'd Arion on the floods.
Or, oh! let Nature cease, and chaos reign:
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Let earth be sea; and let the whelming tide

The lifeless limbs of luckless Damon hide: Farewell, ye secret woods and shady groves, Haunts of my youth, and conscious of my loves! From yon high cliff I plunge into the main; Take the last present of thy dying swain:

And cease, my silent flute, the sweet Mænalian strain."

Now take your turns, ye Muses, to rehearse His friend's complaints; and mighty magic verse.

Bring running water; bind those altars round With fillets; and with vervain strow the ground: Make fat with frankincense the sacred fires, To re-inflame my Daphnis with desires, 'Tis done, we want but verse. Restore, my charms, My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

"Pale Phœbe, drawn by verse, from Heaven de. scends;

And Circe chang'd with charms Ulysses' friends.
Verse breaks the ground, and penetrates the brake,
And in the winding cavern splits the snake.
Verse fires the frozen veins: restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

"Around his waxen image first I wind
Three woollen fillets of three colours join'd :
Thrice bind about his thrice-devoted head,
Which round the sacred altar thrice is led.
Unequal numbers please the gods: my charms,
Restore my Daphnis to my longing arms.

Come then, 'and leave the waves' tumultuous roar, Let the wild surges vainly beat the shore.

LYC. Or that sweet song I heard with such delight: The same you sung alone one starry night; The tune I still retain, but not the words.

MOER. Why, Daphnis, dost thou search in old To know the seasons when the stars arise?

records,

See Cæsar's lamp is lighted in the skies :
The star, whose rays the blushing grapes adorn,
And swell the kindly ripening ears of corn.
Under this influence graft the tender shoot;
Thy children's children shall enjoy the fruit.
The rest I have forgot, for cares and time
Change all things, and untune my soul to rhyme:
I could have once sung down a summer's sun,
But now the chime of poetry is done.

My voice grows hoarse; I feel the notes decay,
As if the wolves had seen me first to day.
But these, and more than I to mind can bring,
Menalcas has not yet forgot to sing.

[bow'r

LYC. Thy faint excuses but inflame me more; And now the waves roll silent to the shore. Husht winds the topmost branches scarcely bend, As if thy tuneful song they did attend: Already we have half our way o'ercome; Far off I can discern Bianor's tomb; Here, where the labourer's hands have form'd a Of wreathing trees, in singing waste an hour. Rest here thy weary limbs, thy kids lay down, We've day before us yet, to reach the town: Or if, ere night, the gathering clouds we fear, A song will help the beating storm to bear. And that thou may'st not be too late abroad, Singing, I'll ease thy shoulders of thy load. MER. Cease to request me; let us mind our Another song requires another day. When good Mernalcas comes, if he rejoice, And find a friend at court, I'll find a voice.

THE TENTH PASTORAL;

OR, GALLUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

[way;

THY sacred succour, Arethusa, bring,
To crown my labour: 'tis the last I sing.
Which proud Lycoris may with pity view;
The Muse is mournful, though the numbers few.
Refuse me not a verse, to grief and Gallus due.

So may thy silver streams beneath the tide,
Unmix'd with briny seas, securely glide.
Sing then my Gallus, and his hopeless vows;
Sing, while my cattle crop the tender browse.
The vocal grove shall answer to the sound,
And echo, from the vales, the tuneful voice rebound.
What lawns or woods withheld you from his aid,
Ye nymphs, when Gallus was to love betray'd;
To love, unpity'd by the cruel maid?
Nor steepy Pindus cou'd retard your course,
Nor cleft Parnassus, nor th' Aonian source:
Nothing that owns the Muses cou'd suspend
Your aid to Gallus, Gallus is their friend.
For him the lofty laurel stands in tears,

And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub ap-
Mænalian pines the godlike swain bemoan; [pears.
When spread beneath a rock he sigh'd alone;
And cold Lycæus wept from every dropping stone.
The sheep surround their shepherd, as he lies:
Blush not, sweet poet, nor the name despise:
Along the streams his flock Adonis fed,
And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed.
The swains and tardy neat-herds came, and last
Menalcas, wet with beating winter mast.
Wondering they ask'd from whence arose thy
Yet more amaz'd, thy own Apollo came. [flame;
Flush'd were his cheeks, and glowing were his eyes;
"Is she thy care? is she thy care?" he cries.
"Thy false Lycoris flies thy love and thee:
And for thy rival tempts the raging sea,
The forms of horrid war, and Heaven's inclemency."
Sylvanus came: his brows a country crown
Of fennel, and of nodding lilies, drown.
Great Pan arriv'd; and we beheld him too :
His cheeks and temples of vermillion hue.
Why, Gallus, this immoderate grief," he cry'd:
Think'st thou that love with tears is satisfy'd?
The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews;
The bees with flowery shrubs, the goats with
browse."

