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Such, where the deep-transported mind may foar
Above the wheeling poles; and at Heaven's door
Look in, and fee each blifsfull deitie

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unfhorn Apollo fings

To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly fire.

Then paffing through the fphears of watchfull fire,
And miftie regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow, and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In heaven's defiance muftering all his waves ".

REMEMBRANCE and the poet, leaving heaven, now contemplate the earth, which is divided into three parts. To have mentioned America, recently difcovered, would have been herefy in the fcience of cofmography; as that quarter of the globe did not occur in Pliny and Ptolemy ". The most famous cities are here enumerated. The poet next defires a view of Paradise; that glorious garth, or garden, of every flower. It is reprefented as elevated in the middle region of the air, in a climate of perpetual ferenity. From a fair fountain, fpringing in the midft of this ambrofial garden, descend four rivers, which water all the east. It is inclosed with walls of fire, and guarded by an angel.

m At a VACATION EXERCISE, &c. Newton's MILT. ii. P. II.

" For the benefit of those who are making refearches in antient cofmography, I obferve that the map of England, mentioned by Harrison and Hearne, and belonging to Merton college library, appears to have exifted at least fo early as the year 1512. For in that year, it was lent to the dean of

Wells, William Cofyn, with a caution of forty fhillings. Regiftr. Vet. Coll. Mert. fol. 218. b. See its reftitution, ibid. fol. 219. b.

"Paradifus tantæ eft altitudinis, quod "eft inacceffibilis fecundum Bedam; et "tam altus, quod etheream regionem per"tingat, &c." CHRON. NUR. ut fupr.

f. viii. b.

The

The cuntre clofit is about full richt,
With wallis hie of hote and birnyng fyre,
And ftraitly kepit by an angell bricht".

From Paradise a very rapid tranfition is made to Scotland. Here the poet takes occafion to lament, that in a country for fertile, and filled with inhabitants fo ingenious and active, univerfal poverty, and every national disorder,' fhould abound. It is very probable, that the poem was written folely with a view of introducing this complaint. After an enquiry into the causes of these infelicities, which are referred to political mismanagement, and the defective administration of justice, the COMMONWEALTH OF SCOTLAND appears, whose figure is thus delineated.

We faw a bufteous berne cum oer the bent",
But' hors on fute, als faft as he micht go;

Quhose rayment was all raggit, rewin', and rent,
With visage leyne, as he had fastit Lent:
And fordwart fast his wayis he did advance,
With ane richt melancholious countenance:

With fcrip on hip, and pyikstaff in his hand,
As he had bene purpofit to pas fra hame.
Quod I, gude man, I wald fane understand,
Geve that ye pleifit", to wit" quhat wer your name?
Quod he, my fone, of that I think greit fchame.
Bot fen thow wald of my name have ane feill,
Forfwith they call me * Johne the Comoun weill'.

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The reply of SYR COMMONWEALTH to our poet's question, is a long and general fatire on the corrupt state of Scotland. The fpiritual plelates, he says, have fent away Devotion to the mendicant friars; and are more fond of describing the dishes at a feast, than of explaining the nature of their own establishment.

Sensual Pleasure has banished Chastity.

Liberality, Loyalty, and Knightly Valour, are fled,

And Cowardice with lords is laureate.

From this sketch of Scotland, here given by Lyndefay, under the reign of James the fifth, who acted as a viceroy to France, a Scotch hiftorian might collect many striking features of the state of his country during that interesting period, drawn from the life.

The poet then fuppofes, that REMEMBRANCE conducts him back to the cave on the fea-fhore, in which he fell afleep. He is awakened by a ship firing a broadfide. He returns home, and entering his oratory, commits his vision to verfe. To this is added an exhortation of ten ftanzas to king James the fifth in which he gives his majesty advice, and cenfures his numerous inftances of misconduct, with incredible boldness and afperity. Most of the addresses to James the fifth, by the Scotch poets, are fatires instead of panegyrics.

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I have not at prefent either leisure or inclination, to enter into a minute enquiry, how far our author is indebted in his DREME to Tully's DREAM OF SCIPIO, and the HELL, PURGATORY, and HEAVEN, of Dante".

