was constructed from Creech's translation of
the first Idyll of Theocritus:

And, shepherd, sweeter notes thy pipe do fill
Than murm'ring springs that roll from yonder hill.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Suggested by Virg. Ecl. v. 83:

nec quae
Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles.

For winding streams that through the valley glide. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 5: Milton, Par. Lost, v. 195:

Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.]

[Footnote 6: Variation:

In the warm folds the tender flocks remain,
The cattle slumber on the silent plain,
While silent birds neglect their tuneful lays,
Let us, dear Thyrsis, sing of Daphne's praise.--POPE.

It was originally,

Now in warm folds the tender flock remains.

Pope. "Objection to the word _remains_. I do not know whether these
following be better or no, and desire your opinion.

Now while the groves in Cynthia's beams are dressed,
And folded flocks in their soft fleeces rest;
While sleeping birds, etc.

Or,

While Cynthia tips with silver all the groves,
And scarce the winds the topmast branches moves.

or

While the bright moon with silver tips the grove,
And not a breeze the quiv'ring branches move."

Walsh. "I think the last the best, but might not even that be mended?"]

[Footnote 7: Garth's Dispensary, Canto iv.:

As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains,
Pan quits the woods, the list'ning fauns the plains.

Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 100:

And called the mountain ashes to the plain.

Among the poems of Congreve is one entitled "The Mourning Muse of
Alexis, a Pastoral lamenting the death of Queen Mary." This was the
"sweet Alexis strain" to which Pope referred, and which the Thames "bade
his willows learn."]

[Footnote 8: Virg. Ecl. vi. 83:

Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros.--POPE.

Admitting that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being
listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river's
ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resemblance to anything
real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by Pope.--LORD
KAMES.]

[Footnote 9: There is some connection implied between the "kind rains"
and the "willows learning the song," but I cannot trace the idea.]

[Footnote 10: Virg. Ecl. v. 41:

mandat fieri sib