144 While in more lengthen'd notes and flow, The deep, majestic, folemn organs blow. Hark! the numbers soft and clear Gently steal upon the ear; Now louder, and yet louder rife, And fill with spreading founds the skies; The ftrains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall. NOTES. 10 15 20 By mufic, and Mr. Gray, whofe mufical feelings were exquifite, with a knowledge of the art, gave him an idea for the overture, which feemed equally proper and ftriking. In this refpect, as well as many others, he refembled Milton. The name and the genius of Cowley gave, for many years, a currency and vogue to irregular odes, called Pindaric. One of the best of which species is that of Cobb, called, the Female Reign; and two of the worlt, Sprat's Plague of Athens, and Bolingbroke's Almahide. Congreve is thought to be the firft writer that gave a fpecimen of a legitimate Pindaric ode, with ftrophe, antiftrophe, and ode, elucidated with a sensible and judicious preface on the fubject. But it does not feem to have been obferved, that, long before, Ben Johnfon had given a model of this very fpecies of a regular Pindaric ode, addreft to Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morrison, page 233 of his works, folio, in which he entitles each stanza the turne, the counter-turne, and the stand. Though Congreve's ode is not extraordinary, yet the difcourfe prefixed to it has a great deal of learning. Dr. Akenfide frequently mentioned to me, as one of the best of the regular Pindaric odes, Fenton's to Lord Gower, 1716. Mr. Gray was of opinion, that the stanzas of thefe regular odes ought not to confist of above nine lines each, at the moft. VER. 7. Let the loud trumpet found, &c.] Our Author, in his rules for good writing, had faid, that the found fhould be an echo II. By Mufic, minds an equal temper know, Or, when the foul is prefs'd with cares, 25 Warriors fhe fires with animated founds; Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds: Melancholy lifts her head, Morpheus rouzes from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, Lift'ning Envy drops her fnakes; Inteftine war no more our Paffions wage, And giddy Factions hear away their rage. NOTES. 30 35 But to the fenfe. The graces it adds to the harmony are obvious. But we should never have seen all the advantages arifing from this rule, had this ode not been written. In which, one may venture to fay, is found all the harmony that poetic found, when it comes in aid of fenfe, is capable of producing. W. This panegyric is certainly carried too high: this ode is not the confummation of true poetic harmony. VER. 22.] This stanza much resembles the fifth of Congreve's mufic ode; the fecond of which, by the way, is uncommonly good. It is remarkable that Pope knew nothing of music, and had no ear for it; as had Milton, Gray, and Mason: the last of whom is an excellent performer and composer. VER. 35. Dr. Greene fet this ode to mufic, in 1730, as an exercise for his Doctor's Degree at Cambridge, on which occafion Pope made confiderable alteration in it, and added the following ftanza in this place. Amphion thus bade wild diffenfion cease, VOL. I. L Amphion III. But when our Country's cause provokes to Arms, So when the first bold veffel dar'd the feas, NOTES. Amphion taught contending kings, That ftrike the fubject's anfwering heart, 40 And he made another alteration, at the fame time, in flanza iv. v. 51, and wrote it thus ; Sad Orpheus fought his confort loft; The adamantine gates were barr'd, And nought was seen and nought was heard, Around the dreary coaft; But dreadful gleams, &c. VER. 39.] He might have added a beautiful description of the Argo in Apollonius Rhodius; and if he had been a reader of Pindar, he might have looked into the fourth Pythian ode, particularly verse 315 of Orpheus. Oxford edition, folio, 1697. VER. 40. While Argo] Few images in any poet, ancient or modern, are more ftriking than that in Apollonius, where he fays, that when the Argo was failing near the coast where the Centaur Chiron dwelt, he came down to the very margin of the fea, bringing his wife with the young Achilles in her arms, that he might fhew the child to his father Peleus, who was on his voyage with the other Argonauts. Apollonius Rhodius, Lib. v. ver. 553. Each Each chief his fev'nfold fhield display'd, And feas, and rocks, and skies rebound To arms, to arms, to arms! IV. But when through all th' infernal bounds, Love, ftrong as Death, the Poet led To the pale nations of the dead, NOTES. 45 50 What VER. 48. To arms, to arms,] Which effects of the song, however lively, do not equal the force and spirit of what Dryden afcribes to the fong of his Grecian artift; whofe imagery in this paffage is fo alive, fo fublime, and so animated, that the poet himself appears to be ftrongly poffeffed of the action described, and confequently places it fully before the eyes of the reader. Mr. St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a morning visit to Dryden, whom he always refpected, found him in an unusual agitation of fpirits, even to a trembling. On enquiring the cause, "I have been up all night, (replied the old bard); my mufical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their Feast of St. Cæcilia: I have been fo ftruck with the fubject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it here it is, finifhed at one fitting." And immediately he fhewed him this ode, which places the British lyric poetry above that of any other nation. This anecdote, as true as it is curious, was imparted by Lord Bolingbroke to Pope, by Pope to Mr. Gilbert Weft, by him to my ingenious friend Mr. Berenger, who communicated it to me. The rapidity, and yet the perfpicuity of the thoughts, the glow and the expreffiveness of the images, those certain marks of the firft sketch of a master, confpire to corroborate the fact. It is not to be understood, that this piece was not afterwards reconfidered, retouched, and corrected. VER. 49. But when] See Divine Legation, Book ii. sect. 1. Where Orpheus is confidered as a Philofopher, a Legislator, and a Mystagogue. In vol. v. of the Memoirs of Inscriptions, &c. P. 117. L 2 But hark! he strikes the golden lyre; And fee! the tortur'd ghofts refpire, See, fhady forms advance! Thy ftone, O Sifyphus, ftands ftill, Ixion refts upon his wheel, And the pale spectres dance; The Furies fink upon their iron beds, 65 And fnakes uncurl'd hang lift'ning round their heads. V. By the ftreams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow O'er the Elyfian flow'rs; NOTES. 71 p. 117, is a very curious differtation upon the Orphic Life, by the Abbé Fraguier. He was the first critic who rightly interpreted the words of Horace, Cædibus & fædo victù, as meaning an abolition of eating human flesh. Though the Hymns that remain are not the work of the real Orpheus, yet are they extremely ancient, certainly older than the Expedition of Xerxes against Greece. VER. 66.] This line is taken from an ode of Cobb. VER. 68. Dance;] A moft improper, becaufe ludicrous image. By |