Eternal glory Him therefore betide!
Let every generous youth his praise proclaim! Who, wand'ring through the world's rude foreft wide, By him hath been y-taught his course to frame To Virtue's fweet abodes, and heav'n-afpiring Fame!
For this the FAIRY KNIGHT with anxious thought,
And fond paternal care his counsel pray'd;
And him of gentleft courtefy befought
His guidance to vouchsafe and friendly aid;
The while his tender offspring he convey'd,
Through devious paths to that secure retreat;
Where fage PÆDIA, with each tuneful maid,
On a wide mount had fix'd her rural feat,
'Mid flow'ry gardens plac'd, untrod by vulgar feet.
X.
And now forth-pacing with his blooming heir,
And that fame virtuous Palmer them to guide;
Arm'd all to point, and on a courser fair
Y-mounted high, in military pride,
His little train before he flow did ride.
Him eke behind a gentle Squire enfues,
With his young lord aye marching fide by fide,
His counsellour and guard, in goodly thews, Who well had been brought up, and nurs'd by every Mufé,
Thus as their pleafing journey they pursued,
With chearful argument beguiling pain;
Ere long defcending from an hill they view'd
Beneath their eyes out-ftretch'd a spacious plain,
That fruitful fhew'd, and apt for every grain,
For pastures, vines and flow'rs; while Nature fair
Sweet-fmiling all around with count'nance fain
Seem'd to demand the tiller's art and care,
Her wildness to correct, her lavish waste repair.
Right good, I ween, and bounteous was the foil,
Aye wont in happy season to repay
With tenfold ufury the peasant's toil.
But now 'twas ruin all, and wild decay;
Untill'd the garden and the fallow lay,
The sheep-fhorne down with barren » brakes o'ergrown The whiles the merry peasants sport and play,
All as the publick evil were unknown,
Or every publick care from every breaft was flown.
XIII.
'Aftonish'd at a scene at once fo fair
And fo deform'd; with wonder and delight
At man's neglect, and Nature's bounty rare,
In ftudious thought a-while the Fairy Knight,
Bent on that goodly lond his eager fight:
Then forward rufh'd, impatient to descry
What towns and castles there-in were empight;
For towns him seem'd, and castles he did spy,
As to th' horizon round he stretch'd his roaming eye.
XIV.
Nor long way had they travell'd, ere they came
To a wide ftream, that with tumultuous roar
Emongst rude rocks its winding courfe did frame.
Black was the wave and fordid, cover'd o’er
With angry foam, and ftain'd with infants' gore.
Thereto along th' unlovely margin stood
A birchen grove that waving from the shore,
Aye caft upon the tide its falling bud,
And with its bitter juice empoison'd all the flood.
XV.
Right in the centre of the vale empight,
Not distant far a forked mountain rose;
In outward form prefenting to the fight
That fam'd Parnaffian hill, on whose fair brows
The Nine Aonian Sifters wont repose;
Lift'ning to sweet Caftalia's founding stream,
Which through the plains of Cirrha murm'ring flows,
But This to That compar'd mote juftly seem
Ne fitting haunt for gods, ne worthy man's esteem.
For this nor founded deep, nor fpredden wide
Nor high up-rais'd above the level plain,
By toiling art through tedious years applied,
From various parts compil'd with studious pain,
Was erft up-thrown; if fo it mote attain,
Like that poetick mountain, to be hight
The noble feat of Learning's goodly train,
Thereto, the more to captivate the fight,
It like a garden fair most curiously was dight.
XVII.
In figur'd plots with leafy walls inclos'd,
By measure and by rule it was out-lay'd;
With fymmetry fo regular difpos'd,
That plot to plot ftill answer'd, fhade to fhade;
Each correspondent twain alike array'd
With like embellishments of plants and flow'rs,
Of statues, vases, spouting founts, that play'd
Through fhells of Tritons their ascending fhow'rs,
And labyrinths involv'd and trelice-woven bow'rs.
XVIII.
There likewife mote be feen on every fide
The yew obedient to the planter's will,
And shapely box of all their branching pride
Ungently fhorne, and with prepofterous skill
To various beafts and birds of fundry quill
Transform'd, and human fhapes of monftrous fize;
Huge as that giant-race, who, hill on hill
High-heaping, fought with impious vain femprize,
Despite of thund'ring Jove, to fcale the steepy skies.
XIX.
Alfe other wonders of the sportive shears
Fair Nature mif-adorning there were found;
Globes, fpiral columns, pyramids and piers
With sprouting urns and budding ftatues crown'd;
And horizontal dials on the ground
In living box by cunning artists trac'd ;
And gallies trim, on no long voyage bound,
But by their roots there ever anchor'd fast,
All were their bellying fails out-fpread to every blast.
O'er all appear'd the mountain's forked brows
With terraffes on terraffes up-thrown ;
And all along arrang❜d in order'd rows,
And vifto's broad, the velvet slopes adown
The ever-verdant trees of Daphne shone.
But aliens to the clime, and brought of old-
From Latian plains, and Grecian Helicon,
They shrunk and languish'd in a foreign mold,
By changeful fummers ftarv'd, and pinch'd by winter's cold.
* Emprize, enterprize, attempt.
All, ufed frequently by the old English poets for all-though
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