Instructs the Fowls of Heaven; and thro' their Breasts
These Arts of Love diffuses? - What? but GOD!
Inspiring GOD! who boundless Spirit all,
And unremitting Energy, pervades,
Subfifts, adjusts, and agitates the Whole.
He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone
Seems not to work, so exquisitely fram'd
Is this Complex, amazing Scene of Things.
And thus the Perpetuity, and Unchangeableness of the Heavenly Bodies
WITH what a perfect World-revolving Power
Were first th' unweildy Planets launch'd along
Th' illimitable Void! Thus to remain,
Amid the Flux of many thousand Years,
That oft has swept the busy Race of Men,
And all their labour'd Monuments away,
Unresting, changeless, matchless, in their Course;
To Night and Day, with the delightful Round
Of Seafons, faithful; not excentric once ?
So pois'd, and perfect is the vast Machine.
His next is on the Virtues of Herbs THEN spring the living Herbs, profusely wild O'er all the deep-green Earth, beyond the Power Of BOTANIST to number up their Tribes. &c. But who their Virtues can déclare? who pierce With Vision pure into these secret Stores
Of Life, and Health, and Joy? The Food of Man
While yet he liv'd in Innocence, and told
A Length of golden Years, unflesh'd in Blood,
A Stranger to the savage Arts of Life,
Death, Rapine, Carnage, Surfeit, and Disease,
The Lord, and not the Tyrant of the World.
Another in Laudem Diluculi -
FALSELY luxurious, will not Man awake,
And, starting from the Bed of Sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the filent Hour,
To Meditation due and facred Song ?
And is there ought in Sleep can charm the Wife?
To lie in dead Oblivion, lofing half
The fleeting Moments of too short a Life?
Total Extinction of th' enlighten'd Soul!
Or else to feaverish Vanity alive,
Wilder'd, and tofssing thro' distemper'd Dreams ?
Who would in fuch a gloomy State remain,
Longer than Nature craves; when every Muse,
And every blooming Pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildy-devious Morning Walk?
His next to presumptuous Infidels
AND lives the Man, whose univerfal Eye
Has fwept at once th' unbounded Scheme of Things;
Mark'd their Dependance fo, and firm Accord,
As with infaultering Accent to conclude
That This availeth nought? Has any feen
The mighty Chain of Beings! - Summer, ver. 296.
The last a serious Contemplation in a gloomy
Winter's Night -
AS yet 'tis Midnight waste. The weary Clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into folid Gloom. &c. -
And now, ye lying Vanities of Life!
Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating Train!
Where are ye now? and what is your Amount ?
Vexation, Disappointment, and Remorse.
Sad, fickening Thought! and yet deluded Man,
A Scene of crude disjointed Visions past,
And broken Slumbers, rises still refolvd,
With new-flush'd Hopes to run the giddy Round.
IN SECTION XIX. which, thro' the Injury of Time, is, as many of the reft are, imperfect, LONGINUS shews, That as ASYNDETONS raise, so in SECTION XXI. that POLYSYNDETONS or Copulatives enervate Stile. See both these Figures in Book I.
The two Afyndetons following are Mr. THOMSON's.
The first, the Pleasure of Faithful Precep
WHEN infant Reason grows apace-it calls
For the kind Hand of an affiduous Care :
Delightful Task! To rear the tender Thought,
To teach the young Idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh Instruction d'er the Mind,
To breathe th' inspiring Spirit, to implant
The generous Purpose in the glowing Breast.
The other a Midfummer Rapture WELCOME, ye Shades! ye bowery Thickets, bail! Ye lofty Pines! ye venerable Oaks ! Ye Ashes wild, resounding o'er the Steep ! Delicious is your Shelter to the Soul,
As to the hunted Hart the fallying Spring!
IN SECTION XX. he shews that a Complication of Figures makes a lively Imprefsion on the Mind, and gives an Instance from Demofthenes of a beautiful Congeries of ANAPHORA, DIATYPOSIS, and ASYNDEΤΟΝ. All which fee in Book I.
Claufes ANAPHORA begins alike. DIATYPOSIS paints Things to the Life. ASYNDETON drops AND thro' Hafte or Passion.
My Instance of the Complication of all these three Figures from Mr. THOMSON is an Address to the Ladies to dissuade 'em from Hunting
BUT if the rougher Sex by this red Sport
Are hurry'd wild, let not fuch horrid Foy
E'er stain the Bosom of the British Fair.
Far be the Spirit of the Chace from them!
Uncomely Courage, unbefeeming Skill,
To spring the Fence, to rein the prancing Steed,
The Cap, the Whip, the Masculine Attire,
In which they roughen to the Sense, and all
The winning Softness of their Sex is loft.
Made up of Blushes, Tenderness and Fears,
In them 'tis graceful to difssolve at Woe;
And from the smallest Violence to sprink. -
Know they to feize the captivated Soul
In Rapture warbled from the radiant Lip ;
To swim along, and fwell the mazy Dance;
To train the Foliage d'er the Snowy Lawn;
To play the Pencil, turn th' instructive Page;
To give new Flavour to the fruitful Year;
To give Society it's highest Taste;
To make well-order'd Home Man's best Delight;
To fweeten all the Toils of Human-Life;
This be the Female Dignity and Praise.
N SECTION XXII. our excellent Critic treats of HYPERBATON (which fee in Book I.) a Figure which is thus prais'd and defcrib'd by HORACE –
Ordinis hæc Virtus erit, & Venus (aut ego fallor) Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici
Pleraque differat & præfens in tempus omittat.
VIRGIL and MILTON, not only in their Diction but in the Plans of their several Poems, have observed it; the first beginning his Æneid with
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