Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam Subramanian and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
JOSEPH ADDISON;
GAY'S FABLES;
AND
SOMERVILLE'S CHASE.
* * * * *
With Memoirs and Critical Dissertations,
BY THE
REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.
* * * * *
M.DCCC.LIX.
CONTENTS.
ADDISON'S POETICAL WORKS.
LIFE OF JOSEPH ADDISON,
POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS:—
To Mr Dryden,
A Poem to his Majesty, presented to the Lord Keeper,
A Translation of all Virgil's Fourth
Georgic, except the Story of
Aristæus,
A Song for St Cecilia's Day,
An Ode for St Cecilia's Day,
An Account of the greatest English Poets,
A Letter from Italy,
Milton's Style Imitated, in a Translation of a Story out of the Third Æneid,
The Campaign,
Cowley's Epitaph on Himself,
Prologue to the 'Tender Husband,'
Epilogue to the 'British Enchanters,'
Prologue to Smith's 'Phædra and
Hippolitus,'
Horace Ode III., Book III.,
The Vestal,
OVID'S METAMORPHOSES:—
BOOK II.
The Story of Phaeton,
Phaeton's Sisters transformed
into Trees,
The Transformation of Cyenus
into a Swan,
The Story of Calisto,
The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Æsculapius,
Ocyrrhoe Transformed to a Mare,
The Transformation of Battus to
a Touchstone,
The Story of Aglauros, transformed
into a Statue,
Europa's Rape,
BOOK III.
The Story of Cadmus,
The Transformation of Actæon into a Stag,
The Birth of Bacchus,
The Transformation of Tiresias,
The Transformation of Echo,
The Story of Narcissus,
The Story of Pentheus,
The Mariners transformed to
Dolphins,
The Death of Pentheus
BOOK IV.
The Story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus,
TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES,
TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, ON HIS PICTURE OF THE KING,
THE PLAY-HOUSE,
ON THE LADY MANCHESTER,
AN ODE,
AN HYMN,
AN ODE,
AN HYMN,
PARAPHRASE ON PSALM XXIII.
THE LIFE OF JOHN GAY
GAY'S FABLES:—
INTRODUCTION.—PART I.
The Shepherd and Philosopher
Fable I.—The Lion, the Tiger, and the Traveller
Fable II.—The Spaniel and the Cameleon
Fable III.—The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy
Fable IV.—The Eagle, and the Assembly of Animals
Fable V.—The Wild Boar and the Ram
Fable VI.—The Miser and Plutus
Fable VII.—The Lion, the Fox, and the Geese
Fable VIII.—The Lady and the Wasp
Fable IX.—The Bull and the Mastiff
Fable X.—The Elephant and the Bookseller
Fable XI.—The Peacock, the Turkey, and the Goose
Fable XII.—Cupid, Hymen, and Plutus
Fable XIII.—The Tame Stag
Fable XIV.—The Monkey who had seen the World
Fable XV.—The Philosopher and the Pheasants
Fable XVI.—The Pin and the Needle
Fable XVII.—The Shepherd's Dog and the Wolf
Fable XVIII.—The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody
Fable XIX.—The Lion and the Cub
Fable XX.—The Old Hen and the Cock
Fable XXI.—The Rat-catcher and Cats
Fable XXII.—The Goat without a Beard
Fable XXIII.—The Old Woman and her Cats
Fable XXIV.—The Butterfly and the Snail
Fable XXV.—The Scold and the Parrot
Fable XXVI.—The Cur and the Mastiff
Fable XXVII.—The Sick Man and the Angel
Fable XXVIII.—The Persian, the Sun, and the Cloud
Fable XXIX.—The Fox at the point of Death
Fable XXX.—The Setting-dog and the Partridge
Fable XXXI.—The Universal Apparition
Fable XXXII.—The Two Owls and the Sparrow
Fable XXXIII.—The Courtier and Proteus
Fable XXXIV.—The Mastiffs
Fable XXXV.—The Barley-mow and the Dunghill
Fable XXXVI.—Pythagoras and the Countryman
Fable XXXVII.—The Farmer's Wife and the Raven
Fable XXXVIII.—The Turkey and the Ant
Fable XXXIX.—The Father and Jupiter
Fable XL.—The Two Monkeys
Fable XLI.—The Owl and the Farmer
Fable XLII.-The Jugglers
Fable XLIII.-The Council of Horses
Fable XLIV.—The Hound and the Huntsman
Fable XLV.—The Poet and the Rose
Fable XLVI.—The Cur, the Horse, and the Shepherd's Dog
Fable XLVII.—The Court of Death
Fable XLVIII.—The Gardener and the Hog
Fable XLIX.—The Man and the Flea
Fable L.—The Hare and many Friends
PART II.
