THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

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To midnight banquets in the glimm’ring glades;Made vifionary fabricks round them life,

And airy fpeflres fkim before their eyes;

Of Talifmans and Sigils knew the potv’r, io5And careful watch’d the Planetary hour.

NOTES;

VER. 101. thefe jloft the moon,') Thefe fuperftiiions of the Ea£arc highly firiking to the imagination. Since the time that poetryhas been forced to affiime a more fober, andperhapsa more rationalair, it fcarcely ventures to enter the fairy regions. There are fume,however, who think it has fuffered by deferting thefe fields of fancy,and by totally laying afide the deferiptioos of magic and cncha.it.oe-.t.What an exquifue pi&ure has Thomfou giveu us in his delightfulGaftle oflndolence:

As when a (hepherd of the Hebrid ifles,

Plac'd far amid the melancholy main,

(Whether it be lone fancy Mm beguiles,

Or that aerial beings forr.etimes deign• To ftand, embodied, to our fei.fes plain)

Sees ou the naked bill, or valley low,

The whilft in ocean Phoebus dips his wain,

A vaft aflembly moving to arid fro,

Then all at once in air diflolves the wonderous fhow. M

Castle of Indolence, Stan. xxx. b. 1.

I cannot at pTefent recoiled any folitude fo romantic, or peopledwith beings fo proper to the place and the fpe&vor. The mindnatuially loves to lofe itfelf in one of thefe wildcrneffes, and to for~get the hurry, the noife, and fplcndor of moie polilhed life 5 as inthe following beautiful flanza of The Minflrel:

“ fu the deep windings of the grove, no moreThe hag obfeene, and grifly phantom dwell jNor in the fall of mouutain-ftream, or roarOf winds, is heard the ang-y fpiriis yell ;

No wizard mutters the tremendous fpcll,

Nor finks eoovulfive in prophetic fwoon,

Nor bids the noife of drums and trumpets fwell*

To eafe of fancied pangs the labouring moon,

Or chafe the (hade that blots tjie blazing orb of noon.”

Minstrel.-

F

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