While far she flies, her scatter'd eggs are found,
Without an owner, on the sandy ground;
Cast out on fortune, they at mercy lie,
And borrow life from an indulgent sky;
Adopted by the sun in blaze of day,
They ripen under his prolific ray.
Unmindful she, that some unhappy tread
May crush her young in their neglected bed.
What time she skims along the field with speed,
She scorns the rider and pursuing steed.

How rich the peacock! what bright glories run
From plume to plume, and vary in the sun!
He proudly spreads them to the golden ray,
Gives all his colours, and adorns the day;

of an ostrich's neck on one hand, which proves a sufficient lure to take them with the other.

They have so little brain, that Heliogabalus had six hundred heads for his supper.

Here we may observe, that our judicious as well as sublime author just touches the great points of distinction in each creature, and then hastens to another. A description is exact when you cannot add but what is common to another thing; nor withdraw, but something peculiarly belonging to the thing described. A likeness is lost in too much description, as a meaning often in too much illustration.

'What time she skims along the field,' etc.] Here is marked another peculiar quality of this creature, which neither flies, nor runs distinctly, but has a motion composed of both, and, using its wings as sails, makes great speed.

'Vasta velut Libyæ venantum vocibus ales,

Cum premitur, calidas cursu transmittit arenas,
Inque modum veli sinuatis flamine pennis
Pulverulenta volať'-

Claud. in Eutr.

She scorns the rider and pursuing steed.'] Xenophon says, Cyrus had horses that could overtake the goat, and the wild ass; but none that could reach this creature. A thousand golden ducats, or a hundred camels, was the stated price of a horse that could equal their speed.

'How rich the peacock!' etc.] Though this bird is but just mentioned in my author, I could not forbear going a little farther, and spreading those beautiful plumes (which are there shut up) into half-a-dozen lines. The circumstance I have marked of his opening his plumes to the sun is true. Expandit colores adverso maxime sole, quia sic fulgentius radiant.'-Plin. 1. x. c. xx.

With conscious state, the spacious round displays, And slowly moves amid the waving blaze.

Who taught the hawk to find, in seasons wise, Perpetual summer, and a change of skies?

When clouds deform the year, she mounts the wind, Shoots to the south, nor fears the storm behind;

The sun returning, she returns again,

Lives in the beams, and leaves ill days to men.
Tho' strong the hawk, tho' practised well to fly,
An eagle drops her in a lower sky;

An eagle, when, deserting human sight,
She seeks the sun in her unwearied flight.
Did thy command her yellow pinion lift
So high in air, and seat her on the clift,
Where far above thy world she dwells alone,
And proudly makes the strength of rocks her own;
Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread survey,
And with a glance predestinates her prey?
She feasts her young with blood, and, hov'ring o'er
Th' unslaughter'd host, enjoys the promised gore.
Know'st thou how many moons, by me assign'd,
Roll o'er the mountain goat and forest hind,

'Tho' strong the hawk, tho' practised well to fly.'] Thuanus (de Re Accip.) mentions a hawk that flew from Paris to London in a night.

And the Egyptians, in regard to its swiftness, make it the symbol for the wind; for which reason we may suppose the hawk, as well as the crow above, to have been a bird of note in Egypt.

'Thence wide o'er nature takes her dread survey,' etc.] The eagle is said to be of so acute a sight, that when she is so high in the air that man cannot see her, she can discern the smallest fish under water. My author accurately understood the nature of the creatures he describes, and seems to have been a naturalist as well as a poet; which the next note will confirm.

'Know'st thou how many moons, by me assign'd, etc.] The meaning of this question is, Know'st thou the time and circumstances of their bringing forth? for to know the time only was easy, and had nothing extraordinary in it; but the circumstances had something peculiarly expressive of God's providence, which makes the question proper in this place.

While pregnant they a mother's load sustain? They bend in anguish, and cast forth their pain. Hale are their young, from human frailties freed; Walk unsustain'd, and unassisted feed;

They live at once; forsake the dam's warm side; Take the wide world, with nature for their guide; Bound o'er the lawn, or seek the distant glade; And find a home in each delightful shade.

Will the tall reem, which knows no lord but me,
Low at the crib, and ask an alms of thee?
Submit his unworn shoulder to the yoke,
Break the stiff clod, and o'er thy furrow smoke?
Since great his strength, go trust him void of care;
Lay on his neck the toil of all the year;

Bid him bring home the seasons to thy doors,
And cast his load among thy gather'd stores.

