Ye vig'rous fwains! while youth ferments your blood, And purer fpirits fwell the fprightly flood, 106 VARIATIONS. VER. 91. Oh may no more a foreign master's rage, With wrongs yet legal, curse a future age! Still fpread, fair Liberty! thy heav'nly`wings, Breath plenty on the fields, and fragrance on the springs. P. VER. 97. When yellow autumn fummer's heat fucceeds, And into wine the purple harvest bleeds3, The partridge feeding in the new-fhorn fields, Both morning sports and ev❜ning pleasures yields. Perhaps the Author thought it not allowable to defcribe the feafon by a circumftance not proper to our climate, the vintage. P. Some thoughtless Town, with ease and plenty bleft, Near, and more near, the closing lines invest; Sudden they seize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize, And high in air Britannia's standard flies. 110 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, 115 His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes, VARIATIONS. VER. 107. It flood thus in the first Editions: The young, the old, one instant makes our prize, VER. 115. IMITATIONS. nec te tua plurima, Pantheu, Labentem pietas, vel Apollinis infula texit. Virg. 124 (Beasts, urg'd by us, their fellow-beasts pursue, The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death: In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade, 137 With looks unmov'd, he hopes the scaly breed, And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed. Our plenteous ftreams a various race fupply, 141 The bright-ey'd perch with fins of Tyrian dye, VARIATIONS. VER. 126. O'er rustling leaves around the naked groves. IMITATIONS. VER. 134. Præcipites alta vitam fub nube relinquunt. Virg. G 2 The filver eel, in fhining volumes roll'd, The yellow carp, in scales bedrop'd with gold, Swift trouts, diverfify'd with crimson stains, 145 And pykes, the tyrants of the watry plains. Now Cancer glows with Phoebus' fiery car: The youth rush eager to the fylvan war, Swarm o'er the lawns, the foreft walks furround, Rouze the fleet hart, and chear the opening hound. Th' impatient courfer pants in ev'ry vein, And pawing, feems to beat the distant plain: 151 Hills, vales, and floods appear already crofs'd, And e'er he starts, a thousand steps are loft. 154 See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning steep, Rush thro' the thickets, down the valleys fweep, Hang o'er their courfers heads with eager speed, And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed. IMITATIONS. VER. 151. Th' impatient courfer, etc.] Tranflated from Statius, Stare adeo miferum eft, pereunt veftigia mille Ante fugam, abfentemque ferit gravis ungula campum. These lines Mr. Dryden, in his preface to his tranflation of Frefnoy's Art of painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says "they "would coft him an hour, if he had the leifure to tranflate them, "there is so much of beauty in the original;" which was the reafon, I fuppofe, why Mr. P. tried his ftrength with them. VER. 158. and earth rolls back] He has improved his original, terræque urbefque recedunt, Virg Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain, The Muse shall fing, and what she sings shall last.) Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be known, But by the crefcent and the golden zone. She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care; VER. 175. Nec pofitu variare comas; ubi fibula veftem, Ovid. |