BOOK THE FIRST.

"Attend, ye powers

Of musical delight!"

B. I. L. 6.

Whether Akenside ever attached himself to any musical instrument does not appear. But that he was passionately devoted to music, as a hearer, there can be little doubt. The love of sweet sounds is almost native to the poetical character. But we have a still better evidence to offer; and that is a note, appended to the original edition of his great poem, which has,-wherefore I am at a loss to conjecture,-been omitted in most of the subsequent editions.

"The word musical is here taken in its original and most extensive import; comprehending as well the pleasures, we receive from the beauty or magnificence of natural objects, as those which arise from poetry, painting, music, or any other of the elegant and imaginative arts. In which sense, it has already been used in our language, by writers of unquestionable authority."

From this note it appears, that Akenside attached the idea of music to every thing, that was agreeable to him, whether in Nature or in Art.

"But the love

Of Nature and the Muses bid explore,
Through secret paths, erewhile untrod of man,
The fair poetic region,-to detect

Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,
And shade my temples with unfading flowers,
Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess,
Where never poet gain'd a wreath before."

I. 48.

Partly from an exquisite passage in Lucretius:

"Nunc age, quod super est, cognosce, et clarius audi :
Nec me animi fallit, quam sit obscura; sed acri
Percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor,
Et simul incussit suavem mî in pectus amorem
Musarum: quo nunc instinctus, mente vigenti
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo: juvat integros adcedere funteis,
Atque haurire; juvatque novos decerpere flores,
Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam,
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Muse."

Virgil, too:

De Rerum Natura, Lib. I. v. 920,

"Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorem,
Sed me Parnassi deserta per ardua dulcis

Raptat Amor; juvat ire jugis, qua nulla priorum
Castaliam molli devertitur orbita clivo."

Georg. III. 289.

"Ere the radiant sun

Sprang from the east, or mid the vault of night
The moon suspended her serener lamp;

Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe,
Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore;
Then lived the ALMIGHTY ONE."

I. l. 59.

This fine passage seems to have been conceived from a few lines in a poem, containing an insufferable degree of bombast with some portion, and more imitation, of Miltonic fire. It is entitled the LAST DAY; written by J. BULKELEY, Esq. of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and published in 1720.

"Ere TITAN learn'd to shower his golden streams,
Ere clouds adorn'd the air, or stars the void,

Nature dropp'd dormant, in the bosom lost
Of savage chaos —

Rude rocks, misshapen hills, and globes unform'd,
Then rose the ALMIGHTY," &c.

Probably Akenside had read Georgius:

"Unus perfectus Deus est, qui cuncta creavit,
Cuncta fovens, atque ipse fovens super omnia in se;
Quis capitur mente tantum, qui mente videtur;"

&c. &c.

FRANC. GEORG. in Lib. de Hermo de Mund.*

*Beauties and Sublimitics of Nature, vol. iv. p. 163.

Thus Milton:

"Before the sun,

Before the heavens thou wert; and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters, dark and deep,
Won from the dark and formless infinite."

Thus Maximus Tyrius:-" God is the Father and Creator of every thing, that exists; before the sun he is; and before the heavens existed, to him a being."

In Ovid, we read:

"Ante mare et tellus, et, quod legit omnia, cœlum,

Unus erat toto Naturæ vultus," &c.

Met. I. 1. 5.

In the Psalms, xl. 2.-"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the worlds, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."

In the laws of Menu :-" This universe existed only in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, and as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the self-existing power appeared expanding his idea," &c.

Petrarch has a very extravagant idea:-" The beauty of Laura existed in the conception of the Divinity, before the creation of the universe."

"From the first

Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd—
His admiration; till in time complete

What he admired and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being."-

There is a singular coincidence of thought be tween this fine passage, and a beautiful one in a Hindoo hymn to "the Spirit of God," translated by Sir Win. Jones. There is, also, a similar idea in a fragment of Orpheus, quoted by Proclus; and another in the Edda of Sæmund.

"With wise intent,

The hand of Nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a different bias; and to each

Decrees its province in the common toil.”

Thus Lucretius:

"Quam vis doctrina politos

B. I. v.. 82.

Constituat pariter quosdam, tamen illa relinquit

Natura quoiusque animi vestigia prima.”

De Rer. Nat. III. 308,

"For as old MEMNON's image, long renown'd
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of TITAN's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains;-e'en so did Nature's hand,
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs of the nind."

I. l. 109.