II. Fountains, wandering brooks, soft rills, And all the woods with tender murmuring fills, The sole the solemn business of the day. Through all the groves the glades and thickets run, And nothing see but love on all their banks along: A thousand flowers of different kinds, The neighbouring meads adorn, Whose sweetness snatch'd by flying winds III. loves have lain. The verdant banks no other prints retain, But to be wanton, soft and gay, In flow'ry wreaths with rosy garlands crown'd, In myrtle shades are hung, As conquerors when the victory's won Dispose their glorious trophies all around-Soft winds and echoes that do haunt each grove, Still whisper and repeat no other songs than love, Which round about the sacred bower they sing.Where every thing arrives that's sweet and ravishing. One of the latest, perhaps the very last of Aphra Behn's productions, is a little Ode, now before the writer, with the following title :-"A Pindaric Poem to the Reverend Doctor Burnet, on the honour he did me of enquiring after me and my muse, by Mrs. A. Behn, London, 1689." Doctor Burnet and Mrs. Aphra Behn! Socrates after meditating and teaching wisdom all the day, retired in the evening to enjoy the society, the wit, the accomplishments, and the beauty of the divine Aspasia. Why might not the British sage "enquire after" the "incomparable," the "excellent," the "lovely," the "witty" Astrea,* "Whose wit would recommend the homeliest face, Whose beauty make the dullest humour please." There is however something ludicrous in the grave divine, historian, and future bishop, enquiring after Mrs. A, Behn and her wanton muse, That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist. Unless we might in charity suppose that this dignified personage, who had been so successful in converting the reprobate Earl of Rochester, wished to extend the sphere of his usefulness, by attempting to make a convert of Mrs. Behn also; but if we may judge from the poem itself, this could not be the object he had inview by his enquiry:-What says the lady? Till now my careless muse no higher strove But never durst like Cowley tune her strings But since by an authority divine, She is allowed a more exalted thought; She will be valued now as current coin, Whose stamp alone gives it the estimate Though out of an inferior metal made. All these epithets were lavished on Mrs. Behn by her contemporaries. But oh! if from your praise I feel What must I suffer when I cannot pay And make my stubborn muse your just commands obey. That stops me in the thriving course; The breeze that wafts the crowding uations o'er, On the forsaken barren shore, To sigh with echo and the murmuring wind. And all I hear is mirth in loudest strains : The fruitful happy soil can only see But am forbid by fate's decree To share the triumph of the joyful victory. All we can collect from this is, that Doctor Burnet wished the lady's muse to be employed on a nobler subject, to sing, doubtless, the exploits of the great Nassau the deliverer; but her " loyalty" forbad ;—she was then a Jacobite, and did not approve of the glorious revolution. Near the end of this poem she speaks, alas! of her "indigence and lost repose." CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorset. BORN 1637.-DIED 1705. "The best good natured Man, with the worst natured Muse.” (DRYDEN.) The Earl of Dorset was in the early part of his life the companion of Buckingham, Rochester, Sedley, and the other dissipated noblemen and wits of Charles the Second's court. Like Sedley, he made some amends for the follies of his youth, by joining the party which opposed the violent measures of James the Second, and promoting the revolution which placed William the Third upon the British throne. He was rewarded with a place about the person of that monarch, and lost his life in consequence. Being exposed, with the king, in an open boat, for several hours in rough and tempestuous weather, his health declined, and he died in the 68th year of his age. With the place this nobleman occupies in the British History, or the British Peerage, we are not concerned, but it may perhaps be permitted us to express an opinion respecting the place he has been allowed to fill among the poets of his country; for he was certainly indebted to the patronage he afforded to men of genius, and to bis rank, rather than to his poetic. deserts. Dryden, who requires all his reputation as a poet to palliate his total want of dignified and honourable feeling as a man, repaid in abject flattery what he obtained from him in patronage. Prior followed, and drew his character in glowing colours. Pope ranks him above all the wits and geniuses of his age; and finally, Johnson enrolls him among the classical poets of his country.There is however less excuse for Pope and Johnson, than for Dryden and Prior; personal intimacy and the influence of living rank may palliate in a degree, the absurd flatteries of the latter, but the praise bestowed by Pope shewed total want of judgment and of taste, and absolute forgetfulness of his own just but severe remark: "But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines ! And each exalted stanza teems with thought!" And Johnson, the rigid moralist and unsparing critic, should not have admitted into a collection of national poetry, a very few pieces, in which some po tion of wit is blended with a much greater portion of gross personal abuse, and undisguised indelicacy, though the author was a nobleman. SONG. Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight. Love is a calmer gentler joy Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace; Her Cupid is a blackguard boy, That runs his link full in your face. |