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 just 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 fpeaks 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 steep,]

Of the morning peeping out of the east, (fee Comus, ver. 140. Warton's note) an inftance is brought from Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdefs, and Drayton's Mufes Elyfium: 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 eastern Scout

The nice morn on the Indian fteep
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 :

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is moft probably derived from Fairfax in his tranflation of Taffo; where defcribing a centinel, he fays,

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 obferves, 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 lefs than with Milton; at least if we may judge from his repeated notices of it:

Infcription 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 Ashton'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, whofe 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 fpire!

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 noife,

Full loud the chaffer-fwarms rejoice.

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In which two cafes the felection 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, whose umbrage tall

Darkens the long-deferted hall,

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

Who now shall indolently stray
Through the deep foreft's tangled way;
Pleas'd at his custom'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 funshine and the shower,
Defcry the rainbow-painted tower?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckow's vernal lay?

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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. Пooxporapos, Gr. See

Anthol. III. xii. 18.

The Hamlet, ver. 50:

The filver crown of tresses 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 pleafing fit of melancholy.

Who mufing waste the fummer hour,
Where high o'er-arching trees embower
The graffy lane, fo rarely pac'd,
With azure flow'rets idly grac'd!
Unnotic'd now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers crofs the lawn;
Nor fond attention loves to note
The wether's bell from folds remote:
While, own'd by no poetic eye,
Thy penfive evenings fhade the fky!

For lo! the Bard who rapture found In every rural fight or found;

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V. 34. Where high o'er-arching trees embower] Par. Loft, i. 304:

-Where th' Etrurian fhades

High over-arch'd embower.

But fee Warton's note on Il Penferofo, ver. 133.

V. 43. For lo! the Bard who rapture found
In every rural fight or found;]

From Par. Loft, as Mr. Headley remarks:

From each thing met conceives delight,

The fmell of grain, or tedded hay, or kine,

Or dairy, each rural fight, each rural found.. ix. 449.

Some of the circumftances that follow are judicioufly introduced in allufion to a poem by Dr. Warton, intitled Stanzas on taking the air after a long illness:

Yet once more, O ye rivers, fhall I lie

In fummer evenings on your willow'd banks,
And, unobferv'd by paffing fhepherd's eye,
View the light Naiads trip in wanton ranks.
Each rural object charms fo long unfeen, &c.