To griefs congenial prone, More wounds than nature gave he knew, In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own. Then with not o'er his earthy tomb Nor oh! forbid the twisted thorn, 55 With fpring's green-fwelling buds to vegetate anew. What though no marble-piled buft Adorn his defolated duft, 60 V. 60. With fpring's green-fwelling buds to vegetate anew.] A Greek poet thus beautifully addreffes the earth, to whom he had confided his deceafed wife; Ανθ' ὧν συ πρκεια κατα κροταφου πολιοίο Κεισο, και ειαρινας ανθοκομει βοτανας. V.61. What though no marble-piled buft Adorn his defolated duft, &c.] Anthol. III. vi. 32. See Pope's lines in his charming and pathetic though highly im moral apology for Suicide: What tho' no weeping Loves thy afhes grace, Nor polifh'd marble emulate thy face, What tho' no facred earth allow thee room, Nor ballow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb, With speaking sculpture wrought? Pity fhall woo the weeping Nine, To build a vifionary fhrine, 65 Hung with unfading flowers, from fairy regions brought. What though refus'd each chaunted rite? To touch the fhadowy fhell: And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom 70 Of Laura, loft in early bloom, In many a penfive pause shall seem to ring his knell. To footh a lone, unhallow'd fhade, Yet ball thy grave with rifing flow'rs be dreft, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast. See alfo Shakfpere in Cymbeline, Act iv. Gray's Elegy, and Collins's fixth Ode. V. 68. Here viewless mourners fhall delight To touch the fhadowy fhell: &c.] Collins in much the fame manner : By Fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unfeen their dirge is fung. "Viewless" is a Miltonic word: fee Comus, ver. 92. and note. "Thy viewless chariot." Pl. of Mel. ver. 115. V. 74. This votive dirge-]" Votive" means what is given in compliance with a vow. Milton tranflates Horace's tabulâ votivá, Within an ivied nook : Sudden the half-funk orb of day More radiant fhot its parting ray, 75 And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention took. "Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praife; 66 Gay Fancy gives her vest to flow, 80 "Unless Truth's matron-hand the floating folds 64 confine. Juft heaven, man's fortitude to prove, "Permits through life at large to rove 85 in my vow'd picture. Hor. B. I. Od. v. And by an easy tranfition it is made to fignify, given as an offering of duty, affection, or the like, though not in consequence of a specific vow. V. 78. And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention took.] Mr. Headley refers to Browne's Britannia's Paftorals : When fodainly a voice as fweet as cleare With words divine began entice his eare, &c. And from a heavenly quire this ditty heard. B. i. S. 5. Gray in The Bard, III. iii. speaks of A voice as of the cherub choir. V. 85. Juft heaven, man's fortitude to prove, Permits through life at large to rove, &c.] Is not this "The tribes of hell-born Woe: "Yet the fame power that wifely fends Religion's golden fhield to break th' embattled foe. "Her aid divine had lull'd to reft 90 "Yon foul felf-murtherer's throbbing breast, "And stay'd the rising storm : "Had bade the fun of hope appear "To gild his darken'd hemifphere, 95 "And give the wonted bloom to nature's blafted form. truly elevated and religious fentiment fuperior to one somewhat fimilar in Gray's Progrefs of Poefy? Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour and penury, the racks of pain, Difeafe, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, fad refuge from the storms of Fate! And juftify the laws of Jove. Say has he given in vain the heav'nly Mufe? &c. . But Religion is a better compenfation than the Mufe for the ills of life. Patience his field bad lent to guard his breaft. x. 7. In Paradife Loft, vi. 102. the Angels are reprefented with "golden "Shields." V. 92. Yon foul felf-murtherer] Browne fpeaks of suicide under Vain man! 'tis heaven's prerogative “To take, what first it deign'd to give, Thy tributary breath: "In awful expectation plac'd, "Await thy doom, nor impious hafte 100 "To pluck from God's right hand his inftru"ments of death." the appellation of "that foule offence." Brit. Paft. I. i. And in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdefs, it is called "that foul unmanly “guilt." Act iv. V. 97. "Vain man!] See Britannia's Paftorals: Vaine man! doe not miftruft Of heaven winning; Nor (tho' the most unjust) Defpaire for finning, &c. This paffage is referred to by Mr. Headley, who also remarks the general resemblance between this Ode and Browne's Brit. Paft. Book I. Song v. V. 102. —his inftruments of death.] Spenfer of a Suicide, With which fad inftrument of hafty death. F. Q. I. ix. 30. But compare the whole of the ninth Cant. of the first Book, in which will be found several hints improved on in "The Suicide." The whole adventure between the Red- Crofs Knight and Despair is in Spenfer's very firft ftile; but is in fome of its parts, particularly the one before us, copied and greatly improved from Higgins's Legend of Queene Cordila, in the Mirrour of Magiftrates. See Hift. of Eng. Poet. iii. 262. |