Fair Liberty, Britannia's Goddess, rears, Her chearful head, and leads the golden years. And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood, VARIATIONS. Ver. 91. O may no more a foreign master's rage, Still spread, fair Liberty! thy heav'nly wings, Breathe plenty on the fields, and fragrance on the springs. P. Ver. 97. When yellow autumn summer's heat succeeds, And into wine the purple harvest bleeds,1 Both morning sports and ev'ning pleasures yields. 1 Perhaps the Author thought it not allowable to describe the season by a circumstance not proper to our climate, the vintage. P. Sudden they seize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize, 110 See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, 115 And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: With slaught'ring guns th' unweary'd fowler roves, VARIATIONS. Ver. 107. It stood thus in the first Editions: Pleas'd in the Gen'ral's sight, the host lie down The young, the old, one instant makes our prize, And o'er their captive heads Britannia's standard flies. Ver. 126. O'er rustling leaves around the naked groves. This is a better line. Warton. IMITATIONS. Ver. 115. 66 nec te tua plurima, Pantheu, Labentem pietas, vel Apollinis insula texit." Virg. Warburton. He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye; The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death: In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade, With looks unmov'd, he hopes the scaly breed, Now Cancer glows with Phoebus' fiery car: Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround, Rouze the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound. Th' impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein, And pawing, seems to beat the distant plain : VARIATIONS. Ver. 129. The fowler lifts his levell'd tube on high. IMITATIONS. P. Ver. 134. "Præcipites alta vitam sub nube relinquunt." Virg. Ver. 151. Th' impatient courser, &c.] Translated from Statius, "Stare adeo miserum est, pereunt vestigia mille Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum." These lines Mr. Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Fres noy's 160 Hills, vales, and floods appear already cross'd, NOTES. 165 170 Ver. 171. Dr. Johnson seems to have past too severe a censure on this episode of Lodona. A tale in a descriptive poet has certainly a good effect. See Thomson's Lavinia, and the many beautiful tales interwoven in the loves of the Plants. IMITATIONS. Warton. sup noy's Art of Painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says, "they would cost him an hour, if he had the leisure, to translate them, there is so much of beauty in the original;" which was the reason, I pose, why Mr. P. tried his strength with them. Warburton. Ver. 158. And earth rolls back,] He has improved his original, "terræque urbesque recedunt." Virg. Warburton. But no imitation of Virgil was here intended. Warton. (Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast, The Muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last.) Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be known, But by the crescent and the golden zone. She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care; 175 And with her dart the flying deer she wounds. 180 As from the God she flew with furious pace, Or as the God, more furious urg'd the chace. 190 NOTES. Ver. 179.] From the fourth book of Virgil, who copied it from Homer's beautiful figure of Apollo, Iliad, b. i. ver. 46. But, as Dr. Clark finely and acutely observes, even Virgil has lost the beauty and the propriety of the original. Homer says, the arrows sounded in the quiver because the step of the God was hasty and irregular, as of an angry person. Irati describitur incessus, paulo utique inæquabilior. Ver. 175. IMITATIONS. "Nec positu variare comas; ubi fibula vestem, Ver. 185, 188. "Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbæ, Warton. Ovid. Ovid. |