Fable I.—The Dog and the Fox
Fable II.—The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds
Fable III.—The Baboon and the Poultry
Fable IV.—The Ant in Office
Fable V.—The Bear in a Boat
Fable VI.—The Squire and his Cur
Fable VII.—The Countryman and Jupiter
Fable VIII.—The Man, the Cat, the Dog, and the Fly
Fable IX.—The Jackall, Leopard, and other Beasts
Fable X.—The Degenerate Bees
Fable XI.—The Pack-horse and the Carrier
Fable XII.—Pan and Fortune
Fable XIII.-Plutus, Cupid, and Time
Fable XIV.—The Owl, the Swan, the Cock, the Spider, the Ass, and the Farmer
Fable XV.—The Cook-maid, the Turnspit, and the Ox
Fable XVI.—The Ravens, the Sexton, and the Earth-worm
SONGS:—
Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan
A Ballad, from the What-d'ye-call-it
SOMERVILLE'S CHASE.
THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SOMERVILLE
SOMERVILLE'S CHASE:—
Book I.
Book II.
Book III.
Book IV.
LIFE OF JOSEPH ADDISON.
Joseph Addison, the Spectator, the true founder of our periodical literature, the finest, if not the greatest writer in the English language, was born at Milston, Wiltshire, on the 1st of May 1672. A fanciful mind might trace a correspondence between the particular months when celebrated men have been born and the peculiar complexion of their genius. Milton, the austere and awful, was born in the silent and gloomy month of December. Shakspeare, the most versatile of all writers, was born in April, that month of changeful skies, of sudden sunshine, and sudden showers. Burns and Byron, those stormy spirits, both appeared in the fierce January; and of the former, he himself says,
"'Twas then a blast o' Januar-win'
Blew welcome in on Robin."
Scott, the broad sunny being, visited us in August, and in the same month the warm genius of Shelley came, as Hunt used to tell him, "from the planet Mercury" to our earth. Coleridge and Keats, with whose song a deep bar of sorrow was to mingle, like the music of falling leaves, or of winds wailing for the departure of summer, arrived in October,—that month, the beauty of which is the child of blasting, and its glory the flush of decay. And it seems somehow fitting that Addison, the mild, the quietly-joyous, the sanguine and serene, should come, with the daisy and the sweet summer-tide, on the 1st of May, which Buchanan thus hails—
"Salve fugacis gloria saeculi,
Salve secunda digna dies nota,
Salve vetustae vitae imago,
Et specimen venientis aevi."
"Hail, glory of the fleeting year!
Hail, day, the fairest, happiest here!
Image of time for ever by,
Pledge of a bright eternity."
Dr Lancelot Addison, himself a man of no mean note, was the father of our poet. He was born in 1632, at Maltesmeaburn, in the parish of Corby Ravensworth, (what a name of ill-omen within ill-omen, or as Dr Johnson would say, "inspissated gloom"!) in the county of Westmoreland. His father was a minister of the gospel; but in such humble circumstances, that Lancelot was received from the Grammar-school of Appleby into Queen's College, Oxford, in the capacity of a "poor child." After passing his curriculum there, being chiefly distinguished for his violent High Church and Monarchical principles, for which he repeatedly smarted, he, at the Restoration, was appointed chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk, and soon after he accepted a similar situation in Tangier, which had been ceded by Portugal to Britain. In this latter post he felt rather lonely and miserable, and was driven, in self-defence, to betake himself to the study of the manners and the literature of the Moors, Jews, and other Oriental nations. This led him afterwards to publish some works on Barbary, on Hebrew customs, and Mohammedanism, which shew a profound acquaintance with these subjects, and which, not without reason, are supposed to have coloured the imagination of his son Joseph, who is seldom more felicitous than when reproducing the gorgeous superstitions and phantasies of the East.
