HORACE, ODE xvi. BooK 2. IMITATED'. THE HE weary sailor calls for ease, 5 This and the following pieces from BLACKLOCK's Collection, (Vol. I. pp. 117–143.) form a series of fifteen poems hitherto unappropriated, but which I have no hesitation to ascribe to Macpherson, His Verses on the Death of Marshal Keith, were inserted evidently by himself, but without his name, at the end of the volume, which was published in October 1760, when he was desirous to conceal the circumstance of his being a poet. For the same reason his unpublished verses were inserted anonymously in the same Collection; but they are sufficiently authenticated by the recurrence of the same images and expressions in his other productions. In the second volume, published after he had left the country, his name was prefixed without scruple to such pieces of his as were collected from the Scots Magazine. 2 And not a moon or star to guide.] beam, no moon looks from the skies." "No star with green trembling Six Bards, vol. ii. p. 417. Or hears the tempest idly rave; No av'rice tempts him to the wave. 10 Turn to the noisy camp your eye, 'Tis not the sash, the gown, the robe, Nor can the dome or lofty wall, More happy he! whose guiltless mind Blessed with his state; and craves no more Around the bed of state they fly, And dash the guilty cup of joy.] To authenticate the poem, all that is said upon Care in the preceding or subsequent paragraphs is taken from the description of Care in MACPHERSON's Hunter, II. 92--115. Unseen, but felt, oft in the halls of state He sits, and tinges all the pompous treat ¿ And oft he hovers round the downy bed, See Death, 90. Go, then; forsake your calm retreat, In vain you fly from inbred woe: And floats within the sparkling glass. 45 50 55 60 In vain we fly destructive Care, The monster in our breasts we bear.] And again, ver. 55. In vain you fly from inbred woe, Care climbs the vessel's painted prow, &c. From the Hunter, II. 98. In vain you fly from Care, Sharp stings the gnawing monster every where: Even round the sprightly muse it flies, And taints the numbers as they rise. If life you want undashed with woe, Some perish in their youthful bloom; 65 70 |