Unmov'd, and with dejected eyes he mourn'd;
He paus'd, and then these broken words return d:
"'Tis past; and pity gives me no relief:
But you, Arcadian swains, shall sing my grief:
And on your hills my last complaints renew;
So sad a song is only worthy you.
How light would lie the turf upon my breast,
If you my sufferings in your songs exprest?
Ah! that your birth and business had been mine;
To penn the sheep, and press the swelling vine!
Had Phyllis or Amyntas caus'd my pain,
Or any nymph, or any shepherd on the plain.
Though Phyllis brown, though black Amyntas were,
Are violets not sweet, because not fair?
Beneath the sallows, and the shady vine,
My loves had mix'd their pliant limbs with mine;
Phyllis with myrtle wreaths had crown'd my hair,
And soft Amyntas sung away my care.
Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound;
The woods, the fountains, and the flowery ground.
As you are beauteous, were you half so true,
Here could I live, and love, and die with only you.
Now I to fighting fields am sent afar,

And strive in winter camps with toils of war;
While you, (alas, that I should find it so!)
To shun my sight, your native soil forego,
And climb the frozen Alps, and tread th' eternal

snow.

Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare; Those are not limbs for icicles to tear,

[voice.

For me, the wilds and deserts are my choice;
The Muses, once my care; my once harmonious
There will I sing, forsaken and alone,
The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan.
The rind of every plant her name shall know;
And as the rind extends, the love shall grow.
Then on Arcadian mountains will I chase
(Mix'd with the woodland nymphs) the savage race.
Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds
To thrid the thickets, or to leap the mounds.
And now methinks o'er steepy rocks I go,
And rush through sounding woods, and bend the

Parthian bow:

As if with sports my sufferings I could ease,
Or by my pains the god of love appease.
My frenzy changes, I delight no more

On mountain tops to chase the tusky boar;

No game but hopeless love my thoughts pursue: Once more, ye nymphs, and songs, and sounding

woods, adieu."

Love alters not for us his hard decrees,
Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze;
Or Italy's indulgent heaven forego;
And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow.

Or when the barks of elms are scorch'd, we keep
On Meroë's burning plains the Libyan sheep.
In-Hell, and Earth, and Seas, and Heav'n above,
Love conquers all; and we must yield to love.
My Muses, here your sacred raptures end :
The verse was what I ow'd my suffering friend.
This while I sung, my sorrows I deceiv'd,
And bending osiers into baskets weav'd.
The song, because inspir'd by you, shall shine:
And Gallus will approve, because 'tis mine.
Gallus, for whom my holy flames renew
Each hour, and every moment rise in view:
As alders, in the spring, their boles extend;
And heave so fiercely, that the bark they rend.
Now let us rise, for hoarseness oft invades
The singer's voice who sings beneath the shades.
From juniper unwholsome dews distil,
That blast the sooty corn, the withering herbage
Away, my goats, away for you have brows'd

your fill..

[kill;

I CANNOT begin my address to your lordship, better than in the words of Virgil,

-Quod optanti Divûm promittere nemo Auderet, volvenda dies, en, attulit ultro. Seven years together I have concealed the longing which I had to appear before you: a time as tedious as Æneas passed in his wandering voyage, before he reached the promised Italy. But I considered that nothing which my meanness could produce, was worthy of your patronage. At last this happy

occasion offered, of presenting to you the best poem of the best poet. If I balked this opportunity, I was in despair of finding such another; and if I took it, I was still uncertain whether you would vouchsafe to accept it from my hands. It was a bold venture which I made, in desiring your permission to lay my unworthy labours at your feet. But my rashness has succeeded beyond my hopes: and you have been pleased not to suffer an old man to go discontented out of the world for want of that protection, of which he had so long been I have known a gentleman in disgrace, and not daring to appear before king Charles the Second, though he much desired it, At length he took the confidence to attend a fair lady to the court, and told his majesty, that under her protection he had presumed to wait on him. With the same humble confidence 1 present myself before your lordship, and attending on Virgil hope a gracious reception. The gentleman succeeded, because the powerful lady was his friend; but I have too much injured my great author, to expect he should intercede for me. I would have translated him; but, according to the literal French and Italian phrases, I fear I have traduced him. It is the fault of many a well-meaning man, to be officious in a wrong place, and do a prejudice, where he had endeavoured to do a service. Virgil wrote his Georgics in the full strength and vigour of his age, when his judgment was at the height, and before his fancy was declining. He had (according to our homely saying) his full swing at this poem, beginning it at about the age of thirty-five; and scarce concluding it before he arrived at forty. It is observed both of him and Horace, and I believe it will hold in all great poets: that though they wrote before with a certain heat of genius which inspired them, yet that heat was not perfectly digested. There is required a continuance of warinth to ripen the best and noblest fruits. Thus Horace, in his first and second book of Odes, was still rising, but came not to his meridian till the third. After which his judgment was an overpoise to his imagination; he grew too cautious to be bold enough, for he descended in his fourth by slow degrees, and in his Satires and Epistles, was more a philosopher and a critic than a poet. In the beginning of summer the days are almost at a stand, with little variation of length or shortness, because at that time the diurnal motion of the Sun partakes more of a right line, than of a spiral. The same is the method of nature in the frame of man. He seems at forty to be fully in his summer tropic; somewhat before, and somewhat after, he finds in his soul but small increases or decays. From fifty to threescore the balance generally holds even, in our colder climates: for he loses not much in fancy; and judgment, which is the effect of observation, still increases: his succeeding years afford him little more than the stubble of his own harvest: yet if his constittition be healthful, his mind may still retain a decent vigour; and the gleanings of that Ephraim, in comparison with others, will surpass the vintage of Abiezer. I have called this some where, by a bold metaphor, a green old age, but Virgil has given me his authority for the figure.

