These, were my breast inspir'd with equal flame, And where, tho' all things differ, all agree. 10 15 20 25 And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise, 30 VARIATIONS. Ver. 25. Originally thus ; Why should I sing our better suns or air, Whose vital draughts prevent the leach's care, While through fresh fields th' enliv'ning odours breathe, NOTES. Ver. 15.] Evidently from Cooper's Hill; Such was the discord which did first disperse Form, order, beauty, thro' the universe. Ver. 19.] It is a false thought, and gives, as it were, sentiment to the groves. While by our oaks the precious loads are born, A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste, And kings more furious and severe than they; 40 45 NOTES. Ver. 33. Not proud Olympus, &c.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill, had said, "Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears, But Atlas only, which supports the spheres." The comparison is childish, as the taking it from fabulous history destroys the compliment. Our Poet has shewn more judgment: he has made a manly use of as fabulous a circumstance by the artful application of the mythology, "Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear," &c. Making the nobility of the hills of Windsor-forest to consist in supporting the inhabitants in plenty. W. This appears an idle play on the word "supporting." Ver. 37.] The word crown'd is exceptionable; it makes Pan crowned with flocks. Ver. 45. savage laws] The Forest Laws. See the account Who claim'd the skies, dispeopled air and floods, 50 The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods: VARIATIONS. Ver. 49. Originally thus in the MS. From towns laid waste, to dens and caves they ran Ver. 57, &c. No wonder savages or subjects slain But subjects starv'd, while savages were fed. It was originally thus, but the word "savages" is not properly applied to beasts, but to men; which occasioned the alteration. P. NOTES. of them in Blackstone's excellent Lectures; the killing a deer, boar, or hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's eyes. The fields are ravish'd from th' industrious swains, VARIATIONS. Ver. 72. And wolves with howling fill, &c.] 70 The author thought this an error, wolves not being common in England at the time of the Conqueror. P. NOTES. Ver. 65. The fields are ravish'd, &c.] Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. P. I have the authority of three or four of our best antiquarians to say, that the common tradition of villages and parishes, within the compass of thirty miles, being destroyed, in the New Forest, is absolutely groundless, no traces or vestiges of such being to be discovered, nor any other parish named in Doomsday Book, but what now remains. Of late years, some minute inquiries have been made on this subject, by accurate and well-inform'd judges, who are clearly of this opinion. The President Henault has given us a more amiable idea of our Norman Conqueror than is here exhibited. Ver. 71.] This image of the fox is in the poems ascribed to Ossian. IMITATIONS. Ver. 65. The fields are ravish'd from th' industrious swains, Translated from "Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis," an old monkish writer, I forget who. P. In Camden's Britannia, first edition, in the account of Somersetshire it is said of Edgar, Templa Deo, Templis Monachos, Monachis dedit agros. Aw'd by his Nobles, by his Commons curst, NOTES. 80 Ver. 74.] A fine remain of ancient art and ancient customs, a piece of tapestry, said to be the work of Queen Matilda, is annually exhibited in the cathedral church of Bayeux, in Normandy, representing the expedition of William the Conqueror, and containing a most minute picture of every part of that event, from his landing in England to the battle of Hastings. An engraving of it is given in the tenth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres. Ver. 80.] In St. Foix's entertaining historical Essays on Paris, it is related, p. 95. tom. 5. that just as the body of William I. was going to be put into the grave, a voice cried aloud, "I forbid his interment. When William was only Duke of Normandy, he seized this piece of Land from my father, on which he built this abbey of St. Stephen, without making me a recompense, which I now demand.” Prince Henry, who was present, called out the man, who was only a common farrier, and agreed to give him a hundred crowns for this burial place. Except the former conquest of England by the Saxons, (says Hume, vol. i.) who were induced, by peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the natives, it would be difficult to find in all history, a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the ancient inhabitants. Ver. 81. second hope] Richard, second son of William the Conqueror. W. |