90 



" Drink, live, and love, and bind thy brows witli me : 

 " With me make merry; I'll be wife with thee." 



The original is " be 7nad with me," but that was a fort of Grrc- 

 cian idiom for the full indulgence of the genial hour. After the manner 

 of Anacreon, it is thus paraphrafed by my fon. 



With me the focia! goblet fhare, 



With me enjoy the youthful hours, 



Wrth me carefs the frolic Fair, 



With me compofe the wreath of flowers. 



Now drive with me dull thought away, 

 With me defiance bid to forrow. 



Be merry thou with me to day, 



And I'll be wife with thee to-morrow. 



Number IV. 



The great objeft of the Saxons being the extermination of the Bri- 

 tons, together with their language, we muft not be aftonifhed there 

 fliould remain fo few monuments of BritiQi poetry. The high repu- 

 tation of Thalieffin, Britannicorum bardorum princeps, could not fave 

 him from the general wreck, but rather marked out his fongs for de- 

 ftruftion ; and mod probably he may be placed among thofe whom the 

 Saxons drove into the mountains on their firfl coming over. The bards 

 too, whofe poetry being calculated either to prompt their countrymen 

 to mftant vengeance, or to keep alive the memory of their fufferings, 

 would be the firfl: objeft of the jealous invader. This very policy, it 

 is thought, determined our own Edward, in lefs ferocious times, to at- 

 tempt 