For eight years, old Addison lingered in loathed Tangier; nor, when he returned to England on a visit, had he any purpose of permanently residing in his own country. But his appointment was hastily bestowed on another; and it was fortunate for him that a private friend stepped in and presented him with the living of Milston, near Ambrosebury, Wilts, worth £120 a-year. This, which Miss Aiken calls a "pittance," was probably equivalent to £250 now. At all events, on the strength of it, he married Jane, daughter of Dr Gulstone, and sister to the Bishop of Bristol, who, in due time, became the mother of our poet. Lancelot was afterwards made Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, and King's Chaplain in ordinary; about the time (1675) when he took the degree of D.D. Subsequently he became Archdeacon of Salisbury, and at last, in 1683, obtained the Deanery of Lichfield. But for his suspected Jacobitism, he would probably have received the mitre. He died in 1703.
Joseph had two brothers and three sisters. His third sister, Dorothy, survived the rest, and was twice married. Swift met her once, and with some awe (for he, like all bullies, had a little of the coward about him), describes her as a kind of wit, and very like her brother. The Spectator seems to have been a wild and wayward boy. He is said to have once acted as ringleader in a "barring out," described by Johnson as a savage license by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, used to take possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade the master defiance from the windows. On another occasion, having committed some petty offence at a country school, terrified at the master's apprehended displeasure, he made his escape into the fields and woods, where for some days he fed on fruits and slept in a hollow tree till discovered and brought back to his parents. This last may seem the act of a timid boy, and inconsistent with the former, and yet is somehow congenial to our ideal of the character of our poet. It required perhaps more daring to front the perils of the woods than the frown of the master, and augured, besides, a certain romance in his disposition which found afterwards a vent in literature. After receiving instruction, first at Salisbury, and then at Lichfield, (his connexion with which place forms a link, uniting him in a manner to the great lexicographer, who was born there,) he was removed to the Charterhouse, and there profited so much in Greek and Latin, that at fifteen he was not only, says Macaulay, "fit for the university, but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning which would have done honour to a master of arts." He had at the Charter-house formed a friendship, destined to have important bearings on his after history, with Richard Steele, whose character may be summed up in a few sentences. Who has not heard of Sir Richard Steele? Wordsworth says of one of his characters—
"She was known to every star,
And every wind that blows."
Poor Dick was known to every sponging-house, and to every bailiff that, blowing in pursuit, walked the London streets. A fine-hearted, warm-blooded character, without an atom of prudence, self-control, reticence, or forethought; quite as destitute of malice or envy; perpetually sinning and perpetually repenting; never positively irreligious, even when drunk; and often excessively pious when recovering sobriety,—Steele reeled his way through life, and died with the reputation of being an orthodox Christian and a (nearly) habitual drunkard; the most affectionate and most faithless of husbands; a brave soldier, and in many points an arrant fool; a violent politician, and the best natured of men; a writer extremely lively, for this, among other reasons, that he wrote generally on his legs, flying or meditating flight from his creditors; and who embodied in himself the titles of his three principal works—"The Christian Hero," "The Tender Husband," and the Tatler;—being a "Christian Hero" in intention, one of those intentions with which a certain place is paved; a "Tender Husband," if not a true one, to his two ladies; and a Tatler to all persons, in all circumstances, and at all times. When Addison first knew this original, he was probably uncontaminated, and must have been, as he continued to the end to be, an irascible but joyous and genial being; and they became intimate at once, although circumstances severed them from each other for a long period.
