Such was the period, long reftrain'd by Fate,
And fuch the downfal of the fairy state.

This dale, a pleasing region, not unbleft,
This dale poffefs'd they; and had ftill poffefs'd,
Had not their monarch, with a father's pride,
Rent from her lord th' inviolable bride,
Rash to diffolve the contract seal'd above,
The folemn vows and facred bonds of love.
Now, where his elves so brightly danc'd the round,
No violet breathes, nor daify paints the ground;
His towers and people fill one common grave,
A shapeless ruin, and a barren cave.

Beneath huge hills of fmoaking piles he lay
Stun'd and confounded a whole fummer's day.
At length awak'd (for what can long restrain
Unbody'd fpirits!) but awak'd in pain:
And as he faw the defolated wood,

And the dark den where once his empire stood,
Grief chill'd his heart: to his half-open'd eyes
In every oak a Neptune feem'd to rife:

He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,

:

The long poffeffion of a thousand years.

Thro' bush, thro' brake, thro' groves and gloomy dales, Thro' dank and dry, o'er ftreams and flowery vales, Direct they fled; but often look'd behind, And stop'd and startled at each rustling wind, Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands Difperfe, and wander into different lands;

VOL. I.

E

Part

Part did beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie,
In filent glooms impervious to the sky;
Part on fair Avon's margin feek repose,
Whose stream o'er Britain's midmoft region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,
And feas and oceans are but known by fame;
Some to dark woods and secret shades retreat,
And fome on mountains chufe their airy feat.
There haply by the ruddy damfel feen,

Or fhepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,
While from their steps a circling verdure springs
But fly from towns, and dread the courts of kings.
Mean-while fad Kenna, loth to quit the grove,
Hung o'er the body of her breathless love,
Try'd every art (vain arts!) to change his doom,
And vow'd (vain vows !) to join him in the tomb.
What could she do? the Fates alike deny
The dead to live, or fairy forms to die.

An herb there grows (the fame old h Homer tells
Ulyffes bore to rival Circe's fpells)

Its root is ebon-black, but fends to light

A ftem that bends with flow'rets milky white;
Moly the plant, which gods and fairies know,
But fecret kept from mortal men below.
On his pale limbs its virtuous juice the shed,
And murmur'd myftic numbers o'er the dead,

* Odyff. 1. 10.

Wher

When lo! the little fhape by magic power
Grew lefs and less, contracted to a flower

A flower, that firft in this fweet garden fmil'd, wel,
To virgins facred, and the Snow-drop ftyl'd.

The new-born plant with fweet regret the view'd,
Warm'd with her fighs, and with her tears bedew'd,
Its ripen'd feeds from bank to bank convey'd,

And with her lover whiten'd half the fhade.

Thus won from death each spring fhe fees him grow,
And glories in the vegetable fnow,

Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's plains, Its parent's warmth and spotlefs name retains Firft leader of the flowery race afpires, And foremost catches the fun's genial fires, "Midft frofts and fnows triumphant dares appear, Mingles the seasons, and leads on the year. Deferted now of all thy pygmy race, Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place. In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age, It lay accurs'd, the mark of Neptune's rage; 'Till great Naffau recloath'd the defart fhade, Thence facred to Britannia's monarchs made. "Twas then the green-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna, came (Kenna that gave the neighb'ring town its name) Proud when she faw th' ennobled garden fhine

With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line.
She vow'd to grace the manfions once her own,
And picture out in plants the fairy town.

E 2

Το

To far-fam'd Wife 1 her flight unseen she sped,
And with gay prospects fill'd the craftsman's head,
Soft in his fancy drew a pleafing scheme,

And plan'd that landskip in a morning dream.

With the sweet view the fire of gardens fir'd,
Attempts the labour by the nymph infpir'd,
The walls and streets in rows of yew designs,
And forms the town in all its ancient lines;
The corner trees he lifts more high in air,
And girds the palace with a verdant square:

This person is mentioned with his partner by Mr. Addison, is The Spectator, No 477. "Wife and London are our heroic Poets: and "if, as a critic, I may fingle out any paffage of their works to com"mend, I fhall take notice of that part of the upper garden of Ken"fington, which was at first nothing but a gravel pit. It must have "been a fine genius for gardening, that could have thought of forming fuch an unfightly hollow into fo beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with fo uncommon and agreeable a fcene as that which it is 'now wrought into. To give this particular spot of ground the greater "effect, they have made a very pleafing contrast; for as on one fide "of the walk you fee this hollow bafon, with its feveral little plan"tations lying so conveniently under the eye of the beholder; on the "other fide of it there appears a feeming mount, made up of trees "rifing one higher than another in proportion as they approach the "6 centre. A fpectator, who has not heard this account of it, would "think this circular mount was not only a real one, but that it had "been actually scooped out of that hollow fpace which I have before " mentioned. I never yet met with any one who has walked in this garden, who was not ftruck with that part of it which I have here " mentioned."

Nor

Nor knows, while round he views the rifing fcenes,
He builds a city as he plants his greens.

With a fad pleasure the aërial maid

This image of her ancient realm survey'd;

How chang'd, how fallen from its primæval pride!
Yet here each moon, the hour her lover dy'd,
Each moon his folemn obfequies the pays,"
And leads the dance beneath pale Cynthia's rays;
Pleas'd in the fhades to head her fairy train,
And grace the groves where Albion's kinfmen reign.

AN

EPISTLE from a LADY in ENGLAND,

T

ΤΟ Α

GENTLEMAN, at A.VIGNON

By the Same.

O thee, dear rover, and thy vanquish'd friends, The health fhe wants, thy gentle Chloe fends; Though much you fuffer, think I fuffer more, os mit Worfe than an exile on my native shore,

a A city belonging to the Holy See, in which the Pretender refided after the rebellion in the year 1715. Dr. Johnfon obferves of this Epiftle, that it ftands high among party Poems; it expreffes contempt without coarseness, and fuperiority without infolence.