Who alfo is there who can hear or read, without tears, the muke

and words,

"Tears fuch as tender Fathers fhed,

Warm from my aged eyes defcend,
For Joy, to think when I am dead,

My fon fhall have mankind his friend?"

Dryden, in his Alexander's Feaft, and the fine Ode,

"When Jubal struck the chorded shell,"

has found, like Milton, a musician worthy of those exalted strains. Collins' Ode to the Paffions ought not to be omitted, as highly calculated for mufical effect; but perhaps there is no compofition, where the mufic and the words fo much affift each other, as the fine Song of Purcell,

"Let the dreadful engines, &c."

particularly that one exquifite ftanza:

"Ah! where are now thofe flow'ry groves
Where zephyr's fragrant breath did play,
Where, guarded by a troop of loves,
The fair Lucinda fleeping lay.
There fung the nightingale and lark,
Around us all was fweet and gay,
We ne'er grew fad till it grew dark,

And nothing fear'd but fhort'ning day."

ODE FOR MUSIC

ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY*;

I.

DESCEND, ye Nine! descend and fing;
The breathing inftruments infpire,

Wake into voice each filent ftring,

And sweep the founding lyre!

In a fadly-pleasing strain

Let the warbling lute complain:

NOTES.

5

Let

*Our Author, as Mr. Harte told me, frequently and earnestly declared, that if Dryden had finished a tranflation of the Iliad, he would not have attempted one, after so great a master: he might have said, with even more propriety, I will not write a mufic ode after Alexander's Feaft; which the variety and harmony of its numbers, and the beauty, force, and energy of its images, have confpired to place at the head of modern Lyric compofitions. The fubject of Dryden's ode is fuperior to this of Pope's, because. the former is hiftorical, and the latter merely mythological. Dryden's is also more perfect in the unity of the action; for Pope's is not the recital of one great action, but a description of many of the adventures of Orpheus.

The name and the genius of Cowley gave, for many years, a currency and vogue to irregular odes, called Pindaric. One of the best of which species is that of Cobb, called, the Female Reign; and two of the worst, Sprat's Plague of Athens, and Bolingbroke's Almahide. Congreve is thought to be the firft writer that gave a specimen of a legitimate Pindaric ode, with ftrophe, antistrophe, and epode, elucidated with a senfible and judicious preface on the

Let the loud trumpet sound,
'Till the roofs all around

The fhrill echos rebound:

While in more lengthen'd notes and flow,
The deep, majestic, folemn organs blow.

Hark! the numbers foft and clear

10.

Gently steal upon the ear;

Now louder, and yet louder rife,

And fill with spreading founds the skies;

Exulting in triumph now fwell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;

NOTES.

15

"Till

fubject. But it does not feem to have been obferved, that, long before, Ben Jonfon had given a model of this very fpecies of a regular Pindaric ode, addreft to Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morrifon, page 233 of his works, folio, in which he entitles each ftanza the turne, the counter-turne, and the stand. Though Congreve's ode is not extraordinary, yet the difcourfe prefixed to it has a great deal of learning. Dr. Akcafide frequently mentioned to me, as one of the best of the regular Findaric odes, Fenton's to Lord Gower, 1716. Mr. Gray was of opinion, that the stanzas of thefe regular odes ought not to confift of above nine lines each, at the most. WARTON.

VER. 7. Let the loud trumpet found,] Warburton speaks too highly of the imitation of the founds here intended as an echo to the fenfe. The ftanza exhibits too much the appearance of art: `ars eft celare artem. The great difficulty of giving effect to those paffages where the found is meant to be an echo of the sense, is, in making it appear that the words naturally flow from the fubjea. The lines "While in more lengthen'd, &c." to "And fill with fpreading founds the skies," are finely expreffed, the harmony appears naturally to proceed with the fubject; but the two next lines, “ Exulting in triumph, &c." give an idea of art, and befide they very inadequately reprefent the lofty variety of the organ. The four concluding lines are beautiful.

3

'Till, by degrees, remote and small,

The ftrains decay,

And melt away,

In a dying, dying fall.

II.

By Mufic, minds an equal temper know,
Nor fwell too high, nor fink too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arife,
Mufic her foft, affuafive voice applies;

20

25

Or, when the foul is prefs'd with cares,

Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,

Lift'ning Envy drops her fnakes;

Inteftine War no more our Paffions wage,

VER. 22.

This stanza much resembles the fifth of Congreve's mufic ode; the second of which, by the way, is uncommonly good. It is remarkable that Pope knew nothing of mufic, and had no ear for it; as had Milton, Gray, and Mafon. WARTON.

VER. 35.] Dr. Greene fet this ode to mufic in 1730, as an exercise for his Doctor's Degree at Cambridge, on which occafion Pope made confiderable alteration in it, and added the following ftanza in this place :

Amphion thus bade wild diffenfion cease,
And foften'd mortals learn'd the arts of peace,

III.

But when our Country's cause provokes to Arms,
How martial mufic ev'ry bofom warms!

So when the first bold veffel dar'd the feas,
High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his ftrain,
While Argo faw her kindred trees

Defcend from Pelion to the main.

49

Tranf

ན་ །་་

NOTES.

Amphion taught contending kings,
From various difcords, to create
The mufic of a well-tun'd ftate;
Nor flack, nor ftrain the tender ftrings,
Those useful touches to impart,

That ftrike the fubject's anfwering heart,
And the foft filent harmony that fprings
From facred union and confent of things.

And he made another alteration, at the fame time, in ftanza iv.

V. 51, and wrote it thus:

Sad Orpheus fought his confort loft;

The adamantine gates were barr'd,

And nought was feen and nought was heard,

Around the dreary coaft;

But dreadful gleams, &c.

WARTON.

VER. 39.] He might have added a beautiful defcription of the Argo in Apollonius Rhodius; and, if he had been a reader of Pindar, he might have looked into the fourth Pythian ode, partieularly verfe 315 of Orpheus. Oxford edition, folio, 1697.

WARTON.

VER. 40. While Argo] Few images in any poet, ancient or modern, are more striking than that in Apollonius, where he says, that when the Argo was failing near the coaft where the Centaur Chiron dwelt, he came down to the very margin of the sea, bringing his wife with the young Achilles in her arms, that he might fhew the child to his father Peleus, who was on his voyage with the other Argonauts. Apollonius Rhodius, Lib. i. v. 558.

WARTON.