Jam senior; sed cruda Deo, viridisque senectus. Among those few who enjoy the advantage of a latter spring, your lordship is a rare example: who being now arrived at your great climacteric, yet give no proof of the least decay of your exeellent judgment, and comprehension of all things which are within the compass of human understanding. Your conversation is as easy as it is instructive, and I could never observe the least vanity or the least assuming in any thing you said: but a natural unaffected modesty, full of good sense, and well digested. A clearness of notion, expressed in ready and unstudied words. No man has complained, or ever can, that you have discoursed too long on any subject; for you leave in us an eagerness of learning more; pleased with what we heart, but not satisfied, because you will not speak so much as we could wish. I dare not excuse your lordship from this fault; for though it is none in you, it is one to all who have the happiness of being known to you. I must confess the critics make it one of Virgil's beauties, that having said what he thought convenient, he always left somewhat for the imagination of his readers to supply: that they might gratify their fancies, by finding more in what he had written, than at first they could, and think they had added to his thoughts when it was all there beforehand, and he only saved himself the expense of words. However it was, I never went from your lordship, but with a longing to return, or without a hearty curse to him who invented ceremonies in the world, and put me on the necessity of withdrawing, when it was my interest, as well as my desire, to have given you a much longer trouble. I cannot imagine (if your lordship will give me leave to speak my thoughts) but you have had a more than ordinary vigour in your youth. For too much of heat is required at first, that there may not too little be left at last. A prodigal fire is only capable of large remains: and yours, my lord, still burns the clearer in de

clining. The blaze is not so fierce as at the first, but the smoke is wholly vanished; and your friends who stand about you are not only sensible of a cheerful warmth, but are kept at an awful distance by its force. In my small observations of mankind, I have ever found, that such as are not rather too full of spirit when they are young, degenerate to dulness in their age. Sobriety in our riper years is the effect of a well-concocted warmth; but where the principles are only phlegm, what can be expected from the waterish matter, but an insipid manhood, and a stupid old infancy; discretion in leading strings, and a confirmed ignorance on crutches? Virgil, in his third Georgic, when he describes a colt, who promises a courser for the race, or for the field of battle, shows him the first to pass the bridge, which trembles under him, and to stem the torrent of the flood. His beginnings must be in rashness; a noble fault: but time and experience will correct that errour, and tame it into a deliberate and wellweighed courage; which knows both to be cautious and to dare, as occasion offers. Your lordship is a man of honour, not only so unstained, but so unquestioned, that you are the living standard of that heroic virtue: so truly such, that if I would flatter you, I could not. It takes not from you, that you were born with principles of generosity and probity; but it adds to you, that you have cultivated nature, and made those principles the rule and measure of all your actions. The world knows this, without my telling; yet poets have a right of recording it to all posterity.

Dignum laude virum, Musa vetat mori. Epaminondas, Lucullus, and the two first Cæsars, were not esteemed the worse commanders, for having made philosophy and the liberal arts their study. Cicero might have been their equal, but that he wanted courage. To have both these virtues, and to have improved them both, with a softness of manners, and a sweetness of conversation, few of our nobility can fill that character: one there is, and so conspicuous by his own light, that he needs not

Digito monstrari, et dicier hie est.

To be nobly born, and of an ancient family, is in the extremes of fortune, either good or bad; for virtue and descent are no inheritance. A long series of ancestors shows the native with great advantage at the first; but if he any way degenerate from his line, the least spot is visible on ermine. But to preserve this whiteness in its original purity, you, my lord, have, like that ermine, forsaken the common track of business,