In 1687 Addison entered Queen's College, Oxford; but sometime after, (Macaulay says "not many months," Johnson "a year," and Miss Aiken "two years,") Dr Lancaster, of Magdalene College, having accidentally seen some Latin verses from his pen, exerted himself to procure their author admission to the benefits of a foundation, then the wealthiest in Europe. Our poet was first elected Demy, then Probationary Fellow in 1697, and in the year following, Actual Fellow. During the ten years he resided at Oxford, he was a general favourite, remarkable for his diligence in study, for the purity and tenderness of his feelings, for his bashful and retiring manners, for the excellence of his Latin compositions, and for his solitary walks, pursued in a path they still point out below the elms which skirt a meadow on the banks of the Cherwell,—a river, we need scarcely say, which there weds the Isis. It was in such lonely evening or Saturday strolls that he probably acquired the habit of pensive reverie to which we owe many of the finest of his speculations in after days, such as that in Spectator, No. 565, beginning, "I was yesterday, about sunset, walking in the open fields, when insensibly the night fell upon me," &c.
Prose English essays, however, were as yet strangers to his pen. His ambition was to be a poet, and while still under twenty-two, he produced and printed some complimentary verses to Dryden, then declining in years, and fallen into comparative neglect. The old poet was pleased with the homage of the young aspirant, which was as graceful in expression as it was generous in purpose. For instance, alluding to Dryden's projected translation of "Ovid," he says, that "Ovid," thus transformed, shall "reveal"
"A nobler change than he himself can tell."
This, however, although happy, starts a different view of the subject. It suggests the idea that most translations are metamorphoses to the worse, like that of a living person into a dead tree, or at least of a superior into an inferior being. In Pope's "Iliad," you have the metamorphosis of an eagle into a nightingale; in Dryden's "Virgil," you have a stately war-horse transformed into a hard-trotting hackney; in Hoole's versions of the Italian Poets, you have nymphs nailed up in timber; while, on the other hand, in Coleridge's "Wallenstein," you have the "nobler change," spoken of by Addison, of—shall we say?-a cold and stately holly-tree turned into a murmuring and oracular oak.
That, after thus introducing himself to Dryden, he met him occasionally seems certain, although the rumour circulated by Spence that he taught the old man to sit late and drink hard seems ridiculous. Dryden introduced him to Congreve, and through Congreve he made the valuable acquaintance of Charles Montague, then leader of the Whigs in the House of Commons, and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He afterwards published a translation of that part of the "Fourth Book of the Georgics" referring to bees, on which Dryden, who had procured a preface to his own complete translation of the same poem from Addison, complimented him by saying—"After his bees, my later swarm is scarcely worth hiving." He published, too, a poem on "King William," and an "Account of the Principal English Poets," in which he ventures on a character of Spenser ere he had read his works. It thus is, as might have been expected, poor and non-appreciative, and speaks of Spenser as a poet pretty nearly forgotten. Some time after this, he collected a volume, entitled, "Musæ Anglicanæ," in which he inserted all his early Latin verses.
Charles Montague, himself a poet of a certain small rank, and a man of great general talents, became—along with Somers—the patron of Addison. He diverted him from the Church, to which his own tastes seemed to destine him, suggesting that civil employment had become very corrupt through want of men of liberal education and good principles, and should be redeemed from this reproach, and declaring that, though he had been called an enemy of the Church, he would never do it any other injury than keeping Mr Addison out of it. It is likely that the timid temperament of our poet concurred with these suggestions of Montague in determining his decision. His failure as a Parliamentary orator subsequently seems to prove that the pulpit was not his vocation. After all, his Saturday papers in the Spectator are as fine as any sermons of that age, and he perhaps did more good serving as a volunteer than had he been a regular soldier in the army of the Christian faith.
Somers and Montague wished to employ their protégé in public service abroad. There was, however, one drawback. Addison had plenty of English, Greek, and Latin, but he had little French. This he must be sent abroad to acquire; and for the purpose of defraying the expenses of his travels, a pension of £300 a-year was conferred upon him. Paid thus, as few poets or writers of any kind are, in advance, and having his fellowship besides, Addison, like a young nobleman, instead of a parson's son, set out upon his tour. This was in the summer of 1699. He was twenty-seven years of age, exactly one year younger than Byron, and three years younger than Milton, when they visited the same regions. He went first to Paris, and was received with great distinction by Montague's kinsman, the Earl of Manchester, and his beautiful lady. He travelled with his eyes quietly open, especially to the humorous aspects of things. In a letter to Montague he says that he had not seen a blush from his first landing at Calais, and gives a sarcastic description of the spurious devotion which the example of the old repentant roué, Louis XIV., had rendered fashionable among the literati of France: "There is no book comes out at present that has not something in it of an air of devotion. Dacier has been forced to prove his Plato a very good CHRISTIAN before he ventures upon his translation, and has so far complied with the taste of the age, that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and the notion of pre-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of the prophets." The sincere believer is usually the first to detect and be disgusted with the sham one; and Addison was always a sincere believer, but he had also that happy nature in which disgust is carried quickly and easily off through the safety-valve of a smile.
