[2] Winds its sly way, &c.] A line taken in great part from Milton. The whole passage (which it may not be unpleasing to recall to the recollection of the reader) has been closely imitated by my friend Prettyman, in a former work. "I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, And well-placed words of glozing courtesy, Baited with reasons not unplausible, _Wind me into the easy-hearted man,_ And hug him into snares." COMUS.
[3] Golden tone, &c.] The epithet may seem at first more proper for the instrument, but it applies here with great propriety to the sound. In the strictest-sense, what is golden sound but the sound of gold? and what could arise more naturally in the writer's mind upon the present occasion?
[4] Phrenzy-rapt, &c.] Auditis? An me ludit amabilis Insania?----
[5] By thee inspir'd, &c.] In the first manuscript: "While yet a cradled child, he conquer'd shame, And lisp'd in fables, for the fables came." See POPE.
[6] Sin from his forehead sprung.] "A goddess armed Out of thy head I sprung." See MILTON's Birth of Sin.
[7] The quick transition of persons must have struck the reader in the first part of this Ode, and it will be observable throughout: Now Poet, now Muse, now Chorus; then Spinner, Blacksmith, &c. &c. The Doctor, skips from point to point over Parnassus, with a nimbleness that no modern imitator of Pindar ever equalled.--Catch him, even under a momentary shape, who can. I was always an admirer of tergiversation (and as my flatterers might say), no bad practitioner; but it remained for my friend to shew the sublimity to which the figure lam alluding to (I do not know the learned name of it) might be carried.
[8] Wrinkle-twinkle, &c.] It must have been already observed by the sagacious reader, that our author can coin an epithet as well as a fable. Wrinkles are as frequently produced by the motion of the part as by the advance of age. The head of the distinguished personage here described, though in the prime of his faculties, he had more exercise in every sense than any head in the world. Whether he means any illusion to the worship of the rising sun, and imitates the Persian priests, whose grand act of devotion is to turn round; or whether he merely thinks that the working of the head in circles will give analogous effect to the species of argument in which he excels, we must remain in the dark; but certain it is, that whenever he reasons in public, the _capital_ and wonderful part of the frame I am alluding to, is continually revolving upon its axis: and his eyes, as if dazzled with rays that dart on him exclusively, twinkle in their orbs at the rate of sixty twinks to one revolution. I trust I have given a rational account, and not far-fetched, both of the wrinkle and twinkle in this ingenious compound.