My right eye itches; may it lucky prove,
Perhaps I foon fhall fee the nymph I love;
Beneath yon pine I'll fing diftinct and clear,
Perhaps the fair my tender notes may hear;
Perhaps may pity my melodious moan;
She is not metamorphos'd into ftone.
Hippomenes, provok'd by noble strife,
To win a miftrefs, or to lose his life,
Threw golden fruit in Atalanta's way,
The bright temptation caus'd the nymph to say;
She look'd, the languifh'd, all her foul took fire,
She plung'd into the gulph of deep defire.
To Pyle from Othry's fage Melampus came,
He drove the lowing herd, yet won the'dame;
Fair Pero bleft his brother Bias' arms,
And in a virtuous race diffus'd unfading charms.
Adonis fed his cattle on the plain,
And fea-born Venus lov'd the rural swain ;
She mourn'd him wounded in the fatal chace,
Nor dead difmifs'd him from her warm embrace.
Though young Endymion was by Cynthia bleft,
I envy nothing but his lafting reft.
Fafion flumb'ring on the Cretan plain
Ceres once faw, and bleft the happy swain
With pleasures too divine for ears profane.
My head grows giddy, love affects me fore;
Yet you regard not; fo I'll fing no more-
Here will I put a period to my care-
Adieu, falfe nymph, adieu ungrateful fair:
Stretch'd near the grotto, when I've breath'd my
My corfe will give the wolves a rich repast,
As fweet to them, as honey to your tafe.
MELIBOE US.
Beneath the fhade which beechen boughs diffuse, You, Tityrus, entertain your fylvan muse,
Virgil fucceeds Theocritus, from whom he has in fome places copied, and always imitated with fuccefs. As a fpecimen of his manner we fhall introduce his first Pastoral, which is generally allowed to be the most perfect; and our readers will fee that we are obliged to Mr. Dryden for the tranflation.
TUE TINIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIUKANIES
Round the wide world in banishment we roam,
Forc'd from our pleasing fields and native home;
While stretch'd at ease you fing your happy loves,
And Amaryllis fills the shady groves.
TITYR US.
These bleffings, friend, a Deity bestow'd;
For never can I deem him lefs than God.
The tender firftlings of my woolly breed
Shall on his holy altar often bleed.
He
gave me kine to graze the flow'ry plain,
And fo my pipe renew'd the rural ftrain.
MELIBOE US.
I envy not your fortune, but admire,
That while the raging sword and wasteful fire
Destroy the wretched neighbourhood around,
No hoftile arms approach your happy ground.
Far diff'rent is my fate; my
feeble goats
With pains I drive from their forfaken cotes:
And this you fee I fcarcely drag along,
Who yeaning on the rocks has left her young,
The hope and promise of my falling fold,
My lofs by dire portents the Gods foretold;
For, had I not been blind, I might have seen
Yon riven oak, the fairest on the green,
And the hoarse raven on the blafted bough
By croaking from the left prefag'd the coming blow.
But tell me, Tityrus, what heav'nly power
Preferv'd your fortunes in that fatal hour?
TITYRU S.
Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome
Like Mantua, where on market-days we come :
And thither drive our tender lambs from home.
So kids and whelps their fires and dams exprefs;
And fo the great I measur❜d by the less:
But country-towns, compar'd with her, appear
Like shrubs when lofty cypresses are near.
MELIB OE US.
What great occafion call'd you hence to Rome?
TITY RUS.
Freedom, which came at length, tho' flow to come :
Nor did my fearch of liberty begin
Till my black hairs were chang'd upon my chin.
Nor Amaryllis would vouchsafe a look,
Till Galatea's meaner bonds I broke.
Till then a helplefs, hopeless, homely fwain,
I fought not freedom, nor afpir'd to gain:
Tho' many a victim from my folds was bought,
And many a cheese to country markets brought,
Yet all the little that I got I spent,
And still return'd as empty as I went.
MELI BOE US.
We ftood amaz'd to fee your mistress mourn,
Unknowing that the pin'd for your return;
We wonder'd why fhe kept her fruit fo long,
For whom so late th' ungather'd apples hung:
But now the wonder ceases, fince I fee
She kept them only, Tityrus, for thee:
For thee the bubbling fprings appear'd to mourn,
And whifp'ring pines made vows for thy return.
TITY RUS.
