Have I experienced; not a cabin-door, They that receive the cataracts, and ere long Blessing the nations, and reflecting round The gladness they inspire. Gentle or rude, No scene of life but has contributed Much to remember-from the POLESINE, Where, when the south-wind blows, and clouds on clouds A sacred ark, slung in his orchard-grove; • The Po. Is lost in rank luxuriance, and to breathe Where the wild-boar retreats, when hunters chafe, But now a long farewell! Oft, while I live, The temples of Pæstum. Awakening, such as the CALABRIAN horn, Along the mountain-side, when all is still, Pours forth at folding-time; and many a chant, Solemn, sublime, such as at midnight flows From the full choir, when richest harmonies Break the deep silence of thy glens, LA CAVA; To him who lingers there with listening ear Now lost and now descending as from Heaven! NOTES. Page 2, line 7. As on that Sabbath-eve when He arrived, 'J'arrive essoufflé, tout en nage; le cœur me bat, je vois de loin les soldats à leur poste; j'accours, je crie d'une voix étouffée. Il étoit trop tard.' See Les Confessions. L. 1. P. 2, 1. 15. 'Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it. "Lines of eleven syllables occur almost in every page of Milton; but though they are not unpleasing, they ought not to be admitted into heroic poetry; since the narrow limits of our language allow us no other distinction of epic and tragic measures."—Johnson. It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In the Paradise Regained they occur oftener than in the Paradise Lost in the proportion of ten to one; and let it be remembered that they supply us with another close, another cadence; that they add, as it were, a string to the instrument; and, by enabling the Poet to relax at pleasure, to rise and fall with his subject, contribute what is most wanted, compass, variety. Shakspeare seems to have delighted in them, and in some of his soliloquies has used them four and five times in succession; an example I have not followed in mine. As in the following instance, where the subject is solemn beyond all others. To be, or not to be, &c. They come nearest to the flow of an unstudied eloquence, and should therefore be used in the drama; but why exclusively? Horace, as we learn from himself, admitted the Musa Pedestris in his happiest hours, in those when he was most at his ease; and we cannot regret her visits. To her we are indebted for more than half he has left us; nor was she ever at his elbow in greater dishabille, than when he wrote the celebrated Journey to Brundusium. P. 3, 1. 26. like him of old "To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought," says Gibbon," the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his library, that incomparable landskip." P. 4, 1. 2. That winds beside the mirror of all beauty, There is no describing in words; but the following lines were written on the spot, and may serve perhaps to recall to some of my readers what they have seen in this enchanting country. I love to watch in silence till the Sun Sets; and MONT BLANC, arrayed in crimson and gold, |