NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

ELOISA TO ABELARD. P. 31.

Ver. 129. AH! think at least thy flock deferves thy care;
Plants of thy hand, and children of thy pray❜r.

"If thou can't forget me, think at leaft upon thy flock." To her for five long years he had not written a fingle line. Berington's Hiftory, p. 213. The fimile itself is found in her first letter: "Tua itaque, verè tua, hæc eft propriè novella plantatio ; "cujus adhuc teneris maximè plantis frequens, ut proficiant, ne❝ceffaria eft irrigatio."

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Ver. 132. By thee to mountains, wilds, and deferts led.
You rais'd thefe hallow'd walls.

"It was a small fequeftered vale, fays Mr. Berington, fur"rounded by a wood, not far distant from Nogent sur Seine; "and a rivulet ran near its fide. It did not appear, that the foot "of any mortal had hitherto disturbed its folitude.”

As the word wild recurs in ver. 134, and for variety, our poet fhould have written :

By thee to mountains, woods, and deferts led.

Again Mr. Berington. "Without lofs of time, Abeillard then "and his companion planned the new building, and with the "fame hands began to erect it. Having completed what they "called their oratory, they constructed a second building, which

was to be their own dwelling." She fays in her first letter: In ipfis cubilibus ferarum, in ipfis latibulis latronum, divinum erexifti tabernaculum: "You erected the divine tabernacle in the very dens of wild beafts, and the lurking-places of robbers."

Ver. 136. Our fhrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors. Milton's Comus, ver.

732.

th' unfought diamonds

Would fo imblaze the forehead of the deep. Rowe's Lucan, ix. 884.

Yet

Yet no proud domes are rais'd, no gems are feen
To blaze upon his furines with coftly been;

But plain and poor

"Nihil ad hoc ædificandum ex regum vel principum opibus intu« listi, cùm plurima poffes et maxima; ut quicquid fieret, tibi foli poffet afcribi." Heloifa's firft letter.

Ver. 143. Where awful arches make a noon day night,
And the dim windows fhed a folemn light.

A fine paffage, worthy of comparison with this, occurs in an ano-
nymous copy of verfes, vol. ii. p. 256. of Dryden's Mifcellanies:
He came, and faw; but 'twas by fuch a light
As fcarce diftinguifh'd day from night;

Such as in thick-grown fhades is found,
When here and there a piercing beam
Scatters faint fpangled funfhine on the ground,
And cafts about a melancholy gleam.

Ver. 212. The reader will be pleafed with Crafhaw's entire couplet in his "Defcription of a religious house and condition of life:"

A hafty portion of prescribed sleep ;

Obedient flumbers that can wake and weep.

Ver. 222. And melts in vifions of eternal day.

The beatific vifion of theologians. And our author profited here alfo, I think from a paffage of equal rapture in the Penferofo :

*

There let the pealing organ blow

To the full-voic'd quire below,

In fervice high and anthems clear;

As may with fweetnefs, through mine ear,

Diffolve me into extafies,

And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.

Ver. 270. With every bead I drop too foft a tear.

Both the image and the expreffion are alike incapable of improvement. In the fame fpirit Mrs. Rowe's Elegy:

And love ftill mingled with my piety.

But the peculiar ornament of our poet's verfe feems borrowed from Sedley's verfes on Don Alonzo ;

The

The gentle nymph, long fince defign'd
For the proud Monfieur's bed,
Now to a holy jayle confin'd
Drops tears with every bead.

clouds of fragrance :

Ver. 271.
Sabæis nubibus: Statius, Silv. iv. 8. 2.

And the whole paffage, both in phrafe and imagery, is indebted to one in Crafbaw, fuggefted by Mr. Steevens:

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Does thy fong lull the air?

Thy tears' juft cadence ftill keeps time:
Does thy fweet breath'd pray'r
Up in clouds of incenfe climb?

Still at each figh, that is each ftop,

A bead, that is a tear, doth drop. p. 4.

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Ver. 289. No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole:
Rife Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!

A couplet exalted to fublimity from the materials of Hopkins in Dryden's Mifcellanies, v. p. 31.

Forbid me, banish me your charming fight;

}

Shut from my view thofe eyes that shine fo bright;
Shut your dear image from my dreams by night.
Drive 'em fomewhere, as far as pole from pole;
Let winds between us rage, and waters roll.

Ver. 343. May one kind grave unite each hapless name. He had made this request in a letter to her: "Cadaver, obfecro, noftrum ad cœmeterium veftrum deferri faciatis.". "When the "faw her end approaching, fhe turned to her fifters, who flood "weeping round her, exhorted them to fubmiffion, and to the practice of every Christian virtue; and then ordered that her body should be laid in the tomb by the side of Abeillard. Soon "after fhe expired. It was on a Sunday, and on the seventeenth "of May. Berington, p. 395.

Ver. 348. To Paraclete's white walls and filver springs. "Now, in folemn ceremony, Abeillard and his disciples affembled. "As he had entered (he faid) this defart, funk down with 66 care, where the goodness of heaven had watched over him, " and he had found comfort, could he more emphatically express

"his gratitude, than by confecrating this more auguft temple to "that person of the Holy Triad, which more peculiarly is ftiled "the Comforter? We will dedicate it, faid he, to the Paraclete." Berington,

TEMPLE OF FAME. P. 63.

Ver. 5. As balmy fleep had charm'd tny cares to rest,
And love itfelf was banith'd from my breast,

(What time the morn myfterious vifions brings,
While purer flumbers fpread their golden wings),
A train of phantoms in wild order rofe,

And join'd, this intellectual fcene compose.

Cowley, in his Complaint:

In a deep vifion's intellectual fcene

and Mrs. Singer's Vifion; which is clofely imitated through the

whole quotation :

But, as I unrefolv'd and doubtful lay,

My cares in eafie flumbers glide away;

Nor with fuch grateful fleep, fuch foothing reft,

And dreams like thefe, I e'er before was bless'd:

No wild uncouth chimeras intervene,'

To break the perfect intellectual scene.

Ver. 23. Like broken thunders, that at diflance roar.

This fimile is very happily employed by Milton, Par. Loft, ii,

476.

Their rifing all at once was as the found

Of thunder heard remote.

Ver. 27. High on a rock of ice the ftructure lay,
Steep its afcent, and flipp'ry was the way.

The temple of Fame is represented on a foundation of ice, to fig nify the brittle nature and precarious tenure, as well as the diffi cult attainment of that poffeffion, according to the poet

himfelf

below, ver. 504.

So hard to gain, fo eafy to be loft!

And there is a general refemblance to the celebrated verses of Hefiod:

Tny