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High Epidaurus urges on my speed,
Fam'd for his hills, and for his hories breed:

From hills and dales the chearful cries 'rebound; • For ccho hunts along, and propagates the found.'

Lo, yonder doth earl Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scotifh fpears,
All marching in our fight.

All men of pleafant Tividale,
Faft by the river Tweed, &c.'

DRYDEN.

The country of the Scotch warriors, defcribed in thefe two laft verfes, has a fine romantic fituation, and affords a couple of fmooth words for verfe. If the reader compares the foregoing fix lines of the fong with the following Latin verfes, he will fee how much they are written in the fpirit of Virgil.

Adverfi campo apparent, haftafque reductis
Protendunt longè dextris; & fpicula vibrant➡
Quique altum Prænefte viri, quique arva Gabine
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, & rofcida rivis
Hernica faxa colunt:qui rofea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Cafperiamque colunt, Forulofque & flumen Himelle:
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt-

Advancing in a line they couch their spears

Prænefte fends a chofen band,

With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land:
Befides the fuccours which cold Anien yields:
The rocks of Hernicus-befides a band,
That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land-
And mountaineers that from Severus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play:
Cafperia fends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.'

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DRYDEN.

• Earl

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
Moft like a baron bold,
Rode foremost of the company,

Whofe armour fhone like gold."

Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcefferat agmen, &c.
Vidifti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis
Aurcus-

Our English archers bent their bows,
Their hearts were good and true;
At the firft flight of arrows fent,
Full threefcore Scots they flew.

They clos'd full fast on ev'ry side,
No flackness there was found;
• And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gafping on the ground.

With that there came an arrow keen

Out of an English bow,

Which ftruck earl Douglas to the heart

A deep and deadly blow.'

Eneas was wounded after the fame manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley.

Has inter voces, media inter talia verba,
Ecce viro ftridens alis allapfa fagitta est,
Incertum quâ pulsa manu-

Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence,
A winged arrow ftruck the pious prince:
But whether from an human hand it came,
Or hoftile God, is left unknown by fame.'

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DRYDEN.

But of all the defcriptive parts of this fong, there are none more beautiful than the four following ftanzas, which have a great force and fpirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumftances. The thought in the third ftanza was never touched by any other poet, and is fuch an one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil.

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So thus did both those nobles die,
Whofe courage none could stain:
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble earl was flain.

"He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree,
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Unto the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomery
So right his fhaft he set,

The gray-goofe wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

This fight did laft from break of day
Till fetting of the fun;

For when they rung the ev'ning-bell
The battle fcarce was done.

One may obferve likewife, that in the catalogue of the flain the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poet, not only in giving a long list of the dead, bur by diversifying it with little characters of particular perfons.

And with carl Douglas there was flain
Sir Hugh Montgomery,

Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly :

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,
His fifter's fon was he;

Sir David Lamb, fo well efteem'd,
Yet faved could not be.'

The familiar found in thefe names deftroys the majesty of the defcription; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to fhew the natural caft of thought which appears in it, as the two laft verfes look almost like a tranflation of Virgil.

-Cadit & Ripheus, juftiffimus unus

Qui fuit in Teucris, & fervantiffimus æqui.
Dis aliter vifum----

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In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the fame manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am fatisfied your little buffoon readers, who have feen that paffage ridiculed in Hudibras, will not be able to take the beauty of it; for which reason I dare not fo much as quote it.

Then ftept a gallant fquire forth,
Witherington was his name,
Who faid, I would not have it told
To Henry our king for fhame,

That e'er my captain fought on foot
And I ftood looking on.'

We meet with the fame heroic fentiments in Virgil:

Non pudet, Ó Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam
Objectare animam? numerone an viribus æqui
Non fumus
--?

For fhame, Rutilians, can you bear the fight
Of one expos'd for all, in single fight?
Can we, before the face of heav'n, confess
Our courage colder, or our numbers less ?'

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DRYDEN.

What can be more natural or more moving, than the circumstances in which he defcribes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day?

'Next day did many widows come

Their hufbands to bewail;

They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears,

But all would not prevail.

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Thus we fee how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arife from the fubject, are always fimple, and fometimes exquifitely noble; that the language is often very founding; and that the whole is written with a true poetical fpirit..

If this fong had been written in the Gothick manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of fo many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I fhall only beg pardon for fuch a profufion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too fingular on fuch a fubject, had not I'fupported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.

No. LXXV. SATURDAY, MAY 26.

Omnis Ariftippum decuit color, & ftatus, & res.
All fortune fitted Ariftippus well.

HOR.

CREECH.

T was with fome mortification that I fuffered the

Iraillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for cal

She

ling in one of my papers, Dorimant a clown. was fo unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occafion, with great freedom to confider the air, the height, the face, the gefture of him who could pretend to judge fo arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, janty, and lively in her impertinence, and one of thofe that commonly pafs, among the ignorant, før perfons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after the had faid it was happy for her there was not fo charming a creature as Dorimant now liv

ing,

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