From Paris he went to Blois, the capital of Loir-and-Cher, a small town about 110 miles south-west of Paris. Here he had two advantages. He found the French language spoken in its perfection; and as he had not a single countryman with whom to exchange a word, he was driven on his own resources. He remained there a year, and spent his time well, studying hard, rising early, having the best French masters, mingling in society, although subject, as in previous and after parts of his life, to fits of absence. His life was as pure as it was simple, his most intimate friend at Blois, the Abbe Philippeaux, saying: "He had no amour whilst here that I know of, and I think I should have known it if he had had any." During this time he sent home letters to his friends in England—to Montague, Colonel Froude, Congreve, and others[1]—which contain sentences of exquisite humour. Thus, describing the famous gallery at Versailles, with the paintings of Louis' victories, he says: "The history of the present King till the sixteenth year of his reign is painted on the roof by Le Brun, so that his Majesty has actions enough by him to furnish another gallery much longer than the first. He is represented with all the terror and majesty that you can imagine in every part of the picture, and see his young face as perfectly drawn in the roof as his present one in the side. The painter has represented His Most Christian Majesty under the figure of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the ceiling, and striking terror into the Danube and Rhine, that lie astonished and blasted with lightning a little above the cornice."
This is Addison all over; and quite as good is his picture of the general character of the French: "'Tis not in the power of want or slavery to make them miserable. There is nothing to be met with in the country but mirth and poverty. Every one sings, laughs, and starves. Their conversation is generally agreeable, for if they have any wit or sense, they are sure to shew it. Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of shewing themselves to the best advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs. Every one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as Sir Godfrey Kneller could draw her in."
From Blois he returned to Paris, and was now better qualified, from his knowledge of the language, to mingle with its philosophers, savants, and poets. He had some interesting talk with Malebranche and Boileau, the former of whom "very much praised Mr Newton's mathematics; shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit." Here follows a genuine Addisonianism: "His book is now reprinted with many additions, among which he shewed me a very pretty hypothesis of colours, which is different from that of Cartesius or Newton, though they may all three be true." Boileau, now sixty-four, deaf as a post, and full of the "sweltered venom" of ill-natured criticism, nevertheless received Addison kindly; and when presented by him with his "Musæ Anglicanæ," is said from that time to have conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry. Addison says that Boileau "hated an ill poet." Unfortunately, however, for his judgment, it is notorious that he slighted Shakspeare, Milton, and Corneille, and that, next to Homer and Virgil, his great idols were Arnaud and Racine.
In December 1700, tired of French manners, which had lost even their power of moving him to smiles, and it may be apprehensive of the war connected with the Spanish succession, which was about to inflame all Europe, Addison embarked from Marseilles for Italy. After a narrow escape from one of those sudden Mediterranean storms, in which poor Shelley perished, he landed at Savona, and proceeded, through wild mountain paths, to Genoa. He afterwards commemorated his deliverance in the pleasing lines published in the Spectator, beginning with—
"How are Thy servants blest, O Lord,"
one verse in which was wont to awaken the enthusiasm of the boy Burns,
"What though in dreadful whirls we hung,
High on the broken wave," &c.