Didst thou from service the wild ass discharge,
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large,
Through the wide waste, his ample mansion, roam,
And lose himself in his unbounded home?
By nature's hand magnificently fed,

His meal is on the range of mountains spread;
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,

He sees in distant smoke the city throng;
Conscious of freedom, scorns the smother'd train,
The threat'ning driver, and the servile rein.
Survey the warlike horse! didst thou invest
With thunder, his robust distended chest?

Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called Seselis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder also (which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence) has the same effect, Psalm xxix. In so early an age to observe these things, may style our author a naturalist.

'Survey the warlike horse!' etc.] The description of the horse is the most celebrated of any in the poem. There is an excellent critique on it in the Guardian. I shall therefore only observe, that, in this description, as in other parts of this speech, our vulgar translation has much more spirit than the Septuagint; it always takes the original in the most poetical and exalted sense, so that most commentators, eveu on the Hebrew itself, fall beneath it.

No sense of fear his dauntless soul allays;
'Tis dreadful to behold his nostrils blaze:
To paw the vale he proudly takes delight,
And triumphs in the fulness of his might;
High-raised he snuffs the battle from afar,
And burns to plunge amid the raging war;
And mocks at death, and throws his foam around,
And in a storm of fury shakes the ground.
How does his firm, his rising heart advance
Full on the brandish'd sword, and shaken lance;
While his fix'd eye-balls meet the dazzling shield,
Gaze, and return the lightning of the field!
He sinks the sense of pain in gen'rous pride,
Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his side;
But neighs to the shrill trumpet's dreadful blast
Till death; and when he groans, he groans his
last.

But, fiercer still, the lordly lion stalks,
Grimly majestic in his lonely walks ;

When round he glares, all living creatures fly;
He clears the desert with his rolling eye.
Say, mortal, does he rouse at thy command,
And roar to thee, and live upon thy hand?
Dost thou for him in forests bend thy bow,
And to his gloomy den the morsel throw,
Where, bent on death, lie hid his tawny brood,
And, couch'd in dreadful ambush, pant for blood;
Or stretch'd on broken limbs consume the day,
In darkness wrapt, and slumber o'er their prey?
By the pale moon they take their destined round,
And lash their sides, and furious tear the ground.
Now shrieks and dying groans the desert fill;
They rage, they rend, their ravenous jaws distil
With crimson foam; and, when the banquet 's o'er,
They stride away, and paint their steps with gore;

· By the pale moon they take their destined round,' etc.] Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, particularly the lion, Psalm civ. 20. The Arabians have one among their five hundred names for the lion, which signifies, 'the hunter by moonshine.'

In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust,
And shudders at the talon in the dust.

Mild is my Behemoth,* though large his frame;
Smooth is his temper, and repress'd his flame,
While unprovoked. This native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food;
Earth sinks beneath him as he moves along,
To seek the herbs and mingle with the throng.
See, with what strength his harden'd loins are bound,
All over proof, and shut against a wound.
How like a mountain-cedar moves his tail!
Nor can his complicated sinews fail.
Built high and wide, his solid bones surpass
The bars of steel; his ribs are ribs of brass;
His port majestic, and his armed jaw,

Give the wild forest, and the mountain, law.
The mountains feed him; there the beasts admire
The mighty stranger, and in dread retire:
At length his greatness nearer they survey,
Graze in his shadow, and his eye obey.
The fens and marshes are his cool retreat,
His noontide shelter from the burning heat;
Their sedgy bosoms his wide couch are made,
And groves of willows give him all their shade.
His eye drinks Jordan up, when, fired with drought,
He trusts to turn its current down his throat;
In lessen'd waves it creeps along the plain :
He sinks a river, and he thirsts again.

Go to the Nile, and, from its fruitful side,
Cast forth thy line into the swelling tide:
*The river-horse.

'He sinks a river, and he thirsts again.']

'Cephisi glaciale caput, quo suetus anhelam
Ferre sitim Python, amnemque avertere ponto.'
Stat. Theb. v. 349.

'Qui spiris tegeret montes, hauriret hiatu
Flumina,' etc.

Claud. Præf. in Ruf.

Let not then this hyperbole seem too much for an eastern poet, though some commentators of name strain hard in this place for a new construction, through fear of it.

Go to the Nile, and, from its fruitful side,' etc.] The