into ale, has had its poetical revenge in the pages of Burns and Francis Beaumont. The latter has a ballad, entitled "The Ex-ale-tation of Ale," and, if I remember, another preferring it to sack. Burns' gallant Ex-ale-tations are well known. I have had the pleasure of hearing a celebrated poet of his country sing " the barley-bree," with good emphasis and discretion, at one o'clock in the morning, the moon being in the proper condition, and the hearers rejoicing. By the same token, he flung his wig that afternoon at a wag who sung an extempore song on him, crying out, "You dog, I'll throw my laurels at you." He never said a better thing than this; nor would he or his readers be a bit the worse off, if he thought fit to be a little less staid in public. He would write oftener and more boldly. The common Italian for beer, is birra. In the sea-ports, you K are often startled with a piece of plain English over the door-" Good Beer." Note 33, page 14. She that in the ground would hide her, "I speak of English cyder," says Redi, "because in our days it is more esteemed than any other." His friend Magalotti afterwards translated Phillips's poem. The Italians have a propensity to dull didactic poems, glad, it would seem, to make any kind of connexion between fancy and matter of fact. Note 34, page 16. Manna from heav'n upon thy tresses rain, Thou gentle vineyard whence this nectar floats. A parody upon the first verse of the famous sonnet of Petrarch, written against the vices of papal Avignon. "Fiamma dal ciel sulle tue treccie piove." "Fire out of heaven upon thy tresses rain." Here is an instance, in the word tresses, of the bold metaphor which Redi has spoken of. He traces it to the Latin; and it is the only daring metaphor I am acquainted with, which the Latin poets have ventured upon, unassisted by the Greek. The spirit of it however is Greek. The Latin transferred the idea of human hair to the trees; the Greeks transplanted the beauty of tendrils and flowers to the human head. See Catullus and Horace; the Greek writers, great and small; and Junius de Pictura Veterum, (Rotterdam, p. 228, 1694) where the reader may revel in the luxuriance of golden and hyacinthine locks through eight folio pages. Note 35, page 16. May streams of milk, a new and dulcet strain, Placidly bathe thy pebbles and thy roots. A pleasing fancy suggested by the ancient metaphors about milk and honey. But the author refers more particularly to the Bacchæ of Euripides. There is a certain pastoral richness in heaping together these images of vineyards and dairies. The original is Druda, an old Italian word; which answered to our mistress, and had the same good and bad signification. The masculine, Drudo, was equally applicable in the sense of paramour or preux chevalier, like our word gallant. Druerie, signifying courtship or a mistress in our old poets, is from the same root, and is retained in the name of Drury. Drury-Lane does not know how well it is entitled. It will be pardoned me, at this distance from home, and in gossiping notes like these, if I mention that the Drury family, into which Donne married, gave its name to the Lane; and that the poet, at one period, lived there in the family mansion. Note 37, page 17. But with what fresh wine, and glorious, Shall our beaded brims be winking, For an echoing toast victorious? |