The survivor of a shipwreck is, or should be, ever afterwards a sadder and a wiser man. And Addison continued long to feel subdued and thankful, and could hardly have been more so though he had outlived that shipwreck which bears now the relation to all recent wrecks which "the storm" of November 1703, as we shall see, bore to all inferior tempests—the loss of the Royal Charter,—the stately and gold-laden bark, which, on Wednesday the 26th October 1859, when on the verge of the haven which the passengers so much desired to see, was lifted up by the blast as by the hand of God, and dashed into ten thousand pieces,—hundreds of men, women, and, alas! alas! children, drowned, mutilated, crushed by falling machinery, and that, too, at a moment when they had just been assured that there was no immediate danger, and when hope was beginning to sparkle in the eyes that were sinking into despair,—sovereigns, spray, and the mangled fragments of human bodies massed together as if in the anarchy of hell, and hurled upon the rocks. Addison, no more than one of the escaped from that saloon of horror and sea of death, could forget the special Providence by which he was saved; and the hymn above referred to, and that other still finer, commencing—
"When all Thy mercies, O my God!
My rising soul surveys,"
seem a pillar erected on the shore to Him that had protected and redeemed him.
From Genoa he went to Milan, and thence to Venice, where he saw a play on the subject of Cato enacted, and began himself to indite his celebrated tragedy, of which he completed four acts ere he quitted Italy. On his way to Rome, he visited the miniature mountain republic of San Marino, which he contemplated and described with much the same feeling of interest and amazement, as afterwards, in the Guardian, the little colony of ants immortalised there. Like Swift, (whom Macaulay accuses of stealing from Addison's Latin poem on the "Pigmies," some hints for his Lilliput,) Addison had a finer eye for the little than for the vast. He enjoyed Marino, therefore, and must have chuckled over the description of it in the geography, as much as if it had been a stroke of his own inventive pen. "Besides the mountain on which the town stands, the republic possesses two adjoining hills." At Rome he did not stay long at this time, but as if afraid of the attractions of the approaching Holy Week—that blaze of brilliant but false light in which so many moths have been consumed—he hurried to Naples and saw Vesuvius burning over its beautiful bay with less admiration than has been felt since by many inferior men. He returned to Rome and lived there unharmed during the sickly season; thence he went to Florence, surveying with interest the glories of its art; and in fine he crossed the Alps by Mount Cenis to Geneva, composing on his way a poetical epistle to Montague, now Lord Halifax. The Alps do not seem to have much delighted his imagination. There are a few even still who look upon mountains as excrescences and deformities, and give to Glencoe only the homage of their unaffected fears, which is certainly better than the false raptures of others. But, in Addison's day, admiration for wild scenery was neither pretended nor felt. Our poet loved, indeed, the great silent starry night, and has whispered and stammered out some beautiful things in its praise. But he does this, so to speak, below his breath, while the white Alps, seeming the shrouded corpses of the fallen Titans, take that breath away, and he shudders all the road through them, and descends delightedly to the green pastures and the still waters of lower regions.
At Geneva, where he arrived in December 1701, he remained some time, expecting from Lord Manchester the official appointment for which he was now qualified. But while waiting there, he heard the tidings of King William's death, which put an end to his hopes as well as to those of his party. His pension, too, was stopped, and he was obliged to become a tutor to a young Englishman of fortune. With him he visited many parts of Switzerland and Germany, and spent a portion of his leisure in writing, not only his "Travels," but his recondite "Dialogue on Medals,"—a book of considerable research and great ingenuity, which was not published, however, till after his death. From Germany he passed to Holland, where he heard the sad intelligence that his father was no more. During his stay in Holland, he watched with keen, yet kindly eye, the manners of the inhabitants; and in his letters hits at their drinking habits with a mixture of severity and sympathy which is very characteristic. Toward the close of 1703 he returned home, and, we doubt not, felt at first desolate enough. His father was dead, his pension withdrawn, his political patrons out of power, and his literary fame not yet fully established. But, on the other hand, he was only thirty-one; he had made some new and influential friends on the Continent, particularly the eminent Edward Wortley Montague, husband of the still more celebrated Mary Wortley Montague, and he had in his portfolio a volume of "Travels" of some mark and likelihood, nearly ready for the press. Besides, the Whigs, low as they were now in political influence, were still true to their party, and they welcomed Addison, as one of their rising hopes, into the famous "Kit-Cat Club," an omniumgaiherum of all whose talents, learning, accomplishments, wit, or wealth were thought useful to the Whig cause.
