But that this well-disputed game may end, 245
Sound forth my Brayers, and the welkin rend.
As when the long-ear'd milky mothers wait[I 1]
At some sick miser's triple-bolted gate,
For their defrauded, absent foals they make
A moan so loud, that all the guild awake; 250
Sore sighs Sir Gilbert, starting at the bray,
From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay.
So swells each wind-pipe; Ass intones to Ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass;
Such as from labring lungs th' Enthusiast blows, 255
High Sound, attemp'red to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep Divine;
There Webster! peal'd thy voice, and Whitfield! thine.[R 1]
But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain;
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.[I 2] 260
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 258. Webster— and Whitfield] The one the writer of a News-paper called the Weekly Miscellany, the other a Field-preacher. This thought the only
Imitations
- ↑ Ver. 247. As when the, &c.] A Simile with a long tail, in the manner of Homer.
- ↑ Ver. 260. bray back to him again] A figure of speech taken from Virgil:
Et vox assensu remorum ingeminata remugit.Georg. iii.
He hears his num'rous herds low o'er the plain,
While neighboring hills low back to them again.Cowley.
The poet here celebrated, Sir R. B. delighted much in the word bray, which he endeavoured to ennoble by applying it to the sound of Armour, War, &c., In imitation of him, and strengthened by his authority, our author has here admitted it into Heroic Poetry.
