F'en the rough rocks with tender myrtle blom,
And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume,
Bear me, soine god, to Baia's gentle seats,
Or cover me in Umbria's green retreats;
Where western gales eternally reside,
And all the seasons lavish ali their pride:
Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lies.

Immortal glories in my mind revive,
And in my soul a thousand passions strive,
When Rome's exalted beauties I descry
Magnificent in piles of ruin lie.
An amphitheatre's amazing height
Here fills my eye with terrour and delight,
That on its public shows unpeopled Rome,
And held, uncrowded, nations in its womb:
Here pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies,
And here the proud triumphal arches rise,
Where the old Romans deathless acts display'd,
Their base degenerate progeny upbraid:
Whole rivers here forsake the fields below,
And wondering at their height through airy chan-
nels flow..

Still to new scenes my wandering Muse retires, And the dumb show of breathing rocks admires; Where the smooth chisel all its force has shown, › And soften'd into flesh the rugged stone. In solemn silence, a majestic band, Heroes, and gods, and Roman consuls stand, Stern tyrants, whom their cruelties renown, And emperors in Parian marble frown; While the bright dames, to whom they humbly sued, Still show the charms that their proud hearts subdued, 1

Fain would I Raphael's godlike art rehearse, And show th' immortal labours in my verse, Where from themingled strength of shade and light A new creation rises to my sight,

Such heavenly figures from his pencil flow,
So warm with life his blended colours glow.
From theme to theme with secret pleasure tost,
Amidst the soft variety I'm lost:

Here pleasing airs my ravish'd soul confound
(With circling notes and labyrinths of sound;
Here domes and temples rise in distant views,
And opening palaces invite my Muse.

How has kind Heaven adorn'd the happy land, And scatter'd blessings with a wasteful hand! But what avail her unexhausted stores,

Her blooming mountains, and her sunny shores,
With all the gifts that Heaven and Earth impart,
The smiles of Nature, and the charms of Art,
While prond oppression in her valleys reigns,
And tyranny usurps her happy plains?
The poor inhabitant beholds in vain
The reddening orange and the swelling grain:
Joyless be sees the growing oils and wines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:
Starves, in the midst of Nature's bounty curst,
And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.

O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reigu,
And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eaş'd of her load Subjection grows more light,
And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of Nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the Sun, and pleasure to the day.
Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores;
How has she oft exhausted all her stores,

How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the Sun refine
The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine,
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies,
Nor at the coarseness of our Heaven repine,
Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine:
'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,

And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

Others with towering piles may please the sight, And in their proud aspiring domes delight; A nicer touch to the stretcht canvas give, Or teach their animated rocks to live: 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, And hold in balance each conteuding state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, And answer her afflicted neighbour's prayer. The Dane and Swede, rous'd up by fierce alarms, Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms: Soon as her fleets appear, their terrours cease, And all the northern world lies hush'd in peace.

Th' ambitious Gaul beholds with secret dread Her thunder aim'd at his aspiring head, And fain her god-like sons would disunite By foreign gold, or by domestic spite: But strives in vain to conquer or divide, Whom Nassau's arms defend and counsels guide.

Fir'd with the name, which I so oft have found The distaut climes and different tongues resound, I bridle-in my struggling Muse with pain, That longs to lanch into a bolder strain.

But I've already troubled you too long, | Nor dare attempt a more adventurous song. My humble verse demands a softer theme, A painted meadow, or a purling stream; Unfit for heroes: whom immortal lays, And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, should praise

MILTON'S STYLE IMITATED,

1

IN A TRANSLATION OF A STORY OUT OF THE
THIRD ENELD.

