And carrying with you all the world can boast, O let my Muse her slender reed inspire, Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews, DAPHNIS. Hear how the birds, on ev'ry bloomy spray, STREPHON. Sing then, and Damon shall attend the strain, I'll stake yon' lamb, that near the fountain plays, DAPHNIS. And I this bowl, where wanton Ivy twines, DAMON. Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing, In your native shades.] Sir W. Trumbal was born in Windsor-Forest, to which he retreated, after he had resigned the post of Secretary of State to King William III. P. ΙΟ 15 20 25 30 35 40 2 purple year?] Purple here used in the Latin sense, of the brightest, most vivid colouring in general, not of that peculiar tint so called. Warburton. [Ver purpureum. Verg. Ecl. ix. 40.] STREPHON. Inspire me, Phoebus, in my Delia's praise DAPHNIS. O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize, Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, DAPHNIS. The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green, 45 50 55 How much at variance are her feet and eyes! 60 STREPHON. O'er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow, Blest Thames's shores the brightest beauties yield, DAPHNIS. Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves; If Windsor-shades delight the matchless maid, STREPHON. All nature mourns, the Skies relent in show'rs, 1 [Edmund Waller born 1605, died, 1687.] 2 Granville-] George Granville, afterwards Lord Landsdown, known for his poems, most of which he composed very young, and proposed Waller as his model. P. [Born about 1667 and connected by descent with the Stuart cause, George Granville remained in retirement during the reign of William III.; but entered Parliament in the reign of Queen Anne, and on the accession to power of the Tories in 1710 took office as secretary at war. In 1711 he was created lord Lansdowne of Bideford; and after undergoing temporary imprisonment for supposed connection with the Scottish insurrection of 1715, died in 1735. His poems, of which he says that they seem to begin where Mr Waller left off, though far unequal and short of so unimitable an original,' contain little or nothing deserving to be read; but though his Myra is forgotten, his own modest estimate of his poetic merits deserves to be remembered by the side of Pope's praises in the Dedication to Windsor Forest.] [See Ov. Metam. 11. 364—6.] DAPHNIS. All nature laughs, the groves are fresh and fair, STREPHON. In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love, DAPHNIS. Sylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May, STREPHON. Say, Daphnis, say, in what glad soil appears, A wond'rous Tree that sacred Monarchs bears1: Tell me but this, and I'll disclaim the prize, And give the conquest to thy Sylvia's eyes. DAPHNIS. Nay tell me first, in what more happy fields The Thistle springs, to which the Lily yields 2: And then a nobler prize I will resign; For Sylvia, charming Sylvia, shall be thine. DAMON. Cease to contend, for, Daphnis, I decree, The bowl to Strephon, and the lamb to thee: Blest Swains, whose Nymphs in ev'ry grace excel; 95 Blest Nymphs, whose Swains those graces sing so well! Now rise, and haste to yonder woodbine bow'rs, A soft retreat from sudden vernal show'rs, 1 A wondrous Tree that sacred Monarchs bears.] An allusion to the Royal Oak, in which Charles II. had been hid from the pursuit after the battle of Worcester. P. 2 The Thistle springs, to which the Lily yields,] alludes to the device of the Scots monarchs, the thistle worn by Queen Anne; and to the arms of France, the fleur de lys. P. [In the early part of Queen Anne's reign the royal arms were the same as those of her father. The union 100 with Scotland occasioned a change of armorial bearings; and they then appeared, England and Scotland impaled in the first and fourth quarter; France in the second; and Ireland in the third. On the great seal prepared in the year of the union (1706) we have England and Scotland only, and a new badge, the rose and thistle conjoined. The Scottish order of the Thistle was reestablished Dec. 31, 1703. Annals of England, 111. 173-4, and 182.] SUMMER. THE SECOND PASTORAL, OR ALEXIS. To DR. GARTH. A Shepherd's Boy (he seeks no better name) Led forth his flocks along the silver Thame1, Accept, O GARTH 3, the Muse's early lays, [Thame. Spenser repeatedly uses this form.] 2 The scene of this pastoral by the river's side; suitable to the heat of the season; the time noon. P. 3 Dr Samuel Garth, author of The Dispensary, was one of the first friends of the author, whose acquaintance with him began at fourteen or fifteen. Their friendship continued from the year 1703 to 1718, which was that of his death. P. [Dr afterwards Sir Samuel Garth, the author of the above-mentioned mock-heroic poem and a 10 15 20 distinguished physician, died in 1718. Pope, who in his Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, speaks of 'wellnatured' Garth as one who 'inflam'd him with early praise,' bestows a similar epithet upon him in a letter regretting his death, where he also pays him the singular compliment that 'if ever there was a good Christian without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr Garth.'] 4 The woods shall answer, and their echo ring] is a line out of Spenser's Epithalamion. P. [It is the refrain of that poem.] In those fair fields where sacred Isis glides, Oh! were I made by some transforming pow'r And yet my numbers please the rural throng, See what delights in sylvan scenes appear! And crown'd with corn their thanks to Ceres yield. [The Cam, as well as many other rivers whose names are formed from the same Celtic root, derives his appellation from the tortuousness of his course. See Isaac Taylor's Words and Places, p. 217] 2 Colin.] The name taken by Spenser in his Eclogues, where his mistress is celebrated under that of Rosalinda. P. [Colin in the Shepherd's Kalendar generally, but not always, appears to stand for Spenser. The ingenious author of the life prefixed to Church's edition of Spenser has invented a Kentish lady, Miss Rose Lynde, for the original of Rosalind. I |