barbarous enemy, a design was formed to relieve it; and the intelligence was conveyed to the citizens by a letter which was tied under the wing of a pigeon. Thuanus, lib. lv. c. 5.
The same messenger was employed at the siege of Mutina, as we are informed by the elder Pliny. Hist. Nat. x. 37.
Note u.P. 26, l. 6.
Hark! the bee, &c.
This little animal, from the extreme convexity of her eye, cannot see many inches before her.
ON THE SECOND PART.
Note x.P. 33, l. 19.
Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!
The astronomer chalking his figures on the wall, in Hogarth's view of Bedlam, is an admirable exemplification of this idea. See the Rake's Progress, plate 8.
Note y.P. 34, l. 4.
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!
The following stanzas are said to have been written on a blank leaf of this Poem. They present so affecting a reverse of the picture, that I cannot resist the opportunity of introducing them here.
Pleasures of Memory!—oh supremely blest,
And justly proud beyond a Poet's praise:
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays!
By me how envied!—for to me,
The herald still of misery,
Memory makes her influence known
By sighs, and tears, and grief alone:
I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong
The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.
