Now under hanging mountains, Unheard, unknown, And calls her ghoft. Amidít Rhodope's snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the defert he flies; Ah fee, he dies! Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung. VII. Music the fiercest grief can charm, And make despair and madness please: Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, Es 100 1ος 120 125 When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, And Angels lean from heav'n to hear. 130 VE shades, where sacred truth is fought; NOTES, THESE two Chorus's were composed to enrich a very poor Play; but they had the usual effe& of ill-adjusted ornaments, only to make its meanness the more confpicuous. a) Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose defire these two Chorus's were composed to fupply as many, wanting in his play. They were fet many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckinghamhouse. P. VER. 3. where heavnly vifions Plato fir'd, And Epicurus, lay inspir'd!) The propriety of these lines arifes from hence, that Brutus, one of the Heroes of this Play, was of the old Academy; and Caffins, the other, was an Epicurean; but this had not been enough to justify the Poet's choice, had not Plato's system of Divinity, and Epicurus's system of Morals, been the most rational amongst the various sects of Greek Philosophy.) And Epicurus lay inspir'd! War, horrid war, your thoughtful walks invades, ANTISTROPHE I. Oh heav'n-born fitters! source of art! Say, will ye bless the bleak Atlantic shore? STROPHE II. When Athens sinks by fates unjust, 'Till fome new Tyrant lifts his purple hand, 5 10 15 20 NOTES. VER. 12. Moral truth AND mystic song.) He had expressed himfelf better had he faid. Moral truth IN mystic fong! In the Antiftrophe he turns from Philofophy to Myshology, and Mythology is nothing but moral eruch in mystic song. ANTISTROPHE II. Ye Gods! what juftice rules the ball! In ev'ry age, in ev'ry state! 25 30 |