This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear

Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too thefe golden keys, immortal boy!

This can unlock the gates of Joy;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the facred fource of fympathetic Tears.

III. 2.

Nor fecond he *, that rode fublime

Upon the feraph-wings of Ecftafy,

The fecrets of th' abyss to fpy.

† He pafs'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time:

* Milton.

+ "

fammantia mœnia mundi.”

Lucretius.

The

* The living throne, the fapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He faw; but, blasted with excefs of light,

Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's lefs prefumptuous car,

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two courfers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder-cloth'd, and long-refounding

pace.

-And

*For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheelsabove the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a fapphire ftone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord. Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28.

† Οφθαλμόν μὲν ἁμερσε· δίδες δ ̓ ἡδαν αοιδήν. HOM. OD. Meant to exprefs the ftately march and founding energy of Dryden's rhimes.

Haft thou clothed his neck with thunder?

Job.

III. 3..

III. 3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-ey'd Fancy, hov'ring o'er,

Scatters from her pictur'd urn

* Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

We have had in our language no other odes of the fublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's day: for Cowley, (who had his merit), yet. wanted judgment, ftyle, and harmony, for fuch a task. That of Pope is not worthy of fo great a man. Mr. Mafon indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in fome of his choruses, above all in the laft of Caractacus:

Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread? &c.

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

That the Theban Eagle bear,

Sailing with fupreme dominion

Through the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run

Such forms as glitter in the Mufe's ray,

With orient hues, unborrow'd of the fun :

Yet fhall he mount, and keep his distant way

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great.

* Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνικα θεον. Olymp. 2. Pindar compares himfelf to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it purfues its flight, regardless of their noise.

THE