Some Poets Dogs. 321 



While at their sides their pensive lovers wait. 

 Direct their dubious course, now chilled with fear 

 Solicitous, and now with love inflamed. 

 O grant, indulgent Heaven, no rising storm 

 May darken with black wings this glorious scene. 

 Should some malignant pow'r thus damp our joys 

 Vain were the gloomy cave, such as of old 

 Betrayed to lawless love the Tyrian queen — 

 For Britain's virtuous nymphs are chaste as fair ; " 



and an equally preposterous address to the King, who 

 orders the hounds off the stag when it has been run 

 into — 



" O mercy, heavenly bom ! sweet attribute ! " 



Book IV. reverts to details of the kennel, the care neces- 

 sary in selecting " the parents of the pack " — 



" The vain babbler shun, 

 Ever loquacious, ever in the wrong ; 

 His foolish ofispring shall offend thy ears 

 With false alarms and loud impertinence. 

 Nor less the shifting cur avoid, that breaks 

 Illusive from the pack : to the next hedge 

 Devious he stray?, there ev'ry muse he tries ; 

 If haply then he cross the steaming scent, 

 Away he flies vain-glorious, and extdts 

 As of the pack supreme, and in his speed 

 And strength unrivalled. Lo ! cast far behind, 

 His vexed associates pant and lab'ring strain 

 To climb the steep ascent. Soon as they reach 

 Th' insulting boaster, his false courage fails. 

 Behind he lags, doomed to the fatal noose. 

 His master's hate, and scorn of all the field. 

 What can from such be hoped but a base brood 

 Of coward curs, a frantic, vagrant race ? " 



Counsel is then given for curing sheep- worrying by strapv- 

 ping the offender to a ram to be butted into repentance. 



