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 History, 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."

Ver. 132. By thee to mountains, wilds, and deserts 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 "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 erexisti tabernaculum: "You erected the divine tabernacle in the very dens of wild beafts, and the lurking-places of robbers."

Ver. 136. Our shrines 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 brines 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 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 comparison with this, occurs in an anonymous copy of verfes, vol. ii. p. 256. of Dryden's Miscellanies: He came, and faw; but 'twas by fuch a light

As fearce 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 "Description of a religious house 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 vision of theologians. And our author profited here alfo, I think from a paffage of equal rapture in the Penserofo :

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 improve

ment. 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:

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

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.

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 so 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 cemeterium veftrum deferri faciatis.". -"When fhe "faw her end approaching, fhe turned to her fisters, who stood "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 she 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 difciples affembled. "As he had entered (he faid) this defart, funk down with 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 perfon 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 sleep had charm'd my cares to reft,
And love itself was banish'd from my breast,
(What time the morn myfterious vifions brings,
While purer flumbers spread their golden wings),
A train of phantoms in wild order rose,

And join'd, this intellectual feene compose.

Cowley, in his Complaint :

In a deep vifion's intellectual feene:

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 blefs'd:

No wild uncouth chimeras intervene,

To break the perfect intellectual feene.

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 fignify the brittle nature and precarious tenure, as well as the difficult attainment of that poffeffion, according to the poet himself below, ver. 504.

So hard to gain, so easy to be loft!

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

Ти

Την μεν τοι Κακοτητα και ιλαδόν εστιν έλεσθαι
Ρηϊδίως ολίγη μεν ὁδΘ, μαλα δ εγγυθι ναιει.
Της δ' Αρετης ίδρωτα θεοι προπαροιθεν εθηκαν
Αθανατοι· μακρύ δε και ορθιο οιμων επ' αυτήν,
Και τρηχύς.

Crowds, unmolested, Vice may make their prize ;
Short is the road, and close at hand it lies.

But Powers immortal Virtue have decreed
Of Pain, and perfevering Toil, the meed.

Long rounds, fharp rocks, and rugged fteeps delay
The lab'ring, panting pilgrim on his way.

Ver. 143. As heav'n with stars, the roof with jewels glows; And ever-living lamps depend in rows.

This fine couplet alfo was not wrought without confultation with. our hallowed bard at the fame paffage of that fublime effufion of human genius, ver. 726.

from the arched roof,

Pendent by subtle magic many a row

Of ftarry lamps and blazing creffets, fed

With Naphtha and Asphaltus, yielded light

As from a fky.

Ver. 273. Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew

Their flow'ry toils, and fip the fragrant dew;

When the wing'd colonies firft tempt the sky,
O'er dufky fields and shaded waters fly,

Or fettling, feize the fweets the bloffoms yield,

And a low murmur runs along the field.

This defcription is varied, with improvements, from Dryden, Æneid vi. 953.

About the boughs an airy nation flew,

Thick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;

In fummer's heat, on tops of lilies feed,

And creep within their bells, to fuck the balmy feed:

The winged army roams the field around;

The rivers and the rocks remurmur to the found:

who has profited, as ufual, by Lauderdale. But neither tranflator has a line at all comparable to that delightful conclufion of our author:

And a low murmur runs along the field.

THE