The fields are ravifh'd from th' induftrious fwains, VARIATIONS. VER. 72. And wolves with howling fill, &c.] ༡༠ The author thought this an error, wolves not being common in England at the time of the Conqueror. NOTES. P. VER. 65. The fields are ravish'd, &c.] Alluding to the deftruction made in the New Foreft, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. P. I have the authority of three or four of our beft antiquarians to fay, that the common tradition of villages and parishes, within the compass of thirty miles, being destroyed, in the New Forest, is abfolutely groundlefs, no traces or veftiges of fuch being to be discovered, nor any other parish named in Doomsday Book, but what now remains. Of late years, fome minute enquiries have been made on this fubject, by accurate and well-inform'd judges, who are clearly of this opinion. The Prefident Henault has given us a more amiable idea of our Norman Conqueror than is here exhibited. VER. 71.] This image of the fox is in the poems afcribed to Offian. IMITATIONS. VER. 65. The fields are ravish'd from th' industrious swains, Tranflated from "Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis," an old monkifh writer, I forget who. P. In Camden's Britannia, first edition, in the account of Somersetshire it is faid of Edgar, Templa Deo, Templis Monachos, Monachis dedit agros. Aw'd Aw'd by his Nobles, by his Commons curst, Whom ev❜n the Saxon fpar'd, and bloody Dane, 80 NOTES. VER. 74.] A fine remain of ancient art and ancient customs, a piece of tapestry, faid to be the work of Queen Matilda, is annually exhibited in the cathedral church of Bayeux, in Normandy, reprefenting the expedition of William the Conqueror, and containing a most minute picture of every part of that event, from his landing in England to the battle of Haftings. An engraving of it is given in the tenth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres. VER. 80.] In St. Foix's entertaining hiftorical Effays on Paris, it is related, p. 95. tom. 5. that just as the body of William I. was going to be put into the grave, a voice cried aloud, "I forbid his interment. When William was only Duke of Normandy, he feized this piece of Land from my father, on which he built this abbey of St. Stephen, without making me a recompence, which I now demand." Prince Henry, who was prefent, called out the man, who was only a common farrier, and agreed to give him an hundred crowns for this burial place. Except the former conqueft of England by the Saxons, (fays Hume, vol. i.), who were induced, by peculiar circumftances, to proceed even to the extermination of the natives, it would be difficult to find in all history, a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more complete fubjection of the ancient inhabitants. VER. 81. fecond hope] Richard, fecond fon of William the Conqueror. W. Lo Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart, Bleeds in the foreft like a wounded hart. 85 91 Ye vig'rous fwains! while youth ferments your blood, And purer spirits fwell the fprightly flood, VARIATIONS. VER. 91. O may no more a foreign master's rage, Still fpread, fair Liberty! thy heav'nly wings, Breathe plenty on the fields, and fragrance on the springs. P. NOTES. VER. 83. The moment Walter Tyrrel had shot him, without fpeaking of the accident, he inftantly haftened to the fea fhore and embarked for France, and from thence hurried to Jerufalem to do penance for his involuntary crime. The body of Rufus was found in the foreft by a countryman, whose family are still faid to be living near the fpot, and was buried, without any pomp, before the altar of Winchefter cathedral, where the monument ftill remains. Though the Monkifh hiftorians, who hated him, may perhaps have exaggerated his vices, yet he feems really to have been a violent, prodigal, proud, perfidious, ungenerous, and tyrannical prince. There was however fomething of magnificence in his building the Tower, Weftminfter-hall, and London-bridge. IMITATIONS. VER. 89. "Miraturque novas frondes et non fua poma." Virg. Now 95 ΙΟΙ Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset, VER. 97. VARIATIONS. When yellow autumn fummer's heat fucceeds, Pleas'd in the Gen'ral's fight, the host lie down NOTES. VER. 93.] These rural sports of setting, shooting, and fishing, are not, it must be allowed, fufficiently appropriated, and are suited as much to any other place as to the forelt of Windfor. The ftag chafe is by no means fo full, fo animated, and fo circumftantial, as that of Somerville. a Perhaps the Author thought it not allowable to defcribe the feason by a circumstance not proper to our climate, the vintage. P. Sudden Sudden they feize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize, ITO See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. Ah! what avail his gloffy, varying dyes, His purple creft, and fcarlet-circled eyes, The vivid green his fhining plumes unfold, 115 120 His painted wings, and breaft that flames with gold? 124 With flaught'ring guns th' unwearied fowler roves, When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves; VARIATIONS. VER. 126. O'er ruftling leaves around the naked groves. This is a better line. NOTES. VER. 115. In the art of inserting reflections, moral or pathetic, in defcriptive poems, no writer has excelled Gray, in his enchanting Elegy written in a country church-yard; one of the chief beauties in any piece of local poetry, when fuch reflections naturally rife out of the scene and subject before us. VER. 124. The philofophy, and the fentiment, and the expreffions of this line, and of line 50, beafts were backward to be flaves, are all blameable. VER. 115. IMITATIONS. nec te tua plurima, Pantheu, Labentem pietas, vel Apollinis infula texit." Virg. W. Certainly not an imitation of this paffage in Virgil. Where |