Lyndefay's poem, called the MONARCHIE, is an account of the most famous monarchies that have flourished in the world: but, like all the Gothic profe-histories, or chronicles, on the fame favorite subject, it begins with the creation of the world, and ends with the day of judgment. There is much learning in this poem. It is a dialogue between ExPERIENCE and a courtier. This mode of conducting a narrative by means of an imaginary mystagogue, is adopted from Boethius. A defcriptive prologue, confifting of octave ftanzas, opens the poem, in which the poet enters a delightful park. The fun clad in his embroidered mantle, brighter than gold or precious ftones, extinguishes the borned queen of night, who hides her visage in a misty veil. Immediately Flora began to expand,

hir tapistry

Wrocht by dame NATURE queynt and curiouslie,
Depaynt with many hundreth hevinlie hewis.

• In the Medicean library at Florence, and the Ambrofian at Milan, there is a long manufcript Italian poem, in three books, divided into one hundred chapters, written by Matteo Palmeri, a learned Florentine, about the year 1450. It is in imitation of Dante, in the terza rima, and entitled CITTA DI VITA, or The City of Life. The fubject is, the peregrination of the foul, freed from the fhackles of the body, through various ideal places and fituations, till at length it arrives in the city of heaven: This poem was publicly burnt at Cortona, because the author adopted Origen's herefy concerning a third clafs of angels, who for their fins were deftined to animate human bodies. See

Vol. II.

Trithem. c. 797. Julius Niger, SCRIPTOR.
FLORENT. P. 404.

In a manufcript at Lambeth [332.] this poem is faid to have been begun Jun. 11, 1556. This is a great mistake. It was printed Hafn. 1552. 4to.

SIGNAT. i. B. A park is a favorite scene of action in our old poets. See Chaucer's COMPL. BL. KN. v. 39.

Toward a park enclofid with a wall, &c. And in other places. Parks were antiently the conftant appendage of almost every confiderable manerial houfe. The old patent-rolls are full of licences for imparcations, which do noţ now exist.

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Meanwhile, Eolus and Neptune restrain their fury, that no rude founds might mar the melody of the birds which echoed among the rocks".

In the park our poet, under the character of a courtier, meets EXPERIENCE, repofing under the fhade of a holly. This pourtrait is touched with uncommon elegance and expreffion.

Into that park I faw appeir

One agit man, quhilk drew me neir;
Quhofe berd was weil thre quarters lang,
His hair doun oer his fchulders hang,
The qhylke as ony fnawe was whyte,
Quhome to beholde I thocht delyte..
His habit angellyke of hew,
Of colour lyke the sapheir blew ::
Under an holyne he repofit.-
To fit down he requeftit me
Under the schaddow of that tre,
To faif me from the fonnis heit,
Amanges the flouris soft and sweit '..

Inftead of Parnaffus he chufes mount Calvary, and his Helicon is the ftream which flowed from our Saviour's fide on the cross, when he was wounded by Longinus, that is LONGIAS. This is a ficti tious perfonage in Nicodemus's Gofpel. I have mentioned him before. Being blind, he was restored to fight by wiping his eyes with his hands which were bloody.. See more of him in Chaucer's LAMENTAT. MARY MAGD. v. 176. In the Gothic pictures of the Crucifixion, he is reprefented on horfeback, piercing our Saviour's fide: and in Xavier's Perfic Hiftory of Chrift, he is called a horfeman. This notion arofe from his using a fpear, or lance: and that weapon, λoyx, undoubtedly gave rife to his ideal name of Longias, or Longinus.

He is afterwards fuppofed to have been a bishop of Cefarea, and to have fuffered. martyrdom. See Tillemont. MEMOR. HIST. ECCLESIAST. tom. i. pp. 81. 251. And Fabric. APOCR. Nov. TESTAM. tom. i. p. 261. In the old Greek tragedy of CHRIST SUFFERING, the CONVERTED CENTURION is exprefsly mentioned, but not by this name. Almoft all that relates to this perfon, who could not escape the fictions of the monks, has been collected by J. Ch. Wolfius, CUR. PHILOL. ET CRIT. IN S. EVANGEL. tom. i. p. 414. ii. 984. edit. Bafil. 1741..4to. See alfo Hoffman. LEXIC. UNIVERSAL. CONTINUAT. in. Voc. tom. i. p. 1036. col. a. Bafil. 1683.. fol.

fSIGNAT. B. i.

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