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Beneath a willow, long forfook,

The fisher feeks his cuftom'd nook;

And bursting through the crackling fedge,
That crowns the current's cavern'd edge,
He startles from the bordering wood
The bafhful wild-duck's early brood.

O'er the broad downs, a novel race, Frifk the lambs with faultering pace,

V. 73. Beneath a willow, long forfook,

The fisher feeks his cuftom'd nook;]

The rhime from Milton :

Th' immortal mind, that hath for fook

Her manfion in this fleshly nook. Il. Penf. 91.

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And fee Comus, ver. 499. In strictness, here is a grammatical inaccuracy; the proper participle is "forfaken."

V. 74. his cuftom'd nook ;] The word "nook," a favourite with our poet, conveys the idea of a fnug comfortable retreat. See Beaumont and Fletcher in the Sea-voyage:

For I will fearch all nooks of this ftrange ifland. A&t iv. Where the precife meaning of the word is afcertained; as it feems to be used fynonymously with Shakspere's

In an odd angle of the ifle. Tempest, A&t i.

To which may be added that our poet in one of his Latin poems ufes "angulus" in this fenfe. Apud Hort. Wint.

V. 79. O'er the broad downs, a novel race,

Frifk the lambs with faultering pace,]

Probably from Lucretius:

-Hinc nova proles

Artubus infirmis teneras lafciva per herbas

Ludit, lacte mero mentes perculfa novellas. i. 260.

Gray also thus defcribes a fpring profpect in his Viciffitude:

And with eager bleatings fill

The fofs that skirts the beacon'd hill.

New-born flocks in ruftic dance

Frifking ply their feeble feet.

V. 79. O'er the broad downs, &c.] The following remark from Mr. Pye's Commentary on Ariftotle's Poetic is pleafing and ingenious Mr. Warton's Ode on Spring, he observes, is "one of the "most beautiful and original descriptive poems in our language, "and strongly fhews the force of poetical imitation in rendering "objects that have no beauty in themselves highly beautiful in "description. I suppose there are few scenes lefs pleasing and "picturefque in themfelves than the view from Catharine Hill,

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near Winchester, over the bare adjacent downs, and on the "Itchin at its feet, formed into a navigable canal, and creeping "through a wide valley of flat water-meadow, intersected often "at right angles by ftraight narrow water-courses. But hear the poet, and obferve how the scene appears in the picture he has "given of it, without changing the features of the original." (Then follows the quotation from ver. 79 to ver. 94.)

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"Besides the general beauty of the description, it must have a particular one in the eyes of every Wykehamift, as recalling the "idea of the days of early youth, the joys of which are ftrongly impreffed on the memory, while the hours of fchool restraint, "which fometimes confidered going to hills even as a task, are "but faintly traced." (P. 500.) I believe that there is great, truth in the laft obfervation. Warton however, it seems, thought lefs defpicably of this view, as we may judge from the following paffage in his defcription of the city, &c. of Winchester. "The "profpect from either of these hills (St. Giles's and Catharine"hill) is very delightful. The city interfperfed with trees and "gardens, magnificent ftructures, and venerable ruins, and the "country confifting of watered winding valleys, bordered by de"clivities of a prodigious height, gradually rifing into extenfive "downs, bounded by diftant woods, must charm every lover of "romantic and rural beauty." It is this profpect which he tranfferred into his Mons Catharina. It may be doubted after all

His free-born vigour yet unbroke
To lordly man's ufurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play,

Basking beneath the noon-tide ray,
And stretch'd among the daifies pied
Of a green dingle's floping fide:
While far beneath, where nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray
A thousand tumbling rills inlay

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whether fome of our poet's early propenfities did not influence him. in giving this defcription. The firft quoted teftimony is impartial; for Mr. Pye, I believe, is not a Wykehamift, nor particularly connected with Winchester.

V. 88. A green dingle-] Comus, ver. 311:

I know each lane and every alley green,

Dingle and bufhy dell of this wild wood.

