trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those taftes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to diffent from fo great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has pafled as to the rude file and evil apparel of this antiquated Song; for there are feveral parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers fonorous*; at leaft, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the pocts made ufe of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will fee in feveral of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought or the expreffion in that stanza,

This

To drive the deer with hound and horn

Earl Percy took his way!

The child may rue that is unborn

The hunting of that day!

way of confidering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon pofterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and loft their fathers in it, but on those alfo who perifhed in future battles which took their rife from this quarrel of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum
Rara juventus.

HOR. 1 Od. ii. 23.

*See Dr. Blackwell's "Enquiry into the Life and Writ"ings of Homer," fecond edit. Svo. 1736, fect. v. p. 59, 60.

Pofterity,

Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes,

Shall read with grief, the ftory of their times. What can be more founding and poetical, or refemble more the majestic fimplicity of the ancients, than the following ftanzas?

The ftout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three fummer's days to take.

With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chofen men of might,

Who knew full well, in time of need,
To aim their shafts aright.

The hounds ran fwiftly through the woods

The nimble deer to take,

And with their cries the hills and dales
An echo fhrill did make.

Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon

Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum: · Et vox affenfu nemorum ingeminata remugit.

Citharon loudly calls me to my way;

GEORG. iii. 43.

Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and purfue the prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,

Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses breed:
From hills and dales the chearful cries rebound;
For Echo hunts along, and propagates the found.

Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;

Full twenty hundred Scottish spears,
All marching in our fight.

All men of pleasant Tividale,
Faft by the river Tweed, &c.
Ff 2

DRYDEN.

The

The country of the Scotch warriors, defcribed in these two laft verfes, has a fine romantic fituation, and affords a couple of fmooth words for verfe. If the reader compares the foregoing fix lines of the fong with the following Latin verfes, he will fee how much they are written in the fpirit of Virgil.

Adverfi campo apparent, haftafque reductis
Protendunt longe dextris ; & fpicula vibrant :-
Quique altum Prænefte viri, quique arva Gabine
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, & rofcida rivis
Hernica faxa colunt:qui rofea rura Velini,
Qui Tetrica horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Cafperiamque colunt, Forulofque & flumen Himella :
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt.

Æn. xi. 6o5. vii. 682, 712.

Advancing in a line, they couch their fpears-
-Prænefte fends a chofen band,

With thofe who plow Saturnia's Gabine land:
Befides the fuccours which cold Anien yields;
The rocks of Hernicus--befides a band,
That followed from Velinum's dewy land--
And mountaineers that from Severus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play:
Cafperia fends her arms, with thofe that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.

But to proceed:

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
Moft like a Baron bold,

Rode foremost of the company,
Whofe armour fhone like gold.

DRYDEN.

Turnus

Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcefferat agmen, &c.
Vidifti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis
Aureus

Our English archers bent their bows,
Their hearts were good and true;
At the first flight of arrows fent,
Full threefcore Scots they flew.

They clos'd full faft on ev'ry fide,
No flacknefs there was found;
And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gafping on the ground.

With that there came an arrow keen
Out of an English bow,

Which ftruck Earl Douglas to the heart,

A deep and deadly blow.

Æneas was wounded after the fame manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley.

Has inter voces, media inter talia verba,
Ecce viro ftridens alis allapfa fagitta eft,
Incertum qua pulfa manu-

Æn. xii. 918.

Thus, while he fpake, unmindful of defence,
A winged arrow ftruck the pious prince;
But whether from an human hand it came,
Or hoftile God, is left unknown by fame.

DRYDEN.

But of all the defcriptive parts of this Song, there are none more beautiful than the four following ftanzas, which have a great force and fpirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumftances. The thought in the third ftanza was

Ff3

never

never touched by any other poet, and is fuch an one as would have fhined in Homer or in Virgil.

So thus did both thefe nobles die,
Whofe courage none could ftain;
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble earl was flain.

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trufty tree,

An arrow of a cloth-yard long

Unto the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomery

So right his fhaft he fet,

The grey-goofe wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

This fight did laft from break of day
Till fetting of the fun;

For when they rung the ev'ning bell
The battle fcarce was done.

One may obferve likewife, that in the catalogue of the flain, the author has followed the example of the great ancient poets, not only in giving a long lift of the dead, but by diverfifying it with little characters of particular perfons.

And with Earl Douglas there was flain
Sir Hugh Montgomery,

Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly:

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,
His fifter's fon was he;