Quà potes, atque avidas Parcarum eludere leges.
Amborum genus, et variâ sub sorte peractam
Describis vitam, moresque, et dona Minervæ;*
Emulus illius, Mycalen qui natus ad altam
Rettulit Æolii vitam facundus Homeri.
Ergo ego te, Cliûs et magni nomine Phobi,
Manse pater, jubeo longum salvere per ævum,
Missus Hyperboreo juvenis peregrinus ab axe.
Nec tu longinquam bonus aspernabere Musam,
Quæ, nuper gelidâ vix enutrita sub arcto,
Imprudens Italas ausa est volitare per urbes.
Nos etiam in nostro modulantes flumine cygnos
Credimus obscuras noctis sensisse per umbras,
Quà Thamesis late puris argenteus urnis
Oceani glaucos perfundit gurgite crines :
Quin et in has quondam pervenit Tityrus oras.

Sed neque nos genus incultum, nec inutile Phœbo,

Quà plaga septeno mundi sulcata Trione

* Manso became the biographer of his two friends Tasso and Marino.

▾ Mr. Warton is peculiarly unfortunate in his note on this passage. Not a word in the two lines of Milton is applicable to Plutarch, and every word is applicable to Herodotus. For the former no epithet can be conceived as more unhappily selected than facundus:' to the latter it is admirably appropriate. Of the two lives of Homer, which are extant, it is more probable that the Ionic was written by Herodotus, than that the Attic was the production of Plutarch. Mycale is a mountain not in Boeotia, as Mr. W. affirms, but in Ionia near the borders of Caria, the native country of Herodotus. Ovid, whom Mr. Warton quotes on this occasion, is no evidence respecting the situation of Mycale. In the cited passage his mountains are thrown together without any other reference than to that of metre ; and Mycale succeeds to the Phrygian Dindymus :

Dindymaque et Mycale, natusque ad sacra Citharon.

Chaucer, who travelled into Italy, is distinguished in Spencer's pastorals by the name of Tityrus.

Brumalem patitur longâ sub nocte Boöten.
Nos etiam colimus Phoebum, nos munera Phœbo
Flaventes spicas, et lutea mala canistris,

Halantémque crocum, perhibet nisi vana vetustas,
Misimus, et lectas Druidum de gente choreas.
Gens Druides antiqua, sacris operata deorum,
Heroum laudes, imitandaque gesta, canebant.
Hinc quoties festo cingunt altaria cantu,
Delo in herbosâ, Graiz de more puellæ,
Carminibus lætis memorant Corinëida Loxo,
Fatidicamque Upin, cum flavicomâ Hecaërge,
Nuda Caledonio variatas pectora fuco.

Fortunate senex, ergo, quacunque per orbem
Torquati decus, et nomen celebrabitur ingens,.
Claraque perpetui succrescet fama Marini;

Tu quoque in ora frequens venies plausumque virorum;
Et parili carpes iter immortale volatu.

Dicetur tum sponte tuos habitâsse penates

Cynthius, et famulas venisse ad limina Musas.

At non sponte domum tamen idem, et regis adivit

Rura Pheretiadæ, coelo fugitivus Apollo;

* Upis, Loxo, and Hecaërge are the names of the daughters of Boreas, who offer presents to Apollo in Callimachus's hymn to Delos.

ἀπὸ ξανθων αριμασπών

Ουπις τε λοξώ τε και ευαίων εκαεξγη
Θυγατέρες βορέαο,

Υμν εις Δήλον.

b The fable of Apollo, driven by Jupiter from heaven, and compelled to tend the flocks of Admetus king of Thessaly, is too well known to require a repetition of it. Mr. Warton has observed, before me, that Milton in this passage has imitated a beautiful chorus in the Alcestis. I wish, however, that Milton on this occasion had preserved the moderation of Euripides, and restricted to the animal creation the effects of Apollo's melodies: but perhaps no limitation of power need necessarily be prescribed to the lyre of a god.

Ille licèt magnum Alciden susceperat hospes.
Tantùm ubi clamosos placuit vitare bubulcos,
Nobile mansueti cessit Chironis in antrum,
Irriguos inter saltus, frondosaque tecta,
Pencium propè rivum: ibi sæpe sub ilice nigrâ,
Ad citharæ strepitum, blandâ prece victus amici,
Exilii duros lenibat voce labores.

Tum neque ripa suo, barathro nec fixa sub imo
Saxa stetere loco; nutat Trachinia rupes,
Nec sentit solitas, immania pondera, silvas;
Emotæque suis properant de collibus orni,
Mulcenturque novo maculosi carmine lynces.