Lost in the gloomy horrour of the night,
We struck upon the coast where Etna lies,
Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fire,
That now casts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,
Vast showers of ashes hovering in the smoke;
Now belches molten stones and ruddy flame
Incenst, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or flings a broken rock aloft in air.
The bottom works with smother'd fire, involv'd
In pestilential vapours, stench and smoke.
'Tis said, that thunder-struck Enceladus
Groveling beneath th' incumbent mountain
weight

Lies stretch'd supine, eternal prey of flames;
And when he heaves against the burning load,
Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs,
A sudden earthquake shoots through all the isle,
And Ætna thunders dreadful under ground,
Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolv'd,
And shades the Sun's bright orb, and blots out day.
Here in the shelter of the woods we lodg'd,
And frighted beardstrange sounds and dismal yells,

Nor saw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep louring o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that' with impervions gloom
Oppos'd itself to Cynthia's silver ray,
And shaded all beneath. But now the Sun
With orient beams had chas'd the dewy night
From Earth and Heaven; all nature stood disclos'd:
When looking on the neighbouring woods we saw
The ghastly visage of a man unknown,

An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay

Sat in his looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, speaking sore distress;
His locks were tangied, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.

He first advanc'd in haste; but when he saw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopt short, he back recoil'd as one surpris'd:
But soon recovering speed, he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries
Our ears assail'd: " By Heaven's eternal fires,
Py every god that sits enthron'd on high,
By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,
And bear me hence to any distant shore,
So I may shun this savage race accurst.
'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late
With sword and fire o'erturn'd Neptunian Troy,
And laid the labour of the gods in dust;
For which, if so the sad offence deserves,
Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie
Whelm'd under seas; if death must be my doom,
Let man inflict it, and I die well pleas'd."

He ended here, and now profuse of tears In suppliant mood fell prostrate at our feet; We bade him speak from whence, and what he was, And how by stress of fortune sunk thus low; Anchises too with friendly aspect mild Gave him his hand, sure pledge of amity, When, thus encourag'd, he began his tale.

"I'm one," says he, "of poor descent, my name - Is Achæmenides, my country Greece, Ulysses' sad compeer, who, whilst he fled The raging Cyclops, left me here behind Disconsolate, forlorn; within the cave He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave; A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls

On all sides forr'd with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repast: himself of mighty size,
Hoarse in his voice, and in his visage grim,
Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of mortal men, and swills the vital blood.
Him did I see snatch up with horrid grasp
Two sprawling Greeks, in either hand a man:
I saw him when with huge tempestuous sway
He dasht and broke them on the grundsil edge;
The pavement swam in blood, the walls around
Were spatter'd o'er with brains. He lapt the blood,
And chew'd the tender flesh still warm with life,
That swell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth
As sensible of pain. Not less mean while
Our chief meens'd, and studious of revenge,
Plots his destruction, which he thus effects:
The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay stretcht at length and snoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharg'd
With purple wine and cruddled gore contus'd.
. We gather'd round, and to his single eye,
The single eye that in his forehead glar'd
Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd shield,

A førky staff we dextrously apply'd,
Which, in the spacious socket turning 'round,
Scoopt out the big round jelly from its orb.
But let me not thus interposé delays:
Fly, mortals, fly this curst detested race:
A hundred of the same stupendous size,
A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,
Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid strides o'er the high mountains' tops,
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard
Their voice and tread; oft seen them as they past,
Sculking and scouring down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the Moon wash'd all her orb in light,
Thrice travel'd o'er in her obscure sojourn
The realms of night inglorious, since I've liv'd
Amidst these woods, gleaming from thorns and

shrubs

A wretched sustenance." As thus he spoke,
We saw descending from a neighbouring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and slow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way around, his woolly flocks
Attended grazing: to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,'
A hideous monster, terrible, deform'd ;
Full in the midst of his high front there gap'd
The spacious hollow where his eye-ball roll'd,
A ghastly orifice; he rins'd the wound,
And wash'd away the strings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking through the deep
He fords the ocean; while the topmast wave
Scarce reaches up his middle side: we stood
Amaz'd, be sure; a sudden horrour chill
Ran through each nerve, and thrill'd in every vein,
Till, using all the force of winds and oars,
We sped away; he heard us in our course, í
And with his outstretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But, finding nought within his reach, he rais'd
Such hideous shouts that all the ocean shook.
Ev'n Italy, though many a league remote,
In distant echoes answer'd; Ætnæ roar'd, '
Through all its inmost winding caverns roard. !

