"Lycoris, doubtless, was a jilting baggage, but why should Mr. D. belie
her? Virgil talks nothing of her going to sea, and perhaps she had a
mind to be only a camp laundress, which office she might be advanced to
without going to sea: 'the forms of horrid war,' for _horrida castra_,
is incomparable."
his brows, a country crown
Of fennel, and of nodding lilies drown,
"is a very odd figure: Sylvanus had swinging brows to drown such a crown
as that, _i.e._ to make it invisible, to swallow it up; if it be a
country crown, drown his brows, it is false English."
The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews.
"_Rivi_ signifies no such thing; but then, that bees should be drunk
with flowery shrubs, or goats be drunk with brouze, for drunk's the
verb, is a very quaint thought."
After much more to the same purpose, Milbourne thus introduces his own
version of the first Eclogue, with a confidence worthy of a better
cause:--"That Mr. Dryden might be satisfied that I'd offer no foul play,
nor find faults in him, without giving him an opportunity of
retaliation, I have subjoined another metaphrase or translation of the
first and fourth pastoral, which I desire may be read with his by the
original.
TITYRUS.
ECLOGUE I.
_Mel._ Beneath a spreading beech you, Tityrus, lie,
And country songs to humble reeds apply;
We our sweet fields, our native country fly,
We leave our country; you in shades may lie,
And Amaryllis fair and blythe proclaim,
And make the woods repeat her buxom name.
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