Thomson calls the sun,
Rejoicing in the east.
P. 132. This "Dirge" appears to be the love-song of some Ophelia, or distracted maiden, whose lover was drowned. There is a pathetic simplicity of sentiment, and a sweetness of numbers in it, which remind one of some of the little songs, in the plays of Shakespeare.
P. 134. XXI. These lines, though with considerable variations, are to be found in Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of "Valentinian." Not being aware of this, till this part of the Tixall Poetry was printed, I had endeavoured to supply both the sense and the rhymes, which were wanting in the original MS., by the lines in italics.
P. 137. XXIV. These stanzas are in Headley's Work, but very different from the copy given here.
P. 140.Like a deer that is wounded I bleeding run on, &c.
This poetical simile, (whoever was the original author of it,) seems to have been taken, in this instance, from Virgil:
Urbe furens; qualis conjectâ cerva sagittâ,
Quam procul incautam, nemora inter Cressia fixit
Pastor agens telis, liquitque volatile ferrum,
Nescius; ilia frugâ silvas saltusque peragrat
Dictæos, hæret lateri lethalis arundo.
P. 142. l. 15. I lost him too soone, and I loved him too late.
A sweet line.
P. 143. Among the poems of Cartwright, who flourished in the reign of Charles I. there is one which begins in the same spirited manner as this. I have transcribed the two first stanzas, on account of the singularity of the subject.
