Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse. In scenes like these, which, daring to depart From sober truth, are still to nature true, And call forth fresh delight to fancy's view, Th' heroic Muse employ'd her Tasso's art! How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd! When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast upheav'd the vanish'd sword! How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind, To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung! Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung! Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here! Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong and clear, And fills th' impassion'd heart, and wins th' harmonious ear! All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail! Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away, Are by smooth Annan1 fill'd, or past'ral Tay', Or Don's romantic springs, at distance hail! The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread Your lowly glens*, o'erhung with spreading broom; 193 Three rivers in Scotland. 4 Valleys. Or o'er your stretching heaths, by fancy led; Where Jonson' sat in Drummond's classic shade; Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid! Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore COLLEY CIBBER. SONG. THE BLIND BOY. O SAY! what is that thing call'd light, What are the blessings of the sight? 1 Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. • Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh university, which is in the county of Lothian. You talk of wond'rous things you see, You say the sun shines bright; My day or night myself I make, With heavy sighs I often hear Then let not what I cannot have EDWARD MOORE. EDWARD MOORE was the son of a dissenting clergyman at Abingdon, in Berkshire, and was bred to the business of a linen-draper, which he pursued, however, both in London and Ireland, with so little success, that he embraced the literary life (according to his own account) more from necessity than inclination. His fables (in 1744) first brought him into notice. The Honourable Mr. Pelham was one of his earliest friends; and his trial of Selim gained him the friendship of Lord Lyttleton. Of three works which he produced for the stage, his two comedies, the Foundling and Gil Blas, were unsuccessful; but he was fully indemnified by the profits and reputation of the Gamester. Moore himself acknowledges that he owed to Garrick many popular passages of his drama; and Davies, the biographer of Garrick, ascribes to the great actor the whole scene between Lewson and Stukely, in the fourth act; but Davies's authority is not oracular. About the year 1751 Lord Lyttleton, in concert with Dodsley, projected the paper of the World, of which it was agreed that Moore should enjoy the profits, whether the numbers were written by himself or by volunteer contributors. Lyttleton's interest soon enlisted many accomplished coadjutors, such as Cambridge, Jennyns, Lord Chesterfield, and H. Walpole. Moore himself wrote sixtyone of the papers. In the last number of the World the conclusion is made to depend on a fictitious incident which had occasioned the death of the author. When the papers were collected into volumes, Moore, who superintended the publication, realized this jocular fiction by his own death, whilst the last number was in the press. TAKE wing, my Muse! from shore to shore Where Virtue deigns to dwell; If yet she treads on British ground, Not there, where wine and frantic mirth In Pleasure's thoughtless train: Her social heart alike disowns The race, who, shunning crowds and thrones, In shades sequester'd doze; Whose sloth no generous care can wake, Who rot, like weeds on Lethe's lake, In senseless, vile repose. With these she shuns the factious tribe, Who spurn the yet unoffer'd bribe, And at corruption lour; Waiting till Discord Havoc cries, Ye wits, who boast from ancient times No. Int'rest, slander are your views, Flies |