SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733. I. FLUTT RING spread thy purple Pinions, II. Mild Arcadians, ever blooming, III. Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping, IV. Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers; V. Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors, VI. Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow, VII. Melancholy smooth Meander, With thy flow'ry Chaplets crown'd. VIII. Thus when Philomela, drooping, THE above is a pleasant burlesque on the gawdy, glittering, florid style and manner of certain descriptive poets. I think the reader will pardon me for laying before him part of a piece of ridicule on the same subject, and of equal merit, which made its first appearance many years ago in the Oxford Student, and is thus entitled, "Ode to Horror, in the Allegoric, Descriptive, Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our Modern Ode-Writers and Monody-Mongers." "Ferreus ingruit Horror." "O Goddess of the gloomy scene, Of shadowy shapes, thou black-brow'd Queen; On yonder mould'ring abbey found; Didst wake the hollow-whisp'ring breeze O thou, with whom in cheerless cell, Virg. What felt the Gallic Traveller, While many a mummy thro' the shade, In hieroglyphic stole array'd, Seem'd to uprear the mystic head, And trace the gloom with ghostly tread; Horror! his soul was all thy own!" The author was himself a descriptive poet of the first class. Mr. William Collins thought himself aimed at by this piece of ridicule. His odes had been just published; and the last lines seemed to refer to a particular passage in them. ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT. I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon ; (Envy be silent, and attend!) I know a reasonable Woman, Handsome and witty, yet a Friend. Nor warp'd by Passion, aw'd by Rumour, And sensible soft Melancholy. "Has she no faults then (Envy says) Sir?" When all the World conspires to praise her, NOTES. Ver. 1. I know the thing] Equal in elegance to any compliment that Waller has paid to Saccharissa, especially the last stanza, and the answer to Envy. The Lady addressed was Mrs. Howard, of Marble-hill, bed-chamber woman to Queen Caroline, and afterward Countess of Suffolk. |