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VII.

Music the fierceft grief can charm,

And fate's feverest rage difarin:

Mufic can foften pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please :
Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the blifs above.

120

This the divine Cecilia found,

And to her Maker's praife confin'd the found.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,

125

Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear;
Borne on the fwelling notes our fouls afpire,
While folemn airs improve the facred fire;
And Angels lean from heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell,

130

To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv❜n;

His numbers rais'd a fhade from hell,

Her's lift the foul to heav'n.

NOTES.

VER. 131. It is obfervable that this ode, as well as that of Dryden, concludes with an epigram of four lines; a fpecies of witty writing as flagrantly unfuitable to the dignity, and as foreign to the nature of the lyric, as it is of the epic mufe.

WARTON.

IF we caft a tranfient view over the most celebrated of the modern lyrics, we may obferve that the ftanza of Petrarch, which has been adopted by all his fucceffors, displeases the ear, by its tedious uniformity, and by the number of identical cadences. And, indeed, to speak truth, there appears to be little valuable in Petrarch, except the purity of his diction. His fentiments, even of love, are metaphyfical and far-fetched. Neither is there much variety in his fubjects, or fancy in his method of treating them. Fulvio Tefti, Chiabrera, and Metaftafio, are much better lyric poets. When Boileau attempted an ode, he exhibited a glaring proof of what will frequently be hinted in the course of these notes, that the writer, whofe grand characteristical talent is fatiric or moral poetry, will never fucceed, with equal merit, in the higher branches of his art. In his ode on the taking Namur, are inftances of the bombaftic, of the profaic, and of the puerile; and it is no fmall confirmation of the ruling paffion of this author, that he could not conclude his ode, but with a severe stroke on his old antagonist Perrault, though the majefly of this fpecies of compofition is fo much injured by defcending to perfonal fatire.

"We have had (fays Mr. Gray) in our language, no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day: for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for fuch a task. That of Pope is not worthy of fo great a master. Mr. Mafon, indeed of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in fome of his chorufes above all in the last of Caractacus ;

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Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread?" &c...
Gray's Works, 4to. page 25.
WARTON.

The bard of Gray must be mentioned as ranking next to Dry

den's ode, if it be not fuperior.

TWO CHORUS'S

TO THE TRAGEDY OF BRUTUS',

CHORUS OF ATHENIANS.

YE

STROPHE I.

E fhades, where facred truth is fought;
Groves, where immortal Sages taught:

Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd,

And Epicurus lay infpir'd!

In vain your guiltlefs laurels stood
Unfpotted long with human blood.

War, horrid war, your thoughtful Walks invades,
And steel now glitters in the Muses' fhades.

NOTES.

5

Oh

a Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whofe defire these two Chorus's were compofed to supply as many wanting in his play. They were fet many years afterward by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house.

РОРЕ.

VER. 3. Where heav'nly vifions Plato fir'd, And Epicurus lay infpir'd!] The propriety of thefe lines arifes from hence, that Brutus, one of the Heroes of this play, was of the Old Academy; and Caffius, the other, was an Epicurean. WARBURTON.

I cannot be perfuaded that Pope thought of Brutus and Caffius, as being followers of different fects of philofophy. WARTON.

ANTISTROPHE I.

Oh heav'n-born fifters! fource of art!

Who charm the fenfe, or mend the heart; 10
Who lead fair Virtue's train along,
Moral Truth, and myftic Song!

To what new clime, what distant sky,
Forfaken, friendless, fhall ye fly?

Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic fhore?
Or bid the furious Gaul be rude no more?

STROPHE II.

When Athens finks by fates unjust,
When wild Barbarians spurn her duft;
Perhaps ev❜n Britain's utmost shore

Shall cease to blufh with ftranger's gore,
See Arts her favage fons controul,

And Athens rifing near the pole!

Till fome new Tyrant lifts his purple hand,
And civil madness tears them from the land.

15

20

NOTES.

Ye

VER. 12. Moral Truth, and myftic Song!] The conftruction is dubious. Does the poet address Moral Truth and Mystic Song, as being the Heaven-born Sifters; or does he address himself. to the Mufes, mentioned in the preceding line, and fo make Moral Truth and Myftic Song to be a part of Virtue's train? as Hefiod begins his poem.

Dr. Warburton's propofed correction is not confiftent with either conftruction, when he fays, the poet had expreffed himself better had he said Moral Truth in Myftic Song. Moral Truth, a single person, can neither be the Heaven-born Sifters, nor yet, alone, the train of Virtue. If it could, the emendation might have been spared, because this is no uncommon figure in poetry.

WARTON.

ANTISTROPHE II.

Ye Gods! what justice rules the ball?
Freedom and Arts together fall;
Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves,
And men, once ignorant, are flaves.

Oh curs'd effects of civil hate,

In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state!

Still, when the lust of tyrant pow'r fucceeds,
Some Athens perishes, fome Tully bleeds.

VER. 32. Some Athens]

NOTES.

25

30

This ode is of the kind which M. D'Alembert, judging like a mathematician, prefers to odes that abound with imagery and figures, namely, what he calls the Didactic ode; and then proceeds to give reafons for preferring Horace to Pindar as a lyric poet. Marmontel in his Poetic oppofes him. WARTON.

THESE chorufes are elegant and harmonious; but are they not chargeable with the fault, which Ariftotle imputes to many of Euripides, that they are foreign and adventitious to the subject, and contribute nothing towards the advancement of the main action? Whereas the chorus ought,

46 Μοριον είναι τε όλε, και συναγωνίζεσθαι,

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to be a part or member of the one whole, co-operate with, and help to accelerate the intended event; as is conftantly, adds the philofopher, the practice of Sophocles. Whereas these reflections. of Pope on the baneful influences of war, on the arts and learning, and on the universal power of love, feem to be too general, are not fufficiently appropriated, do not rise from the fubject and occafion, and might be inferted with equal propriety in twenty other tragedies. This remark of Ariftotle, though he does not himfelf produce any examples, may be verified from the following, among many others. In the Phoenicians of Euripides, they fing a long

and

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