What should I do? while here I was enchain'd,
No glimpse of godlike liberty remain'd;
Nor could I hope in any place but there
To find a God fo prefent to my pray'r.
There first the youth of heav'nly birth I view'd,
For whom our monthly victims are renew'd.
He heard my vows, and graciously decreed
My grounds to be reftor'd, my former flocks to feed.
MELI BOE US.
O fortunate old man! whose farm remains
For you fufficient, and requites your pains,
Tho' rushes overspread the neighb'ring plains,
Tho' here the marshy grounds approach your fields
And there the foil a ftony harvest yields.
Your teeming ewes fhall no strange meadows try,
Nor fear a rot from tainted company.
Behold yon bord'ring fence of fallow trees
Is fraught with flow'rs, the flow'rs are fraught with bees:
THE TINIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIDKAŅURS
The bufy bees, with a foft murm'ring ftrain,
Invite to gentle fleep the lab'ring fwain:
While from the neighb'ring rock with rural fongs
The pruner's voice the pleafing dream prolongs;
Stock-doves and turtles tell their am'rous pain,
And, from the lofty elms, of love complain.
TITY RUS.
Th' inhabitants of leas and fkies shall change,
And fish on fhore, and ftags in air fhall range,
The banish'd Parthian dwell on Arar's brink,
And the blue German shall the Tigris drink;
Ere I, forfaking gratitude and truth,
Forget the figure of that godlike youth.
MELIBOE US.
But we muft beg our bread in climes unknown,
Beneath the fcorching or the freezing zone;
And fome to fair Oaxis fhall be fold,
Or try the Lybian heat, or Scythian cold;
The reft among the Britons be confin'd,
A race of men from all the world disjoin'd.
O! must the wretched exiles ever mourn?
Nor after length of rolling years return?
Are we condemn'd by fate's unjuft decree,
No more our houfes and our homes to fee?
Or fhall we mount again the rural throne,
And rule the country, kingdoms once our own?
Did we for thefe barbarians plant and fow,
On thefe, on thefe, our happy fields bestow?
Good heav'n, what dire effects from civil difcord flow!
Now let me graft my pears, and prune the vine
The fruit is theirs, the labour only mine.
Farewel my pastures, my paternal stock,
My fruitful fields, and my more fruitful flock!
No more, my goats, fhall I behold you climb.
The steepy cliffs, or crop the flow'ry thyme;
No more extended in the grot below,
Shall fee you browzing on the mountain's brow,
The prickly fhrubs, and after on the bare
Lean down the deep abyfs and hang in air!
No more my sheep fhall fip the morning dew;
No more my song fhall please the rural crew:
Adieu, my tuneful pipe! and all the world adieu!
;
}
TITYR US.
This night, at least, with me forget your care;
Chefnuts and curds and cream fhall be your fare:
The carpet ground fhall be with leaves o'er-spread,
And boughs ball weave a cov'ring for your head:
For fee yon funny hill, the fhade extends,
And curling smoke from cottages afcends.
Spenfer was the nrft of our own countrymen, who acquired any confiderable reputation by this method of writing. We fhall infert his fixth eclogue, or that for June, which is allegorical, as will be seen by the
ARGUMENT.
"Hobbinol, from a description of the pleasures of the place, excites Colin to the enjoyment of them. Colin declares himself incapable of delight, by reason of his ill fuccefs in love, and his lofs of Refalind, who had treacherously forfaken him for Menalcas, another fhepherd. By Tityrus (mentioned before in Spenfer's fecond eclogue, and again in the twelfth) is plainly meant Chaucer, whom the author fometimes profefs'd to imitate. In the person of Colin, is reprefented the author himself; and Hobbinol's inviting him to leave the hilly country, feems to allude to his leaving the North, where, as is mention'd in his life, he had for fome time refided."
HOBBIN O L.
Lo! Colin, here the place, whofe pleasant fight From other shades hath wean'd my wand'ring mind: Tell me, what wants me here, to work delight? The fimple air, the gentle warbling wind,
So calm, fo cool, as no where else I find : The graffy ground with dainty daifies dight,
The bramble-bush, where birds of every kind To th' water's fall their tunes attemper right.
COLIN.
O! happy Hobbinol, I blefs thy ftate, That paradife haft found which Adam loft.
Here wander may thy flock early or late, Withouten dread of wolves to been ytoft ;
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