Ipse ego cana legam tenerà lanugine mala, Castaneasque nuces, mea quas Amaryllis amabat: Addam ceroa pruna; honos erit huic quoque pomo Et vos, O lauri carpam, et te, proxima myrtus Sic positæ, quoniam suaves miscetis odores.
Rusticus es, Corydon! nec munera curat Alexis Nec, si muneribus certes, concedat Iolas. Eheu! quid volui misero mihi? Floribus Austrum Perditus et liquidis immissi fontibus apros. Quem fugis, ah! demens? habitârunt Di quoque sylvas, Dardaniusque Paris. Pallas, quas condidit, arces Ipsa colat: Nobis placeant ante omnia sylvæ.
Torva leæna lupum sequitur lupus ipse capellam, Florentem cytasum sequitur lasciva capella; Te Corydon, O Alexi: trahit sua quemque voluptas. Me tamen urit amor: quis enim modis adsit amori. Aspice! aratra jugo referunt suspensa juvenci, Et sol crescentis discedens duplicat umbras: Ah! Corydon, Corydon, quæ te dementia cepit? Semiputata tibi frondosâ vitis in ulmo est. Quin tu aliquid saltem, potius quorum indiget usus, Viminibus, mollique paras detexere junco? Invenies alium, si te hic fastidit, Alexin.
Ver. 29 and 32 allude to a pamphlet on the Irish Propositions, commonly called the Treasury Pamphlet, and universally attributed to Mr. Rose. This work of the Honourable Secretary's was eminently distinguished by a gentleman-like contempt for the pedantry of grammar, and a poetical abhorrence of dull fact.
Ver. 42. For a long account of Sir Richard Hill's harvest-home, and of the godly hymns and ungodly ballads, sung on the occasion, see the newspapers in Autumn, 1784.
Ver. 49. Justice to the minister obliges us to observe, that he is by no means chargeable with the scandalous illiberality above intimated, of reducing the income of the Secretaries of the Treasury to the miserable pittance of 3000l. a year. This was one of the many infamous acts which to deservedly drew down the hatred of all true friends to their king and country, on those pretended patriots, the Whigs.
Ver. 66. We know not of what forgeries Mr. Rose here boasts. Perhaps he may mean the paper relative to his interview with Mr. Gibbon and Mr. Reynolds, so opportunely found in an obscure drawer of Mr. Pitt's bureau. See the Parliamentary debates of 1785.
Ver. 71. Alludes to a couplet in the LYARS, which was written before the present Eclogue.