author of the "Modest Confutation," (whom Milton believed to be the son of bishop Hall,)
Tu nimium felix intra tua moenia claudis
Quicquid formosi pendulus orbis habet.
Non tibi tot cœlo scintillant astra sereno,
Endymioneæ turba ministra deæ,
Quot tibi, conspicua formâque auroque, puellæ
Per medias radiant turba videnda vias.
Creditur huc geminis venisse invecta columbis
Alma pharetrigero milite cincta Venus;
Huic Cnidon, et riguas Simoentis flumine valles,
Huic Paphon, et roseam posthabitura Cypron.
Ast ego, dum pueri sinit indulgentia cæci,
Mania quàm subitò linquere fausta paro;
Et vitare procul malefidæ infamia Circes
Atria, divini molyos usus ope.
Stat quoque juncosas Cami remeare paludes,
Atque iterum raucæ murmur adire scholæ.
Interea fidi parvum cape munus amici,
Paucaque in alternos verba coacta modos.
ELEGY I. TO CHARLES DEODATI.
Ar length, my friend, the missive paper came,
Warm with your words, and hallow'd by your name:
Came from those fields which Cestrian Deva laves,
As prone he hurries to Iërne's waves.
I joy to find my friendship thus confest,
Though regions part us, foster'd in your breast:
I joy, believe me, that a distant shore
Owes me a comrade-and must soon restore.
Pleased with my native city, still I dwell
Where Thames's restless waters sink and swell.
Extinct my love of mansions, late denied,
No wish now leads me to Cam's reedy side:
Where genial shade the naked fields refuse;
(Ah most unfriendly to the courted Muse!)
confesses that he had no certain notice of his opponent, further than what he had gathered
And ill my soul a master's threats can bear,
With all the fretting of the pedant's war.
If this be banishment,-all cares aloof,
To live my own beneath a father's roof,
Still, let an idle world condemn or not,-
Mine be a truant's name, an exile's lot.
O had no weightier ills oppress'd the doom
Of the sad bard in Tomi's wintry gloom;
Great Homer's self had seen a rival lay,
And Maro had resign'd his victor bay:
For here the Muses lead my hours along,
And all my day is study or is song.
Then tired, I hasten where the scene commands
The crowded theatre's applauding hands:
Whether it's fictions show, with mimic truth,
A cautious parent, or a spendthrift youth;
A lover, or a peaceful son of war ;-
Or, bawling the base jargon of the bar,
Pompous, and pregnant with a ten-years' cause,-
The prating, puzzled pleader of the laws.
There oft a servant aids the doating boy
To elude his sire, and gain his promised joy:
There a new feeling oft the maiden proves;
Knows not 'tis love, but while she knows not, loves.
Or there high tragedy, in wild despair,
Lifts her red hand and rends her streaming hair.
I look and weep:-I weep-yet look again,
And snatch froni sorrow a delicious pain:
Whether the hapless youth, from love and life
Torn by strong fate, resign his virgin wife:
Or, hot from hell, the dire avenger stand,
Exerting o'er the wretch her Stygian brand:
Or heaven's dread wrath o'ertake, with tardy pace,
The crimes of Atreus in his bleeding race;
Or Creon's court atone the incestuous sire's embrace.
from the Animadversions ;" and Milton "He blunders at me for the rest, and
Nor always do I lose, 'mid walls and streets,
Spring's painted blossoms and refreshing sweets.
Sometimes beneath my suburb grove I stray,
Where blending elms dispense a chequer'd day:
Where passing beauties often strike my sight,
Diurnal stars that shoot a genial light.
With raptured gaze, ah! often have I hung
On forms of power to make old Saturn young:
Ah! often have I seen the radiant eye
Outblaze the gem, or Zembla's nightly sky;
The neck, more white than Pelops' ivory arm;
The nectar'd lip, with dewy rapture warm;
The front's resplendent grace; the playful hairs,
Compell'd by Love to weave his golden snares;
And the sweet power of cheek, where dimples wreathe,
And tints beyond the blush of Flora breathe.
Yield, famed Heroides! yield nymphs, who strove
With heaven's great empress for the heart of Jove!
Stoop, Persian dames! your structured foreheads low!
Ye Grecian, Dardan, Reman damsels, bow!
And thou, Tarpeian poet,* cease to boast
Thy Pompey's porch, and theatre's bright host.
Let foreign nymphs the fruitless strife forbear:
Beauty's first prize belongs to Britain's fair.
Imperial London! built by Trojan hands,
With towery head illustrious o'er the lands,
Happy-thrice happy!-what the sun beholds.
Of female charms thy favour'd wall infolds.
Not more the stars, whose beams illume thy night,
(Gay homagers of Luna's regent light,)
Than lovely maids, of faultless form and face,
Who o'er thy crowded paths diffuse a golden grace.
* Apol, for Smectymnuus, P. W. i. 213.
flings out stray crimes at a venture, which he could never, though he be a serpent, suck from any thing that I have written."
Notwithstanding this strong assertion, the hostility of the present generation has again brought the evidence of Milton to convict Milton, and to establish the charges
Hither, 'tis thought, came wafted by her doves,
With all her shafts and war, the Queen of loves:
For this her Gnidos, Paphos, Ida scorn'd,
And Cyprus, with her rosy blush adorn'd.
But I, ere yet her sovereign power enthralls,
Prepare to fly these fascinating walls:
To shun with moly's aid, divine and chaste,
The courts by Circe's faithless sway disgraced;
And, (fix'd my visit to Cam's rushy pools,)
To bear once more the murmur of the schools.
But thou accept, to cheat the present time,
My pledge of love, these lines constrain'd to rhyme.
As this translation was made during a period of peculiar solicitude, when my mind was fevered, or rather phrenzied with alternate hopes and fears respecting a life far dearer to me than my own; and was written, only by scraps, in the few less agitated moments which it was then my fortune to enjoy, it is perhaps the worst of those versions which I have had the confidence to offer to the public. But I will not now either replace it with another, or even essentially alter it. With me it is consecrated by associated ideas; and if the reader, to whom it now belongs, cannot tolerate its imperfections, he may pass it over with a superficial glance; and may either condemn or pity me as his judgment or his sympathy may predominate.
y From the " Animadversions" no suspicion of a charge against their writer could by any process be extracted.
In opposition to this pretended evidence stand the records of our author's university, and the force of his own positive declarations. By the former of these, which prove that he took his bachelor's degree as soon as it could be taken," it is made highly probable, if not absolutely certain that he lost no term; and by the latter we are assured that he was not only exempted from punishment during his continuance at Cambridge, but in that seat of learning was an object of affection and respect. The The passage, which I shall cite as worthy of the reader's attention, is in the "Apology for Smectymnuus." After mentioning the charge which we have already noticed, our author proceeds: "For which commodious lie, that he may be encouraged in the trade another time, I thank him: for it hath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge publickly with all grateful mind that more than ordinary favour and respect which I found above any of my equals at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the fellows of that college wherein I spent some years who at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many
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