THE above is a pleasant burlesque on the gawdy, glittering, florid ftyle and manner of certain descriptive poets. I think the reader will pardon me for laying before him part of a piece of ridicule on the fame subject, and of equal merit, which made its first appearance many years ago in the Oxford Student, and is thus entitled, "Ode to Horror, in the Allegoric, Defcriptive, Alli. terative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our Modern Ode- Writers and Monody-Mongers."

"Ferreus ingruit Horror."

"O Goddess of the gloomy fcene,

Of fhadowy fhapes, thou black-brow'd Queen;
Thy treffes dark with ivy crown'd,

On yonder mould'ring abbey found;
Oft wont from charnels damp and dim,
To call the fheeted spectre grim,
While as his loofe chains loudly clink,
Thou add'st a length to ev'ry link :
O thou, that lov'ft at eve to seek
The penfive pacing pilgrim meek,
And fett'it before his fhudd'ring eyes
Strange forms, and fiends of giant-size,
As wildly works thy wizzard will,
Till fear-ftruck fancy has her fill:
Dark pow'r, whofe magic-might prevails
O'er hermit-rocks and fairy-vales;
O Goddess, erft by Spenfer view'd,
What time th' Enchanter vile embru'd
His hands in Florimel's pure heart,
Till loos'd by fteel clad Britomart :
O thou that erft on fancy's wing
Didit terror trembling Taffo bring,
To groves where kept damn'd Furies dire
Their blue-tipt battlements of fire;
Thou that thro' many a darkfome pine,
O'er the rugged rock recline,

VIRG.

Did'

Did'ft wake the hollow-whifp'ring breeze
With care-confumed Eloife:

O thou, with whom in cheerlefs cell,
The midnight clock pale pris'ners tell;
O hafte thee, mild Miltonic maid,
From yonder yews fequefter'd fhade;
More bright than all the fabled nine,
Teach me to breathe the folemn line :
O bid my well-rang'd numbers rise,
Pervious to none but Attic eyes;
O give the strain that madness moves,
Till every ftarting fenfe approves.
What felt the Gallic Traveller,
When far in Arab-defert drear,
He found within the Catacomb,
Alive, the terrors of a tomb?
While many a mummy thro' the shade,
In hieroglyphic ftole array'd,
Seem'd to uprear the mystic head,

And trace the gloom with ghoftly tread;
Thou heard'ft him pour the stifled groan,
Horror! his foul was all thy own!"

The author was himself a descriptive poet of the first class. Mr. William Collins thought himself aimed at by this piece of ridicule. His odes had been just published; and the laft lines seemed to refer to a particular passage in them. WARTON.

The author was Thomas Warton; and it is a curious fact, that it was ridicule which at first led him to the very studies, in which he afterwards fo eminently fhone. He began by ridiculing Hearne*, and afterwards became an antiquarian of the most accurate, as well as elegant character; and from laughing at Collins, he wrote odes of the fame description. The humour of this ode (which I had doubts whether I should preferve) is not half fo obvious as the humour of Pope's ballad. It might pafs for a ferious Defcriptive Ode of the eighteenth century, with a certain class of poetical readers.

The famous antiquarian

I

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

KNOW the thing that's moft uncommon;

(Envy be filent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable Woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a Friend.

Not warp'd by Paffion, aw'd by Rumour,
Not grave through Pride, or gay through Folly,
An equal Mixture of good Humour,

And fenfible foft Melancholy.

"Has fhe no faults then, (Envy fays,) Sir?"

Yes, fhe has one, I must aver;

When all the World confpires to praise her,
The Woman's deaf, and does not hear.

NOTES.

LADY AT COURT.] HENRIETTA, fifter of John, the first Earl of Buckinghamshire, was eldest daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, of Blickling in Norfolk, and efpoufed Charles Howard, younger fon of Henry, fifth Earl of Suffolk, whom the accompanied to Hanover, before the death of Queen Ann. She came to England with Caroline, then Electoral Princefs, and became her bed-chamber woman. Mr. Coxe remarks, that "if we were to draw an eftimate of the understanding and character of Mrs. Howard, from the reprefentations of Pope, Swift, and Gay, during the time of her favour, we might fuppofe fhe poffeffed every accomplishment and good quality," &c.

"The real truth is," he adds, "that she was more remarkable for beauty than for understanding, and the paffion which the King en

tertained

tertained for her was rather derived from chance," &c. "He was first enamoured of another Lady, who was more cruel to the Royal Lover than Mrs. Howard. This Lady was the beautiful and lively Mary Bellenden," &c. "The Prince having communicated his paffion for Mifs Bellenden to Mrs. Howard, and being rejected, became enamoured of his confidante."

Coxe's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 14.

VER. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Sacchariffa, efpecially the laft ftanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addreft was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterwards Countess of Suffolk.

WARTON.

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM.

COMPOSED OF

MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ores, and mINERALS.

HOU who fhalt ftop, where Thames' translucent THOU

wave

Shines a broad Mirror through the shadowy Cave ;
Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs diftil,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow:

Approach. Great NATURE ftudiously behold!
And eye the Mine without a wifh for Gold.

5

VARIATIONS.

Approach:

After VER. 6. in the MS.

You fee that Ifland's wealth, where, only free,
Earth to her entrails feels not Tyranny.

i. e. Britain is the only place in the globe which feels not tyranny

WARBURTON.

the

On his Grotto] The improving and finishing his Grot was favourite amufement of his declining years; and the beauty of his poetic genius, in the difpofition and ornaments of this romantic recefs, appears to as much advantage as in his best contrived

Poems.

WARBURTON.

There is much truth in Warburton's obfervation, although it may not convey the sense he intended. Pope's Garden certainly refem. bled his polished and embellished ftrain, but of neither are mantic" beauty or 66 great nature" the characteristics.