Here arm'd with silver bows, in early dawn,
Her buskin'd Virgins trac'd the dewy lawn.
Above the rest a rural nymph was fam'd,
Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona nam'd;
(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;
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;

A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,

170

175

And with her dart the flying deer she wounds. 180
It chanc'd, as eager of the chase, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd,
Pan saw and lov'd, and burning with desire
Pursu'd her flight, her flight increas'd his fire.

NOTES.

Ver. 171.] Dr. Johnson seems to have passed 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.

Ver. 179.] From the fourth book of Virgil, who copied it from Homer's beautiful figure of Apollo. Iliad, b. i. v. 76. 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 inæquebilior.

Ver. 175.

IMITATIONS.

"Nec positu variare comas; ubi fibula vestem,
Vitta coercuerat neglectos alba capillos.”

Ovid.

185

Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Nor half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When through the clouds he drives the trembling
doves;

190

195

As from the God she flew with furious pace,
Or as the God more furious, urg'd the chase.
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;
Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach'd her as she run,
His shadow lengthen'd by the setting sun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,
Nor could Diana help her injur'd maid.
Faint, breathless, thus she pray'd, nor pray'd in vain;
"Ah Cynthia! ah-tho' banish'd from thy train,
Let me, O let me, to the shades repair,

201

My native shades-there weep, and murmur there."
She said, and melting as in tears she lay,
In a soft, silver stream dissolv'd away.
The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps,
For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps;

205

Ver. 185, 186.

IMITATIONS.

"Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbæ,
Ut solet accipiter trepidas agitare columbas."

Ver. 193, 196.

"Sol erat a tergo: vidi præcedere longam

Ante pedes umbram; nisi si timor illa videbat.
Sed certe sonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens

Crinales vittas afflabat anhelitus oris."

Most of the circumstances in this tale are from Ovid.

Ovid.

210

Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore,
And bathes the forest where she rang'd before.
In her chaste current oft the Goddess laves,
And with celestial tears augments the waves.
Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
The headlong mountains and the downward skies.
The wat❜ry landskip of the pendant woods,
And absent trees that tremble in the floods;
In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen,
And floating forests paint the waves with green,
Through the fair scene roll slow the ling'ring

streams,

215

220

Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.
Thou, too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods;
Where tow'ring oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear.

Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
Nor Po so swells the fabling Poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine which visits Windsor's fam'd abodes,
To
grace the mansion of our earthly Gods:

NOTES.

Ver. 207. Still bears the name] The River Loddon.

225

230

Ver. 211. Oft in her glass, &c.] These six lines were added after the first writing of this. poem. P.

And in truth they are but puerile and redundant.

Ver. 227.] Very ill expressed; especially the river's filling the lays.

Nor all his stars above a lustre shew,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
Where Jove, subdu'd by mortal passion still,
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

Happy the man whom this bright Court approves,
His Sov'reign favours, and his country loves: 236
Happy next him, who to these shades retires,
Whom Nature charms, and whom the Muse in-

spires:

Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,
Successive study, exercise, and ease.

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:
With chemic art exalts the min'ral pow'rs,
And draws the aromatic souls of flow'rs:

240

Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high; 245
O'er figur'd worlds now travels with his eye;
Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er :
Or wand'ring thoughtful in the silent wood,
Attends the duties of the wise and good,

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 233. It stood thus in the MS.

And force great Jove, if Jove's a lover still,
To change Olympus, &c.

Ver. 235.

Happy the man, who to these shades retires,
But doubly happy, if the Muse inspires!
Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please;
But far more blest, who study joins with ease.

NOTES.

250

P..

Ver. 236.] All this passage clearly resembles one in Philips's Cider, Book i. towards the end.

T'observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature and regard his end;

Or looks on heav'n with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home!
Such was the life great Scipio once admir'd,
Thus Atticus, and TRUMBAL thus retir❜d.

255

261

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess, Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless, Bear me, oh bear me to sequester'd scenes, The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens; To Thames's banks which fragrant breezes fill, Or where ye Muses sport on COOPER'S HILL.

NOTES.

Ver. 251. T observe a mean,] This is marked as an imitation of Lucretius in the first, and all editions of Warburton; but erroneously; the passage is in the second book of Lucan, v. 381.

Ver. 259.] "Here, you cannot but be sensible (says the ingenious Mr. Webb) how the enthusiasm is tamed by the precision of the couplet, and the consequent littleness of the scenery. How different from Milton !

Cease I to wander," &c. Par. Lost. 3d B. The following four lines, v. 267, are far more poetical, but these again must yield to an enchanting passage in Thomson's Summer, p. 39, of the first edition, and which is altered for the worse in the later editions.

Ver. 263.] Denham, says Dr. Johnson, seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated Local Poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation. Cooper's Hill, if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults; the digressions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the