The word" dingle" is ftill in ufe, and fignifies a valley between. two steep hills. See note on the above in Warton's edition of Milton.

V. 9o. Her boundless length of level meads,] He feems partial to the kind of expreffion. Ode to a Friend:

Thy length of landskips ever new.

Complaint of Cherwell:

Ver. 6.

Bids my loofe locks their gloffy length diffufe. Ver. 14. And in a poem by his father we find " his length of land." P. 186.

It came perhaps from Pope :

Deep through fair forefts and a length of meads.

Dyer fays more simply,

Lies a long and level lawn. Grong. Hill.

Iliad, B. xviii.

V. 92. A thousand tumbling rills] So Milton, in Comus, ver. 926:

With filver veins the vale, or pafs
Redundant through the sparkling grass.

From a thousand petty rills,

That tumble down the fnowy hills.

V. 92.

inlay] Mr. Headley refers to Paradife Loft:

underfoot the violet,

Crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay

Broider'd the ground. iv. 700.

See alfo Comus, ver. 21:

-fea-girt ifles,

That like to rich and various gems inlay

The unadorned bofom of the deep.

But in the text the land and water are transposed. Warton, who has remarked the resemblance of thought between the above and a paffage in Richard II. has not mentioned that a similar metaphor is used with the fame expreffion by Shakfpere:

Sit, Jeffica: look how the floor of heav'n

Is thick inlaid with patins of bright stars.

Ibid.

-rills

Merchant of Venice, A&t v.

With filver veins-]

Rivers have been often described under this metaphor. Drayton in the preface to his Poly-olbion, vol. ii. p. 644. speaks of “ deli"cate embroidered meadows, often veined with gentle gliding "brooks." Ifaac Walton in the Complete Angler:

The grounds divided into fundry veins,

The veins inclos'd with rivers running round. P. I. c. i.

Milton in Par. Reg.

Fair champain with less rivers intervein'd. iii. 257.

Drayton has the following fimile:

The rills which run in me are like the branched veins

In human bodies feen. Poly-olb. S. 21. vol. iii. p. 1055. G. Fletcher interchanges the metaphor, where he defcribes our Saviour with temples

Vein'd every where with azure rivulets. Chriff's Vict. ii. 10.

Yet, in these presages rude,

Midft her penfive folitude,

V. 92.

-inlay

95

With filver veins-]

Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess:

With veins enamell'd richly. A&t ii.

The whole paffage in the text is beautiful, but would have been more fo, had there been no confufion of metaphor:

V. 93.

-pafs

Redundant thro' the fparkling grafs.]

This object, which is extremely beautiful in nature, is not common in poetry; particularly the image of which a picture is conveyed by the sparkling grafs." I do not remember that it is any where fo nearly given as in Spenser :

Like to a difcolour'd snake, whose hidden snares

Through the greene gras his long bright burnifht back declares.

F. Q. III. xi. 28.

Some part of the expreffion in the text is from Milton, who defcribes a ferpent, with fpires

-that on the grafs

Floted redundant. Par. Loft, ix. 502.

In Ode for June 4, 1786, we have " Nile's redundant flood." Ver.40. ! V. 95. Yet, in these prefages rude, &c.] Thom fon thus concludes his defcription of a spring prospect :

the raptur'd eye

Hurries from joy to joy, and hid beneath

The fair profufion yellow Autumn fpies. Spring, iii. I quote the following paffage of Rouffeau's Emilius from Mr. Pye's Commentary on Ariftotle's Poetic, where it is introduced together with this paffage from the Ode before us: "To the "appearance of Spring, the imagination joins that of the feafons "which are to follow: to the tender buds that are perceived by "the eye, the imagination adds flowers, fruits, fhades, and fome"times the mysteries they may conceal. It brings into one point "of view the scenes that are to fucceed, and fees things lefs as they are than as it wishes them to be." P. 106. And it may be

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