"Vain man! 'tis heaven's prerogative
"To take, what firft it deign'd to give,

66

Thy tributary breath:

"In awful expectation plac'd,

"Await thy doom, nor impious haste

100

"To pluck from God's right hand his inftruments of death."

66

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 mistrust

Of heaven winning;

Nor (tho' the most unjuft)

Despaire 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.

ODE VII.

SENT TO A FRIEND,

ON HIS LEAVING A FAVOURITE VILLAGE IN HAMPSHIRE.

Ан

(Written in 1750. Published in 1777.)

mourn, thou lov'd retreat! No more Shall claffic steps thy fcenes explore! When morn's pale rays but faintly peep O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy steep,

Sent to a Friend,] To his brother, Dr. Jofeph Warton, who at the time of this Ode being written, 1750, was juft leaving his refidence at Wynflade, near Basingstoke, and going abroad with Charles Duke of Bolton. I am informed of this circumftance by Mr. John Warton. The firft Sonnet contains an allufion to the fame event.

V. 3. morn's pale rays] Virgil speaks of pallida Aurora, Georg. I. 446. Thomfon's Spring, ver. 20. the pale morn.

V. 3. When morn's pale rays but faintly peep

O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy fteep,]

Of the morning peeping out of the eaft, (fee Comus, ver. 140. Warton's note) an instance is brought from Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdefs, and Drayton's Mufes Elysium: but the expreffion is common in Spenfer and Fairfax. I will just add, that the language in the paffage of Milton above alluded to,

Ere the blabbing eaftern Scout

The nice morn on the Indian steep
From her cabin'd loophole peep,

Who now fhall climb its brows to view
The length of landscape, ever new,
Where Summer flings, in careless pride,
Her varied vefture far and wide!

Who mark, beneath, each village-charm,
Or
grange, or elm-encircled farm:

10

is most probably derived from Fairfax in his tranflation of Taffo; where describing a centinel, he says,

There in a turret fat a foldier ftout,

To watch, and at a loophole peeped out.

vii. 100.

V. 6. The length of landscape, ever new,] Dyer's Grongar

Hill:

Ever charming, ever new,

When will the landscape tire the view!

V. 9. Who mark, beneath, each village-charm,

Or grange, or elm-encircled farm :]

This is repeated, as Mr. Headley observes, in the Ode on Approach

of Summer:

O! every village-charm beneath,

The Smoke that mounts in azure wreath !

O beauteous rural interchange,

The fimple fpire, the elmy grange! Ver. 265.

Let me add here, that the elm was a favourite tree with Warton, no less than with Milton; at least if we may judge from his repeated notices of it:

Infeription in a Hermitage, ver. 3:

And while, to fhade my lowly cave,

Embowering elms their umbrage wave.

Ode for June 4, 1790, ver. 27:

That breathes o'er Afhton's elmy vale.

Sonnet VII. ver. 2:

-Where Epfom fpreads

Mid intermingling elms her flow'ry meads.

The flinty dove-cote's crowded roof,
Watch'd by the kite that fails aloof:
The tufted pines, whose umbrage tall
Darkens the long-deferted hall:
The veteran beech, that on the plain
Collects at eve the playful train:
The cot that smokes with early fire,
The low-roof'd fane's embofom'd spire!

Pleafures of Melancholy, ver. 141:

the waving elms

That, hoar thro' time, and rang'd in thick array,

Enclose with stately row fome rural hall.

Ode on Summer, ver. 100:

Beneath her elm the milkmaid chants.

Ibid. ver. 115:

Round ancient elm, with humming noise,

Full loud the chaffer-fwarms rejoice.

15

In which two cafes the selection of circumstances is arbitrary: they

are not local descriptions.

Monf. Catharina, ver. 78:

Turritum, a dextrâ, patulis caput extulit ulmis

Wiccamici domus alma chori.

And In Horto Script:

Vos O quæ fociis plicata ramis

Ulmi brachia panditis gemellæ.

V. 18. The low-roof'd fane's embofom'd fpire!] L'Allegro,

ver. 77:

Towers and battlements it fees

Bofom'd high in tufted trees.

Warton has "The tufted pines, whofe umbrage tall

Darkens the long-deserted hall,

above, ver. 13. And " bofom'd cot," in Ode on Summer, ver. 112.

Who now fhall indolently stray
Through the deep foreft's tangled way;
Pleas'd at his cuftom'd task to find
The well known hoary-treffed hind,
That toils with feeble hands to glean
Of wither'd boughs his pittance mean!
Who mid thy nooks of hazle fit,
Loft in fome melancholy fit;
And listening to the raven's croak,
The distant flail, the falling oak!

Who, through the funfhine and the shower,
Defcry the rainbow-painted tower?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckow's vernal lay?

V. 20. Through the deep foreft's tangled way;] Of the word tangle," which is Miltonic, our poet furnishes several inftances.

V. 22. The well known hoary-treffed hind,] As Gray notices the "boary-headed fwain," in his Elegy. Пohioxporapos, Gr. See Anthol. III. xii. 18.

The Hamlet, ver. 50:

The filver crown of treffes boar.

Shakfpere, in Midf. N. Dr. has "boary-beaded frofts."

V. 26. Loft in fome melancholy fit;

And liftening to the raven's croak,]

In Ode on Summer, ver. 214:

The raven wakes my tranced mind.

See alfo Comus, ver. 547:

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy.