Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds
Invite; the mountains call you, and the valēs,
The woods, the ftreams, and each ambrofial breeze
That fans the ever undulating sky;

A kindly fky! whofe foft'ring pow'r regales
Man, beaft, and all the vegetable reign.

Find then fome woodland fcene where nature smiles
Benign, where all her honest children thrive.
To us there wants not many a happy feat;
Look round the fmiling land, fuch numbers rife
We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice.
See where enthron'd, in adamatine state,
Proud of her Bards, imperial Windfor fits;
There chufe thy feat, in fome, afpiring grove
Faft by the flowly-winding Thames; or where
Broader the laves fair Richmond's green retreats,
(Richmond that fees an hundred villas rife
Rural or gay.) Of from the fummer's rage
O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides.
Umbrageous Ham! But if the bufy town
Attract thee ftill to toil for pow'r or gold,
Sweetly thou mayft thy vacant hours poffefs
In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;
Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;
Or lofe the world amid the fylvan wilds
Of Dulwich, yet by barb'rous arts unfpoil'd.

We have already taken notice of the allufions to ancient fables in Virgil and others, and of the frequent ufe made of the figure called Profopopeia, by which the properties of life are given, not only to inanimate Beings, but to Virtues, Vices, Difeafes, &c. Some of these beauties will be seen in the first paragraph of the following paffage.

Green rife the Kentifp hills in chearful air;
But on the marthy plains that Effex spreads
Build not, nor reft too long, thy wand'ring feet..
For on a ruftic throne of dewy turf,

With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there prefides: a meagre fiend
Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force

Comprefs'd the flothful Naiad of the fens.
From fuch a mixture fprung, this fitful peft
With fev'rish blafts fubdues the fick❜ning land,
Cold tremors come, and mighty love of reft,
Convulfive yawnings, laffitude, and pains
That fting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;
Then parching heat fucceeds, till copious fweats
O'erflow: a fhort relief from former ills.
Beneath repeated fhocks the wretches pine;
The vigor finks, the habit melts away;
The chearful, pure, and animated bloom
Dies from the face, with fqualid atrophy
Devour'd, in fallow melancholy clad.
And oft the forc'refs, in her fated wrath,
Refigns them to the furies of her train;
The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

In queft of fites, avoid the mournful plain, Where ofiers thrive, and trees that love the lake; Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:

Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll
Fix near the marfshy margin of the main.
For from the humid foil and watry rain
Eternal vapours rife; the fpungy air
For ever weeps; or turgid with the weight
Of waters, pours a founding deluge down.
Skies fuch as these, let ev'ry mortal fhun,
Who dreads the dropfy, palfy, or the gout,
Tertian, corrofive fcurvy, or moist catarrh
Or any other injury that grows

From raw-fpun fibres idle and unftrung,
Skin ill-perfpiring, and the purple flood
In languid eddies loit'ring into phlegm.

Yet not alone from humid fkies we pine;
For air may be too dry. The fubtle heaven,
That winnows into duft the blasted downs,
Bare and extended wide without a stream,
Too faft imbibes th' attenuated lymph
Which by the furface, from the blood exhales.
The langs grow rigid, and with toil effay
Their flexible vibrations; or inflam'd,

Their tender ever-moving ftructure thaws,
Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood.
A mafs of lees remains, a droffy tide
That flow as Lethe wanders thro' the veins :
Unactive in the fervices of life,

Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro'
The fecret mazy channels of the brain.
The melancholy fiend, (that worst despair
Of phyfic) hence the ruft-complexion'd man
Purfues, whofe blood is dry, whose fibres gain
Too ftretch'd a tone: And hence in climes aduft
So fudden tumults feize the trembling nerves,
And burning fevers glow with double rage.
Fly, if you can, these violent extremes
Of air; the wholefome is not moist nor dry,
But as the power of chufing is deny'd
To half mankind, a further task ensues ;
How best to mitigate thefe fell extremes,
How breathe unhurt the withering element,
Or hazy atmosphere.

He then reflects on the force of custom, and the friendly power of native air; which is fo great, that they who are born and nurtured in thofe countries where the air is efteem'd bad, not only live in health, but are often recover'd by their native air from disorders caught in more friendly climates. He advises thofe, however, who live in marshy, or woody countries, to drain the bogs, and clear away the trees, fo as to obtain a free circulation of air; and to pay at the fame time a proper regard to diet, and exercise.

Mean time, at home with chearful fires difpel
The humid air: and let your table smoke
With folid roast or bak'd; or what the herds
Of tamer breed fupply; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilfome pleasures of the chace.
Generous your wine, the boaft of rip'ning years,
But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,
Vapid and funk from yesterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.
But neither these nor all Apollo's arts,

Difarm the dangers of the dropping sky,
Unless with exercise and manly toil

You brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.
-If droughty regions parch

The skin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning blood,
Deep in the waving foreft chuse your seat,
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air,
And wake the fountains from their fecret beds,
And into lakes dilate the running stream
Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moist relaxing vegetable store

Prevail in each repaft: your food fupplied
By bleeding life, be gently wafted down,
By foft decoction and a mellowing heat,
To liquid balm; or, if the folid mass
You chufe, tormented in the boiling wave,
That thro' the thirsty channels of the blood
A fmooth diluted chyle may ever flow:
The fragrant dairy from its cool recefs
Its nectar acid or benign will pour

To drown your thirst, or let the mantling bowl
Of keen fherbet the fickle tafte relieve.
For with the viscous blood the fimple stream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft diffipate more moisture than they give,
Yet when pale feasons rife, or winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou may't indulge
In feafts more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow cafk. Then too the scourging air
Provokes to keener toils than fultry droughts
Allow.

And to those who would avoid an over-moist air, he lays down the following rules both for fituation and building; which are season'd with fuch reflections as render them more profitable, as well as more pleafing.

Mean time, the moist malignity to fhun

Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champaign
Swells into chearful hills; where marjoram

And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;

And where the Cynorrhodon with the rofe
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty foil
Moft fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep
Afcend, there light thy hofpitable fires.
And let them fee the winter morn arise,
The fummer ev'ning blushing in the weft;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the bluft'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish east.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all
The founding forefts fluctuates in the ftorm,
To fink in warm repofe, and hear the din
Howl o'er the fteady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of valgar fleep.

The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarfer ftrain
Of waters rufhing o'er the flippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrofial reft.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is ftudied; for whatever move's
The mind with calm delight, promotes the juft
And natural movements of th' harmonious frame.
Befides the fportive brook for ever shakes

The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with inceffant change
Of pureft element, refreshing still

Your airy feat.

He then recommends a dry houfe, but airy more than warm, because those who confine themselves to warm rooms are, when abroad, extremely subject to colds ; the ceilings too fhould be lofty, and the windows at mid-day "open'd to discharge the foul air. He would have a funny fituation, where the windows open to the south, the excellency of which is proved from a confideration of the state plants are in when confined to a perpetual shade, and this book he concludes with an Apoftrophe to the fun, which is truly fablime.

How fickly grow, How pale the plants in thofe ill-fated vales

*The wild rofe, or that which grows on the wild briar.

« ZurückWeiter »