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 least 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 firft letter: "Tua itaque, verè tua, hæc eft propriè novella plantatio; "cujus adhuc teneris maximè plantis frequens, ut proficiant, ne❝ceffaria eft irrigatio."

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

"It was a small fequeftered vale, fays Mr. Berington, fur"rounded by a wood, not far diftant from Nogent sur Seine; ❝ and a rivulet ran near its fide. It did not appear, that the foot

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of any mortal had hitherto difturbed 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 66 was to be their own dwelling." She fays in her first letter: In ipfis cubilibus ferarum, in ipfis latibulis latronum, divinum erexisti 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 seen
To blaze upon his brines with coftly been;

But plain and poor

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

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

A fine paffage, worthy of comparifon with this, occurs in an anonymous copy of verfes, vol. ii. p. 256. of Dryden's Mifcellanies: He came, and faw; but 'twas by fuch a light

As fcarce diftinguish'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 Crafbaw's entire couplet in his "Defcription of a religious houfe and condition of life:"

A hafty portion of prefcribed fleep;

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 soft a tear.

Both the image and the expreffion are alike incapable of improvement. In the fame spirit 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:

I

The