VIII.  As to its Mate the constant Dove
        Flies thro’ the Covert of the spicy Grove,
        So let us hasten to some lonely Shade,
        There let me safe in thy lov’d Arms be laid,
        Where no intruding hateful Noise
        Shall damp the Sound of thy melodious Voice;
        Where I may gaze, and mark each beauteous Grace;
        For sweet thy Voice, and lovely is thy Face.

  IX.  As all of me, my Love, is thine,
        Let all of thee be ever mine. 
        Among the Lillies we will play,
        Fairer, my Love, thou art than they,
        Till the purple Morn arise,
        And balmy Sleep forsake thine Eyes;
        Till the gladsome Beams of Day
        Remove the Shades of Night away;
        Then when soft Sleep shall from thy Eyes depart,
        Rise like the bounding Roe, or lusty Hart,
        Glad to behold the Light again
        From Bether’s Mountains darting o’er the Plain.

T.

[Footnote 1:  Percy had heard that a poetical translation of a chapter in the Proverbs, and another poetical translation from the Old Testament, were by Mr. Barr, a dissenting minister at Morton Hampstead in Devonshire.]

[Footnote 2:  obliged]

[Footnote 3:  [Beauties shall be]]

[Footnote 4:  [And stands among]]

* * * * *

No. 389.  Tuesday, May 27, 1712.  Budgell.

  ‘Meliora pii docuere parentes.’

  Hor.

Nothing has more surprized the Learned in England, than the Price which a small Book, intitled Spaccio della Bestia triom fante, [1] bore in a late Auction.  This Book was sold for [thirty [2]] Pound.  As it was written by one Jordanus Brunus, a professed Atheist, with a design to depreciate Religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant Price it bore, that there must be something in it very formidable.

I must confess that happening to get a sight of one of them my self, I could not forbear perusing it with this Apprehension; but found there was so very little Danger in it, that I shall venture to give my Readers a fair Account of the whole Plan upon which this wonderful Treatise is built.

The Author pretends that Jupiter once upon a Time resolved on a Reformation of the Constellations:  for which purpose having summoned the Stars together, he complains to them of the great Decay of the Worship of the Gods, which he thought so much the harder, having called several of those Celestial Bodies by the Names of the Heathen Deities, and by that means made the Heavens as it were a Book of the Pagan Theology.  Momus tells him, that this is not to be wondered at, since there were so many scandalous Stories of the Deities; upon which the Author takes occasion to cast Reflections upon all other Religions, concluding, that Jupiter, after a full Hearing, discarded the Deities out of Heaven, and called the Stars by the Names of the Moral Virtues.