ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. ON MODERN POETRY. I. -PHINEAS FLETCHER TELL ELL me, ye muses, what our father-ages Have left succeeding times to play upon : What now remains unthought on by those sages, Where a new muse may try her pinion? What lightning heroes, like great Peleus' heir, (Darting his beams through our hard frozen air,) May stir up gentle heat, and virtue's wane repair? Who knows not Jason? or bold Tiphys' hand, He makes isles continent, and all one land; O'er seas, as earth, he march'd with dangerous art: 10 He rides the white-mouth'd waves, and scorneth all Those thousand deaths wide gaping for his fall: He death defies, fenced with a thin, low, wooden wall. Who has not often read Troy's twice sung fires, Who has not heard th' Arcadian shepherd's quires, With sweeter voice and never equal❜d skill, Chanting their amorous lays unto a Roman quill? And thou, choice wit, love's scholar, and love's master, And now of late th' Italian fisher swain Sits on the shore to watch his trembling line, |