Sometimes misguided by the tuneful throng,
I look for streams immortalised in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie;
Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry;
Yet run for ever by the muse's skill,
And in the smooth description murmur still.—Wakefield.
[6] There is an inaccuracy in making the flame equal to a grove. It might have been Milton's flame.—Warton.
Addison's Letter from Italy:
O, could the muse my ravished breast inspire
With warmth like yours, and raise an equal fire.—Wakefield.
[7] This is borrowed from the lines, quoted by Bowles, in which Denham alludes to the founder of Windsor Castle being as doubtful as was the birth-place of Homer:
Like him in birth, thou should'st be like in fame,
As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame.
[8] From Waller:
As in old chaos heav'n with earth confused,
And stars with rocks together crushed and bruised.—Wakefield.
[9] Evidently from Cooper's Hill:
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us, or herself, with strange varieties,
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty through the universe.—Warton.