e, Earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, "Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.

"O Christ! my very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure a more renowned knight
Mischance did never take."

That beautiful line, "Taking the dead man by the hand," will put the
reader in mind of AEneas's behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had
slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father:

_At vero ut vultum vidit morientis et ora_,
_Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris_;
_Ingemuit_, _miserans graviter_, _dextramqne tetendit_.

VIRG., _AEn._ x. 821.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He grieved, he wept, then grasped his hand and said,
"Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid
To worth so great?"

DRYDEN.

I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old
song.

Part Two.

--_Pendent opera interrupta_.

VIRG., _AEn._ iv. 88.

The works unfinished and neglected lie.

In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those
beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of
"Chevy-Chase;" I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular,
and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and
poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the
greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several
passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we
meet in several passages of the "AEneid;" not that I would infer from
thence that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation
of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the
same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.

Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of
wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but
it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have
warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is
only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are
the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave
to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in
the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of
this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only
the tho