Rous'd with the sound, the mighty family Of one-eyed brothers hasten to the shore, And gather round the bellowing Polypheme, / A dire assembly: we with eager haste Work every one, and from afar behold t A host of giants covering all the shore. sol So stands a forest tall of mountain oaks. I Advanc'd to mighty growth: the traveller Hears from the humble valley where he rides The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow Amidst the boughs, and at the distance sees The shady tops of trees unnumber'd rise, A stately prospect, waving in the clouds.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, 1705..

-Rheni pacator et Istri.

Omuis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit Ordinibus; lætatur eques, plauditque senator, Votaque patricio certant piebeia favori.

CLAUD de Laud. Stilk.

Esse, aliquam in terris gentem quæ suâ impensâ, | suo labore ac periculo, bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinquæ vicinitatis hominibus, aut terris continenti junctis præstet. Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, potentissima sint. LIV. Hist. lib. 33.

WHILE crowds of princes your deserts proclaim,
Proud in their number to enrol your name;
While emperors to you commit their cause,
And Anna's praises crown the vast applause;
Accept, great leader, what the Muse recites,
That in ambitious verse attempts your fights.
Fir'd and transported with a theme so new,
Ten thousand wonders opening to my view
Shine forth at once; sieges and storms appear,
And wars and conquests fill th' important year:
Rivers of blood I see, and hills of slain,
An Iliad rising out of one campaign.

The haughty Gaul beheld, with towering pride,
His ancient bounds enlarg'd on every side;
Pyrene's lofty barriers were subdued,
And in the midst of his wide empire stood;
Ausonia's states, the victor to restrain,
Oppos'd their Alps and Apennines in vain,
Nor found themselves, with strength of rocks im-
Behind their everlasting hills secur'd; [mur'd,
The rising Danube its long race began,
And half its course through the new conquests ran;
Amaz'd and anxious for her sovereign's fates,
Germania trembled through a bundred states;
Great Leopold himself was seiz'd with fear;
He gaz'd around, but saw no succour near;
He gaz'd, and half-abandon'd to despair

"

His hopes on leav'n, and confidence in prayer.
To Britain's queen the nations turn their eyes,
On ber resolves the western world relies,
Contiding still, amidst its dire alarms,
In Anna's councils, and in Churchill's arms.
Thrice happy Britain, from the kingdoms rent,
To sit the guardian of the continent!
That sees her bravest son advanc'd so high,
And flourishing so near ber prince's eye;
Thy favourites grow not up by fortune's sport,
Or from the crimes or follies of a court;
On the firm basis of desert they rise,
From long-try'd faith, and friendship's holy tyes:
Their sovereign's well-distinguish'd smiles they
share,

Her ornaments in peace, her strength in war;
The nation thanks them with a public voice;
By showers of blessings Heaven approves their
choice;

Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost,

And factions strive who shall applaud them most.
Soon as soft vernal breezes warm the sky,
Britannia's colours in the zephyrs fly;
Her chief already has his march begun,
Crossing the provinces himself had won,
Till the Moselle, appearing from afar,
Retards the progress of the moving war.
Delightful stream, had Nature bid her fall
In distant climes far from the perjur❜d Gaul;
But now a purchase to the sword she lies,
Her harvests for uncertain owners rise,
Each vineyard doubtful of its master grows,
And to the victor's bowl each vintage flows.
The discontented shades of slaughter'd hosts,
That wander'd on her banks, her heroes ghosts,