Diis dilecte senex, te Jupiter æquus oportet
Nascentem, et miti lustrârit lumine Phoebus,
Atlantisque nepos; neque enim, nisi charus ab ortu
Diis superis, poterit magno favisse poetæ.
Hinc longæva tibi lento sub flore senectus
Vernat, et Æsonios lucratur vivida fusos;
Nondum deciduos servans tibi frontis honores,
Ingeniumque vigens, et adultum mentis acumen.
O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum,
Phœbæos decorâsse viros qui tam benè nôrit,
Siquandò indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,
Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem: <
Aut dicam invictæ socialì fœdere mensæ

Magnanimos heroas; et, O modo spiritus adsit,
Frangam Saxonicas Britonam sub Marte phalanges!
Tandem ubi non tacitæ permensus tempora vitæ,
Annorumque satur, cineri sua jura relinquam,
Ille mihi lecto madidis astaret ocellis;
Astanti sat erit si dicam, sim tibi curæ.
Ille meos artús, liventi morte solutos,

• Arthur in the old fables of Britain is supposed to be still living in the kingdom of the faeries: whence he is to return at the appointed season for the purposes of conquest and dominion.

The knights of the round-table.

Curaret parvâ componi mollitèr urnâ:
Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus,
Nectens aut Paphiâ myrti aut Parnasside lauri
Fronde comas, at ego securâ pace quiescam.
Tum quoque, si qua fides, si præmia certa bonorum,
Ipse ego cœlicolûm semotus in æthera divûm,
Quò labor et mens pura vehunt atque ignea virtus,
Secreti hæc aliquâ mundi de parte videbo,
Quantum fata sinunt; et, totâ mente serenum
Ridens, purpureo suffundar lumine vultûs,
Et simul æthereo`plaudam mihi lætus Olympo.

MANSO.

Once more the Muses to your praise aspire,
O Manso! dear to the Phœbean quire;
Graced by the God, and made his chosen pride,
Since his own Gallus and Mecenas died.

My Muse would throne you, were her power so great,
With bays and ivy clustring round your state.
Friendship once mingled your's and Tasso's fame;
And stamp'd his deathless pages with your name.
Marino next, the tender and refined,

Her child to you the conscious Muse assign'd:
He own'd you for a father, when his tongue

The Assyrian Goddess and her lover sung;

While on the languid tale the Ausonian maidens hung.
And your's were too the latest vows he breathed;

To you alone his ashes he bequeathed.

Nor you the manes of your friend deceived:
The docile brass his pleasing form received.
Struck we behold him smiling from the grave;
And feel your pious potency to save.
Nor, thus confined, your hallow'd cares contend
To snatch entire from death each tuneful friend.
Proudly with fate successful war to wage,
You bid them live, immortal in your page;

}

Their fortunes, virtues, talents you define,
Till all the man comes out in your design;
Like him, whose hand Æolian Homer drew,
To buried genius sensitively true.

Hail then! from Clio and your Phœbus hail!
Crown'd be your locks with wreaths that never fail!
Hail, honour'd sire! in homage to your worth.
A youth salutes you from the distant north.
Nor you this offering of a Muse despise,
Who, scarcely nursed beneath her arctic skies,
With hasty step has traced the Hesperian shore,
Your towns, your arts, your manners to explore.
We too can boast our swans, whose liquid throats
Cheer the dull darkness with their dulcet notes;
Where silver, Thames, in proud diffusion spread,
Pours his full flood on ocean's azure head.
We too can boast that Tityrus of yore,

To your gay clime the muse of Britain bore.

Phœbus avows us, and not rude our strain,
Though our night pause beneath the stormy wain:
We too have bow'd to Phœbus, and of old,
Our blushing orchards, and our fields of gold,
If ancient lore be true, have heap'd his shrine,
Brought by the fathers of the Druid line:
(The hoary Druid, in harmonious praise,
Hymn'd the blest Gods, and sung heroic days:)
Hence, round the festal altar, hand in hand,
The Grecian maids, on Delos' flowery strand,
To Loxo, Upis the prophetic fair,

And Hecaërge, with the golden hair,

Whose painted breasts their British birth betray,
Swell the glad chorus, and exalt the lay.

Blest Sire! where'er Torquato's victor Muse
Her glorious track to fame o'er earth pursues;
Wheree'er extends Marino's mild renown,

Your name, and worth, and honours shall be known:

In the same car of triumph as you ride,

Still shall you share the plaudit and the pride: