Thy hand unfeen the fecret death shall bear, Blunt the weak fword, and break the oppreffive

spear.

Where'er we turn, by fancy charm'd, we find Some sweet illusion of the cheated mind. Oft, wild of wing, she calls the foul to rove With humbler nature, in the rural grove; Where swains contented own the quiet scene, And twilight fairies tread the circled green: Dress'd by her hand, the woods and vallies smile, And Spring diffusive decks the inchanted ifle.

O more than all in powerful genius blest, Come, take thine empire o'er the willing breast! Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall feel, Thy fongs fupport me, and thy morals heal. There every thought the poet's warmth may raise, There native musick dwells in all the lays. O might fome verse with happiest skill perfuade Expressive Picture to adopt thine aid! What wondrous draughts might rise from every

page!

What other Raphaels charm a distant age!

Methinks even now I view some free design, Where breathing Nature lives in every line : Chaste and fubdued the modeft lights decay, Steal into fhades, and mildly melt away. -And fee, where Antony, in tears approv'd, Guards the pale relicks of the chief he lov'd: O'er the cold corse the warrior feems to bend, Deep funk in grief, and mourns his murder'd friend! Still as they press, he calls on all around,

Lifts the torn robe, and points the bleeding wound.

But who is he, whose brows exalted bear A wrath impatient, and a fiercer air? Awake to all that injur'd worth can feel, On his own Rome he turns the avenging steel. Yet shall not war's infatiate fury fall (So heaven ordains it) on the destin'd wall. See the fond mother, 'midft the plaintive train, Hung on his knees, and prostrate on the plain! Touch'd to the foul, in vain he strives to hide The fon's affection in the Roman's pride: O'er all the man conflicting passions rise, Rage grafps the sword, while Pity melts the eyes.

Methinks I see with Fancy's magick eye,
The fhade of Shakspeare, in yon azure sky.
On yon high cloud behold the bard advance,
Piercing all Nature with a fingle glance:
In various attitudes around him stand

The Paffions, waiting for his dread command.
First kneeling Love before his feet appears,
And musically fighing melts in tears.
Near him fell Jealousy with fury burns,
And into storms the amorous breathings turns;
Then Hope with heavenward look, and Joy draws

near,

While palfied Terror trembles in the rear.
Such Shakspeare's train of horror and delight, &c.
Chriftopher Smart's Prologue to Othello, 1751.

What are the lays of artful Addifon,
Coldly correct, to Shakspeare's warblings wild?
Whom on the winding Avon's willow'd banks
Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe

* Coriolanus. See Mr. Spence's dialogue on the Odyffey.

To a close cavern: (still the shepherds shew
The facred place, whence with religious awe
They hear, returning from the field at eve,
Strange whisp'ring of sweet musick through the air:)
Here, as with honey gather'd from the rock,
She fed the little prattler, and with fongs
Oft footh'd his wond'ring ears; with deep delight
On her soft lap he fat, and caught the sounds.

The Enthusiast, or the Lover of Nature, a Poem,
by the Rev. Jofeph Warton.

From the Rev. Thomas Warton's Address to the Queen on her Marriage.

Here, boldly mark'd with every living hue, Nature's unbounded portrait Shakspeare drew : But chief, the dreadful group of human woes The daring artist's tragick pencil chose; Explor'd the pangs that rend the royal breast, Those wounds that lurk beneath the tissued vest.

Monody, written near Stratford-upon-Avon.

Avon, thy rural views, thy pastures wild,
The willows that o'erhang thy twilight edge,
Their boughs entangling with the embattled fedge;
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fring'd,
Thy furface with reflected verdure ting'd;
Sooth me with many a pensive pleasure mild.
But while I muse, that here the Bard Divine
Whose sacred dust yon high-arch'd ifles inclose,
Where the tall windows rise in stately rows,
Above th' embowering shade,
Here first, at Fancy's fairy-circled shrine,
Of daifies pied his infant offering made;

Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe,
Fram'd of thy reeds a fhrill and artless pipe:
Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled,
As at the waving of fome magick wand;
An holy trance my charmed spirit wings,
And aweful shapes of leaders and of kings,
People the bufsy mead,

Like spectres swarming to the wisard's hall;
And flowly pace, and point with trembling hand
The wounds ill-cover'd by the purple pall.
Before me Pity seems to stand,

A weeping mourner, fmote with anguish fore,
To fee Misfortune rend in frantick mood
His robe, with regal woes embroider'd o'er.
Pale Terror leads the vifionary band,
And sternly shakes his fceptre, dropping blood.

By the fame.

Far from the fun and fummer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: The dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This pencil take (the faid) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;
Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the facred fource of sympathetick tears.'

Gray's Ode on the Progress of Poefy.

3 An ingenious person, who fent Mr. Gray his remarks anonymoufly on this and the following Ode foon after they were published, gives this stanza and the following a very just and wellexpressed eulogy: "A poet is perhaps never more conciliating than

1

Next Shakspeare fat, irregularly great,
And in his hand a magick rod did hold,
Which vifionary beings did create,
And turn the fouleft dross to purest gold:
Whatever spirits rove in earth or air,
Or bad, or good, obey his dread command;
To his behests these willingly repair,
Those aw'd by terrors of his magick wand,
The which not all their powers united might with-

stand.

Lloyd's Progress of Envy, 1751.

Oh, where's the bard, who at one view
Could look the whole creation through,
Who travers'd all the human heart,
Without recourse to Grecian art?
He scorn'd the rules of imitation,
Of altering, pilfering, and tranflation,
Nor painted horror, grief, or rage,
From models of a former age;
The bright original he took,
And tore the leaf from nature's book.
'Tis Shakspeare.-

Lloyd's Shakespeare, a Poem.