Hop'd, when they saw Britannia's arms appear,
The vengeance due to their great deaths was near.
Our godlike leader, ere the stream he past,
The mighty scheme of all his labours cast,
Forming the wondrous year within his thought
His bosom glow'd with battles yet unfought.
The long laborious march he first surveys,
And joins the distant Danube to the Maese,
Between whose floods such pathless forests grow,
Such mountains rise, so many rivers flow:
The toil looks lovely in the hero's eyes,
And danger serves but to enhance the prize.
Big with the fate of Europe, he renews
His dreadful course, and the proud foe pursues!
Infected by the burning Scorpion's heat,
The sultry gales round his chaf'd temples beat,
Till on the borders of the Maine he finds
Defensive shadows, and refreshing winds.
Our British youth, with in-born freedom bold,
Unnumber'd scenes of servitude behold,
Nations of slaves, with tyranny debas'd,
(Their Maker's image more than half defac'd)
Hourly instructed, as they urge their toil,
To prize their queen, and love their native soil.
Still to the rising Sun they take their way
Through clouds of dust, and gain upon the day.
When now the Neckar on its friendly coast
With cooling streams revives the fainting host,
That cheerfully his labours past forgets,
The mid-night watches, and the noon-day heats,

O'er prostrate towns and palaces they pass
(Now cover'd o'er with woods, and hid in grass),
Breathing revenge; whilst auger and disdain
Fire every breast, and boil in every vein:
Here shatter'd walls, like broken rocks from far
Rise up in hideous views, the guilt of war,
Whilst here the vine o'er hills of ruin climbs,
Industrious to conceal great Bourbon's crimes.

At length the fame of England's hero drew Eugenio to the glorious interview. Great souls by instinct to each other turn, Demand alliance, and in friendship burn; A sudden.friendship, while with stretch'd-out rays They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze. Polish'd in courts, and harden'd in the field, Renown'd for conquest, and in council skill'd, Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood Of mountain spirits, and fermenting blood; Lodg'd in the soul, with virtue over-rul'd, Inflam'd by reason, and by reason cool'd, In hours of peace content to be unknown, And only in the field of battle shown: To sou's like these, in mutual friendship join'd, Heaven dares intrust the cause of human-kind. Britannia's graceful sons appear in arms, Her barass'd troops the hero's presence warms, Whilst the high hills and rivers all around With thundering peals of British shouts resound: Doubling their speed, they march with fresh delight, Eager for glory, aud require the fight. So the stanch hound the trembling deer pursues, And smells his footsteps in the tainted dews, The tedious track unraveling by degrees: But when the scent comes warm in every breeze, Fir'd at the near approach he shoots away On his full stretch, and bears upon his prey. The march concludes, the various realms are past; Th' immortal Schellenberg appears at last: Like hills th' aspiring ramparts rise on high, Like valleys at their feet the trenches lie;).

Batteries on batteries guard each fatal pass,
Threatening destruction; rows of hollow brass,
Tube behind tube, the dreadful entrance keep,
Whilst in their wombsten thousand thunders sleep:
Great Churchill owns, charm'd with the glorious
sight,

His march o'er-paid by such a promis'd fight.
The western Sun now shot a feeble ray,
And faintly scatter'd the remains of day:
Ev'ning approach'd; but oh what host of fues
Were never to behold that evening close!
Thickening their ranks, and wedged in firm array,
The close-compacted Britons win their way;
In vain the cannon their throng'd war defac'd
With tracts of death, and laid the battle waste;
Still pressing forward to the fight, they broke
Through flames of sulphur, and a night of smoke,
Till slaughter'd legions fill'd the trench below,
And bore their fierce avengers to the foe.

High on the works the mingling hosts engage;
The battle, kindled into tenfold rage,
With showers of bullets and with storms of fire
Burns in full fury; heaps on heaps expire,
Nations with nations mix'd confus'dly die,
And lost in one promiscuous carnage lie.

