Ev'n I more fweetly pafs my careless days,
Pleas'd in the filent fhade with empty praise;
Enough for me, that to the lift'ning fwains
First in these fields I fung the fylvan strains.

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A POEM purely defcriptive has certainly no claim to excellence. But a poem which is at once moral, historical, and picturesque; or, in other words, where defcription is made fubfervient to the delighted fancy, the cultivated understanding, and the improved heart, furely no real judge of Poetry would condemn. What beautiful and interefting pieces would fuch a decifion exclude! How many animating or tender fentiments, how many affecting incidents, how much interefting information, are often connected with local scenery! The genuine Poet furveys every prospect with the eye and enthusiasm of a Painter; but does he only paint? He connects with the scenery he defcribes, morality, antiquity, hiftory, the wildeft traditions in fancy, or the fweeteft feelings of tenderness, or patriotifm. If we feel interefted by the picture of an Arcadian landscape, which conveys its moral by the introduction of a fhepherd's tomb, and the infcription "Et ego in Arcadia ;” in like manner fhould we regard a descriptive poem, connected at the fame time with wider information, and diverfified with more pointed morality.

:

Pope in his Windfor Foreft has description, incident, and hiftory. The defcriptive part, however, is too general and unappropriate the incident, or ftory-part, is fuch as only would have been adopted by a young man, who had just read Ovid; but the hiftorical part is very judiciously and fkilfully blended, and the conclufion highly animated and poetical; nor can we be infenfible to its more lofty tone of verfification.

ODE

ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY,

MDCCVIII.

AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC.

• There are few Odes completely adapted to Mufic in our language. Milton, though a musician, has written nothing, I believe, entirely with this view; but happily his divine Penferofo and l'Allegro have found in Handel a compofer worthy of the Poetry. His mufic of "Let the bright Seraphim in burning row," is inadequate to the splendor of the expreffions, and fublimity of the subject. In general, all epithets that paint, fuch as " bright Seraphim"" burning row,". -are not fo proper for mufic; as fuch words, while they animate Poetry, impede and delay the fentiment intended to be conveyed by mufic. Dr. Morell, who wrote the words for Handel's Oratorios, has much greater merit than is generally imagined.-How affecting, and yet how excellently adapted to mufical expreffion, are his words:

"In sweetest harmony they liv'd!

Nor death their union could divide;
The pious fon ne'er left his father's fide,
But him defending, bravely died!”

VOL. I.

M

Who

Who alfo is there who can hear or read, without tears, the mufic

and words,

"Tears fuch as tender Fathers fhed,

Warm from my aged eyes defcend,
For Joy, to think when I am dead,

My fon fhall have mankind his friend?"

Dryden, in his Alexander's Feaft, and the fine Ode, "When Jubal ftruck the chorded shell,"

has found, like Milton, a musician worthy of thofe exalted strains. Collins' Ode to the Paffions ought not to be omitted, as highly calculated for mufical effect; but perhaps there is no compofition, where the mufic and the words fo much affist each other, as the fine Song of Purcell,

"Let the dreadful engines, &c."

particularly that one exquifite ftanza:

"Ah! where are now those flow'ry groves
Where zephyr's fragrant breath did play,
Where, guarded by a troop of loves,
The fair Lucinda sleeping lay.
There fung the nightingale and lark,
Around us all was fweet and gay,
We ne'er grew fad till it grew dark,

And nothing fear'd but fhort'ning day."

ODE FOR MUSIC

ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY*.

I.

DESCEND, ye Nine! defcend and fing;
The breathing inftruments inspire,

Wake into voice each filent ftring,
And sweep the founding lyre!

In a fadly-pleafing strain

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Let the warbling lute complain :

Let

NOTES.

*Our Author, as Mr. Harte told me, frequently and earnestly declared, that if Dryden had finished a tranflation of the Iliad, he would not have attempted one, after fo great a master: he might have faid, with even more propriety, I will not write a mufic ode after Alexander's Feaft; which the variety and harmony of its numbers, and the beauty, force, and energy of its images, have confpired to place at the head of modern Lyric compofitions. The fubject of Dryden's ode is fuperior to this of Pope's, because the former is hiftorical, and the latter merely mythological. Dryden's is also more perfect in the unity of the action; for Pope's is not the recital of one great action, but a defcription of many of the adventures of Orpheus.

The name and the genius of Cowley gave, for many years, a currency and vogue to irregular odes, called Pindaric. One of the best of which fpecies is that of Cobb, called, the Female Reign; and two of the worst, Sprat's Plague of Athens, and Bolingbroke's Almahide. Congreve is thought to be the first writer that gave a fpecimen of a legitimate Pindaric ode, with ftrophe, antistrophe, and epode, elucidated with a fenfible and judicious preface on the

Let the loud trumpet found,
"Till the roofs all around

The fhrill echos rebound:

While in more lengthen'd notes and flow,
The deep, majeftic, folemn organs blow.

Hark! the numbers foft and clear

Gently steal upon the ear;

Now louder, and yet louder rife,

And fill with spreading founds the skies; Exulting in triumph now fwell the bold notes, In broken air, trembling, the wild mufic floats;

NOTES.

fubject. But it does not seem to have been obferved, that, long before, Ben Jonfon had given a model of this very species of a regular Pindaric ode, addreft to Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morrifon, page 233 of his works, folio, in which he entitles eachftanza the turne, the counter-turne, and the ftand. Though Congreve's ode is not extraordinary, yet the difcourfe prefixed to it has a great deal of learning. Dr. Akenfide frequently mentioned to me, as one of the beft of the regular Pindaric odes, Fenton's to Lord Gower, 1716. Mr. Gray was of opinion, that the stanzas of these regular odes ought not to confift of above nine lines each, at the most. WARTON.

VER. 7. Let the loud trumpet found,] Warburton speaks too highly of the imitation of the founds here intended as an echo to the fenfe. The stanza exhibits too much the appearance of art: ars eft celare artem. The great difficulty of giving effect to those paffages where the found is meant to be an echo of the sense, is, in making it appear that the words naturally flow from the fubject. The lines "While in more lengthen'd, &c." to "And fill with fpreading founds the fkies," are finely expreffed, the harmony appears naturally to proceed with the fubject; but the two next lines, "Exulting in triumph, &c." give an idea of art, and befide they very inadequately represent the lofty variety of the organ. The four concluding lines are beautiful,

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