BOOK IV.* ODE I. TO VENUS. AGAIN? new tumults in my. breast? Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! I am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne. Ah sound no more thy soft alarms, Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms. Mother too fierce of dear desires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires; To Number five direct your doves, 5 There spread round MURRAY all your blooming loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart With every sprightly, every decent part; Equal, the injured to defend, To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend. NOTES. 10 * This, and the unfinished imitation of the ninth Ode of the fourth Book which follows, shew as happy a vein for managing the Odes of Horace as the Epistles. Warburton. It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen, is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode; folio, p. 268. Warton. Ver. 9. Number five,] The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. Et centum puer artium, Latè signa feret militiæ tuæ. Et quandoque potentior Largis muneribus riserit æmuli, Albanos prope te lacus Ponet marmoream sub trabe citrea. Illic plurima naribus Duces thura; lyræque et Berecynthiæ Delectabere tibiæ Mistis carminibus, non sine fistula. Illic bis pueri die Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum Laudantes, pede candido In morem Salium ter quatient humum. Me nec fœmina, nec puer Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero, Nec vincire novis tempora floribus. Sed cur, heu! Ligurine, cur Manat rara meas lacryma per genas? Cur facunda parum decoro Inter verba cadit lingua silentio? NOTES. Ver. 18. Make but his riches, &c.] Seward has an anecdote of Lord Mansfield, respecting the difficulties of his early life; I know not what foundation there is for it. He says, that Murray, acquainting Lord Foley, that he feared he must give up the law, and go into orders, on account of his slender income; Lord Foley generously requested his acceptance of two hundred pounds aBowles. year. Ver. 21. His house, &c.] This alludes to Mr. Murray's intention at one time of taking the lease of Pope's house and grounds at Twickenham, before he became so distinguished. Bowles. He, with a hundred arts refined, Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind : To him each rival shall submit, Make but his riches equal to his wit. Then shall thy form the marble grace, 15 (Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face: 20 His house, embosom'd in the grove, Sacred to social life and social love, Shall glitter o'er the pendent green, Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Thither the silver-sounding lyres 25 Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires; There youths and nymphs, in consort gay, For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more. The still-believing, still-renew'd desire; Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear! Steals down my cheek the involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free, Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam, Absent I follow through the extended dream; Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms, 35 And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms; |