Thy mighty Scholiast, whose unwearied pains To sound or sink in cano, O or A, Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke, Or chew'd by blind old Scholiasts o'er and o'cr. Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit; The body's harmony, the beaming soul, Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see, CONCLUSION OF THE DUNCIAD. More she had spoke, but yawn'd-all nature nods: What mortal can resist the yawn of gods? Churches and chapels instantly it reach'd; (St James's first, for leaden G preach'd) Then catch'd the schools; the hall scarce kept awake; The convocation gap'd, but could not speak : Lost was the nation's sense, nor could be found, The vapour mild o'er each committee crept ; The venal quiet, and entrance the dull; 'Till drown'd was sense, and shame, and right, and wrong- O sing, and hush the nations with thy song! In vain, in vain-the all-composing hour She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. For public flame, nor private, dares to shine; VOL. II. AMBROSE PHILIPS. [AMBROSE PHILIPS was born in Leicestershire in 1671, and died in his house at Vauxhall on the 18th of June, 1749. His Pastorals were published in 1709.] The reputation of Ambrose Philips has undergone some curious reverses. His Epistle to the Earl of Dorset, which Steele pronounced 'as fine a piece as we ever had,' and Goldsmith ‘incomparably fine,' seems to us as frigid and as ephemeral as its theme; the Distressed Mother, in which he made Racine speak with the voice of Rowe, no longer holds a place, even in memory, on the tragic stage; his translations of Sappho, once thought so brilliant and so affecting, seems to modern readers ludicrously mean, nor is criticism any longer concerned to decide whether the pastorals of Philips or of Pope are the more insipid. But while all these works, on which his contemporary reputation was founded, are forgotten, his odes to private persons, and in particular to children, which won him ridicule from his own age, and from Henry Carey the immortal name of Namby-Pamby, have a simplicity of versification and a genuine play of fancy which are now recognised as rare gifts in the artificial school of Addison in which he was trained. Ambrose Philips is moreover to be praised, not in these odes only, but in his poems generally, for an affectionate observation of natural beauty. EDMUND W. Gosse FROM THE ODE TO MISS CARTERET. By the next returning spring, When again the linnets sing, When again the lambkins play, Pretty sportlings ! full of May; When the meadows next are seen, Sweet enamel! white and green; And the year, in fresh attire, Welcomes every gay desire; Blooming on, shalt thou appear More inviting than the year, Fairer sight than orchard shows, Which beside a river blows. Yet another spring I see, And a brighter bloom in thee, And another round of time, Circling, still improves thy prime ; And, beneath the vernal skies, Yet a verdure more shall rise, Ere thy beauties, kindling show, In each finished feature glow; Ere, in smiles and in disdain, Thou assert thy maiden reign, Absolute to save or kill Fond beholders at thy will. Then the taper-moulded waist, With a span of beauty braced, And the swell of either breast, And the wide high-vaulted chest, And the neck so white and round, Little neck with brilliants bound, And the store of charms that shine Above, in lineaments divine, Crowded in a narrow space To complete the desperate face; |