How many generous Britons meet their doom,
New to the field, and heroes in the bloom!
Th' illustrious youths, that left their native shore
To march where Britons never march'd before,
(O fatal love of fame! O glorious heat,
Only destructive to the brave and great!)
After such toils o'ercome, such dangers past,
Stretch'd on Bavarian ramparts breathe their last
But hold, my Muse, may no complaints appear,
Nor blot the day with an ungrateful tear:
While Mariborough lives, Britannia's stars dis.
pense

A friendly light, and shine in innocence.
Plunging through seas of blood his fiery steed
Where'er his friends retire, or foes succeed;
Those he supports, these drives to sudden flight,
And turns the various fortune of the fight.
Forbear, great man, renown'd in arms, forbear,
To brave the thickest terrours of the war,
Nor hazard thus, confus'd in crowds of foes,
Britannia's safety, and the world's repose;
Let nations anxious for thy life abate
This scorn of danger, and contempt of fate:
Thou liv'st not for thyself; thy queen demands
Conquest and peace from thy victorious hands;
Kingdoms and empires in thy fortune join,
And Europe's destiny depends on thine.

At length the long-disputed pass they gain,
By crowded armies fortify'd in vain;
The war breaks in, the fierce Bavarians yield,
And see their camp with British legions fill'd.
So Belgian mounds bear on their shatter'd sides
The sea's whole weight increas'd with swelling
But if the rushing wave a passage finds, [tides;
Enrag'd by watery moons, and warring winds,
The trembling peasant sees his country round
Cover'd with tempests, and in oceans drown'd.
The few surviving foes disperst in flight,
(Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight)
In every rustling wind the victor hear,
And Marlborough's form in every shadow fear,
Till the dark cope of night with kind embrace
Befriends the rout, and covers their disgrace.
To Donavert, with unresisted force,
The gay victorious army bends its course.

The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields,
Whatever spoils Bavaria's summer yields
(The Danube's great increase), Britannia shares,
The food of armies and support of wars:
With magazines of death, destructive balls,
And cannon doom'd to batter Landan's walls,
The victor finds each hidden cavern stor'd,
And turns their fury on their guilty lord.

Deluded prince! how is thy greatness crost,
And all the gaudy dream of empire lost,
That proudly set thee on a fancy'd throne,
And made imaginary realns thy own!
Thy troops, that now behind the Danube join,
Shall shortly seek for shelter from the Rhine.
Nor find it there! Surrounded with alarms,
Thou hop'st the assistance of the Gallic arms;
The Gallic arms in safety shall advance,
And crowd thy standards with the power of France
While, to exalt thy doom, th' aspiring Gaul
Shares thy destruction, and adorns thy fall.

Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Tempering each other in the victor's mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete. Long did he strive th' obdurate foe to gain 128 By proffer'd grace, but long be strove in vain; Till, fir'd at length, he thinks it vaiu to spare His rising wrath, and gives a loose to war. In vengeance rous'd, the soldier fills his hand With sword and fire, and ravages the land, A thousand villages to ashes turns,

*

1

In crackling flames a thousand harvests burns. Į
To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat,jer's
And mixt with bellowing herds confus!dly bleat;
Their trembling lords the common shade partakej
And cries of infants sound in every brake:
The listening soldier fixt in sorrow stands,ood &
Loth to obey his leader's just commands;
The leader grieves, by generous pitv sway'd,105)
To see his just commands so well obey'd...

A

But now the trumpet terrible from far sunteti ( In shriller elangors animates the war; for a Confederate drums in full r concert beat, 15 # !! And echoing hills the loud alarm repeat: [' Gallia's proud standards, to Bavaria's join'de Unfurl their gilded lilies in the windgi The daring prince bis blasted hopes renews, ^| And, while the thick embattled host he views TM Stretcht out in deep array, and dreadful length, His heart dilates, and glories in his strength.

The fatal day its mighty course began, That the griev'd world had long desir'd in vain; States that their new captivity bemoan'd, c> Armies of martyrs that in exile groan'd, Sighs from the depth of gloomy dungeons heard, And prayers in bitterness of soul preferr'd, Europe's loud cries, that Providence assail'd, And Anna's ardent vows at length prevail'd; The day was come when Heaven design'd to show His care and conduct of the world below.