Isis congenial greets thy faithful fway,
Nor fcorns to bid a statesman grace her lay.
For 'tis not hers, by false connections drawn,
At fplendid Slavery's fordid fhrine to fawn; 70
Each native effort of the feeling breast,
To friends, to foes, in equal fear, fuppreft:
'Tis not for her to purchase or pursue
The phantom favours of the cringing crew :
More useful toils her ftudious hours engage, 75
And fairer leffons fill her fpotlefs page:
Beneath ambition, but above difgrace,
With nobler arts fhe forms the rifing race:
With happier talks, and lefs refin'd pretence,
In elder times, fhe woo'd Munificence
To rear her arched roofs in regal guife,
And lift her temples nearer to the fkies;
Princes and prelates ftretch'd the social hand,
To form, diffuse, and fix, her high command:
From kings fhe claim'd, yet fcorn'd to feek, the
prize,

80

85

From kings, like GEORGE, benignant, juft, and

wife.

V. 74. the cringing crew:] The fame epithet is ufed by Dr. Jofeph Warton, in his tranflation of the Georgies:

whofe portals proud

Each morning vomit out the cringing crowd. ii. 560. V. 81. her arched roofs] Milton's Hymn on the Nativity: No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. St. 19.

Lo, this her genuine lore.-Nor thou refufe This humble present of no partial Muse

From that calm bower, which nurs'd thy thought

ful youth

90

In the pure precepts of Athenian truth;
Where first the form of British Liberty
Beam'd in full radiance on thy musing eye;
That form, whofe mien fublime, with equal

awe,

In the fame fhade unblemish'd Somers faw: 94
Where once (for well fhe lov'd the friendly grove
Which
every claffic grace had learn'd to rove)

V. 87. Lo, this her genuine lore.-Nor thou refufe
This humble present of no partial Muse]

From Pope's Epistle to Jervas:

This verse be thine, my friend.-Nor thou refufe

This from no venal or ungrateful Mufe.

V. 89. From that calm bower, which nurs'd thy thoughtful youth] Trinity College, Oxford: in which alfo Lord Somers, and James Harrington, author of the Oceana, were educated. W. "Dr. Bathurst (says his biographer Warton, p. 81.) always boasted with fingular fatisfaction the education of fo learned and eloquent a lawyer, so fincere a patriot, and fo elegant a scholar as Lord Somers: who, to use the remarkable words of a late agreeable biographer, (Horace Walpole) was one of thofe divine men, who, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly. A new part of his character, his generous and uninterested patronage of literature, appears in the benefaction he gave on this occafion, (of rebuilding the college chapel) which was one hundred pounds." The handfome folio edition of Paradise Loft, published by fubfcription in 1688, was owing to his recommendation and encouragement.

Her whispers wak'd fage Harrington to feign The bleffings of her visionary reign;

That reign, which, now no more an empty theme, Adorns Philofophy's ideal dream,

100

But crowns at last, beneath a GEORGE's fmile, In full reality this favour'd ifle.

ON THE

MARRIAGE OF THE KING.

(Written in 1761.)

TO HER MAJESTY.

WHEN first the kingdom to thy virtues due
Rofe from the billowy deep in diftant view;
When Albion's ifle, old Ocean's peerless pride,
Tower'd in imperial state above the tide;
What bright ideas of the new domain
Form'd the fair profpect of thy promis'd reign!

5

And well with conscious joy thy breast might beat That Albion was ordain'd thy regal feat: Lo! this the land, where Freedom's facred rage Has glow'd untam'd through many a martial age. Here patriot Alfred, stain'd with Danish blood, Rear'd on one bafe the king's the people's good:

V. 11. Here patriot Alfred, ftain'd with Danish blood,] He is called in the Triumph of Ifis," the Patriot King," ver. 212. In Pope's Windfor Foreft,

And filent Darent, ftain'd with Danifb blood. Ver. 348. Another river had been fimilarly diftinguished in Drayton's 32d Idea: And the old Lea brags of the Danifb blood. Vol. iv. p. 1271. I will here take occafion to remark, with that deference which I

Here Henry's archers fram'd the stubborn bow,
That laid Alanzon's haughty helmet low;

Here wak'd the flame, that ftill fuperior braves 15
The proudest threats of Gaul's ambitious slaves:
Here Chivalry, ftern school of valour old,
Her nobleft feats of knightly fame enroll'd;

must always pay, on a fubject of tafte, to my late highly-valued mafter, that the judgment which he has given (Effay on Pope, vol. i. 26.) on a comparison of the paffage, in which the above line from Pope occurs, with a fimilar description from Milton, is to me aftonishing, as it is fo different from the general nature of his remarks. He confiders Pope's to be fuperior. And yet, not to infift on the infipidity which prevails throughout Pope's, excepting only in the character of the Darent, or on Milton's having for the most part diftinguifhed his rivers by a fingle appropriate epithet, what in particular is there in the former fit to be mentioned with the Severn, the Dee, or the Humber of the latter? I do not specify the Trent, as Dr. Warton does not deny Milton's fuperiority in that inftance. But the three, which I have mentioned, immediately fill the mind with romantic ideas of old British traditions and druidical rites, with which they are connected. They are like the fabulofus Hydafpes of Horace. Except in the inftance above, Pope has not a word of all this; and furely the absence of it is not very well compenfated by fuch pretty imagery as the "dark streams of Cole laving his flow'ry iflands," and "the milky wave of the chalky Wey."

V. 14. Alanzon's haughty helmet] So Spenfer, defcribing Prince

,Arthur:

His baughtie belmet horrid all with gold. F. 2. I. vii. 31. The reader will remember the glove, which (in the language of honeft Fluellen) "his majefty is take out of the belmet of Alençon," when they were down together in the battle of Agincourt. Hen. V. A&t iv.

V. 17. Here Chivalry, stern school of valour old, &c.] Alluding