*** In noting the variations of the Text, the letter (▲) designates the original Edition of 1697 · (B) that of 16981, lo enort Life of Virgil, page 1 Preface to the Pastorals, page 56 " These two pieces have usually been ascribed to Mr. Walsh, whose name is found prefixed to them in different editions of the last century. But Mr. Malone, in his Biography of Dryden, has since shown that they were written by Dr. Knightly Chetwood.co Pastoral 2, verse 55. (A, B) Both fleck'd with white, the true Arcadian strain) ♫ strain (not stain) here used for race, stock, or lineage, as in Æneïd, 9, 54: IgA piebald steed, of Thracian strain, he press'd."^\\\\\__? (B) Ho, swain! what shepherd owns those ragged sheep? (A) Ho, groom! Pastoral 3, 15. .... When I cropp'd the hedges of the leys, (A, B) crept merely a typographic error, for cropt; the same verb in the Latin answering to both cropp'd and cut in the English. Pastoral 3, 62. (A, B) the seasons of the sliding year. .... Dryden probably wrote gliding. Pastoral 3, 88. (B) By turns the tuneful Muses love to sing. Pastoral 3, 97. (B) My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies. (A), With pelted fruit me Galatea plies. Galatea in the Latin- but of no consequence to the reader. Pastoral 4, 42. Another Argo land the chiefs............... (A, B), by typographic error, have the city of « Argos,” instead of the ship " Argo." Pastoral 5, 104. On both is offer'd annual sacrifice. (A) On each is offer'd... (B) On both are offer'd... Dryden having altered "each" to "both," the printer, I presume, made the other alteration, to correct a supposed violation of gram mar. Pastoral 6, 61. (B) Yet few, and strangers in th' unpeopled place. Pastoral 6, 75. (B) Though lab'ring yokes on their own necks they fear'd, And felt for budding horns on their smooth foreheads rear'd. (A) (much less faithfully) Though, tender and untry'd, the yoke he fear'd; Though soft and white as flakes of falling snow, And scarce his budding horns had arm'd his brow. Pastoral 7, 97. (B) These lines I did to memory commend, (A) When vanquish'd Thyrsis did in vain contend; : I've heard: and, Thyrsis, you contend in vain : The prince of poets on the Mantuan plain. Pastoral 8, 19. (B) Scarce from the world the shades of night withdrew. A So in both (A) and (B): and I give the words as I have found them; only observing, with respect to the Greek, to which the writer's remark is more particularly applicable, that—if we except the three particles, De, Ge, and Men, (which certainly contribute much to both harmony and perspicuity), and, with these, a very few others that language owes little of its superior advantages to short monosyllables, but much, indeed, to the beauty, energy, and extensive comprehension, of its long polysyllabic compounds. Georgic 1, 59. Be thou propitious.. (A, B) But thou an evident typographic error, from want of attention to the connexion, interrupted as it is by the intervention of a long parenthesis-" whatever part of heaven thou shalt obtain,.....be thou propitious." Georgic 1, 63. (B) And use thyself betimes to hear and grant our pray'rs. (A).. to hear our pray❜rs. Georgic 1, 110. (A, B) where vetches, pulse, and tares, have stood, And stalks of lupines grew (a stubborn wood), Th' ensuing season, in return, may bear The bearded product of the golden year. Although Dryden (Æn. 2, 409) mentions the "yellow year,” when speaking of the harvest in general; yet, here, where wheat alone is particularly designated, as distinguished from all other crops, I once thought it not improbable that he might have written "the golden ear," applying the epithet to the wheat itself, as Virgil does in this place, and in Æn. 4, 585; and Dryden himself (Geo. 1, 230) uses the term "shining ears" without any addition, as peculiarly designative of wheat, and sufficiently distinguishing it from the oats and darnel: "And oats unblest, and darnel domineers, And shoots its head above the shining ears." And accordingly, in my first edition, I suggested this idea in a note, but without altering the text. I now leave it undefended, because, in Georgic 2, 745, I find till the yellow field A full return of bearded harvest yield. Otherwise, a quibbling critic, disposed to cavil "de lanâ caprinâ," might interpret the "bearded product" of the year as the "bearded goats" born within the year! Georgic 1, 225. (A, B) Tough thistles... Dryden most probably wrote " Rough," agreeably to the original, aspera silva. Georgic 1, 237. On others' crops you may with envy look. (A, B) On other crops a typographic error. The Latin literally says "another man's heaped uszom a hep le Georgic 1, 265. The field-mouse builds her garner under ground Thus marred in (A and B) For gather'd grain the blind laborious mole Georgic 1, 398. A A And Argo and the Dog forsake the northern sphere. id (A, B) here again, as in Pastoral 4, 42, the city " Argos," instead of the ship" Argo.” (AB) The less and greater, who, by Fate's decree, Abhor to dive beneath the northern sea. There, as they say, perpetual night is found.... the southern sea.... either an oversight of Dryden, or a typographic error: more probably the latter. The printer, (I presume) imagining "There," in the following verse, to refer to the part of heaven designated in the preceding lines, took for granted that the author had made a slip of the pen in writing northern, and officiously undertook to scorrect the supposed error, by altering it to southern. In his justification, however, it may be alleged, that, in this whole passage, Dryden is much less clear and precise than his great master, who accurately distinguishes the opposite hemispheres Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum, &c. 4) Maximus hic flexu, &c. Illic, ut perhibent, &c. Georgic 1, 364. (B) To float the meadows, or to fence the field. VOL. II. b |