Addison's arrival in England seems to have synchronised or preceded the great tempest of November 1703, to which we have already referred, and to which he afterwards alludes in his simile of the Angel in "The Campaign"—
"Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past."
Our readers will find a sketch of this terrific tempest in the commencement of Ainsworth's "Jack Shepherd." Macaulay says of it, "It was the only tempest which, in our latitude, has equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane. No other tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a Parliamentary address, or of a national fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had been blown down; one prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were thrown into mourning. The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruins of houses attested, in all the southern counties, the fury of the blast." How Addison felt or fared during this storm, we have no means of knowing. Perhaps his timid nature shrank from it in spite of its appeal to imagination, or perhaps the poetry that was in him triumphed over his fears, and as he felt what Zanga was afterwards to say—
"I love this rocking of the battlements,"
the image of the Angel, afterwards to be dilated into the vast form of Wrath, described in the "Campaign," rose on his vision, and remained there indelibly fixed till the time arrived when, used with artistic skill, it floated him into fame.
Meanwhile, he spent this winter and spring of 1703-4 in a rather precarious manner, and like a true poet. He was lodging in an obscure garret in the Haymarket, up three stairs, when one day the Right Honourable Henry Boyle, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, called on him and communicated a project that had been concocted between Godolphin and Halifax. The Whigs were now again in the ascendant, and the battle of Blenheim, fought on the 13th August 1704, had brought their triumph to a climax. Halifax and Godolphin were mortified at the bad poems in commemoration of it which poured from the press. Their feeling was sincerely that which Byron affected in reference to Wellington and Waterloo—
"I wish your bards would sing it rather better."
They bethought themselves of Addison, and sent Boyle to request him to write some verses on the subject. He readily undertook the task, and when he had half-finished the "Campaign," he shewed it to Godolphin, who was delighted, especially with the Angel, and in gratitude, instantly appointed the lucky poet to a commissionership worth about £200 a-year, and assured him that this was only a foretaste of greater favours to come. The poem soon after appeared. It was received with acclamation, and Addison felt that his fortune and his fame were both secured.
Yet, in truth, the "Campaign" is not a great poem, nor, properly speaking, if we except the Angel, a poem at all. It is simply a Gazette done into tolerable rhyme; and its chief inspiration comes from its zealous party-feeling. Marlborough, though a first-rate marshal, was not a great man, not by any means so great as Wellington, far less as Napoleon; and how can a heroic poem be written without a hero? Yet the poem fell in with the humour of the times, and was cried up as though it had been another book of the Iliad. Shortly afterwards he published his "Travels," which were thought rather cold and classical. To them succeeded the opera of "Rosamond," which, being ill-set to music, failed on the stage; but became, and is still, a favourite in the closet. It is in the lightest and easiest style of Dryden,—that in which he wrote "Alexander's Feast," and some other of his lyrics,—but is sustained for some fifteen hundred lines with an energy and a grace which we doubt if even Dryden could have equalled. Its verses not only move but dance. The spirit is genial and sunny, and above the mazy motions shines the light of genuine poetry. Johnson truly says, that if Addison had cultivated this style he would have excelled.
From the date of the "Campaign," Addison's life became an ascending scale of promotion. We find him first in Hanover with Lord Halifax, then appointed under-secretary to Sir Charles Hodges, and in a few months after to the Earl of Sunderland. In 1708 he was elected member for Malmesbury, and the next year he accompanied Thomas, Earl of Wharton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to that country as his secretary, and became Keeper of the Records in Birmingham's Tower,—a nominal office worth £300 a-year. His secretary's salary was £2000 per annum.
Previous to this he had resumed his intimacy with Steele, to whom he lent money, and on one occasion is said to have recovered it by sending a bailiff to his house. This has been called heartless conduct, but the probability is that Addison was provoked by the extravagant use made of the loan by his reckless friend. In Parliament it is well-known Addison never spoke; but he surrounded himself in private life with a parliament of his own, and, like Cato, gave his little senate laws. That senate consisted of Steele, Ambrose, Phillips; the wretched Eustace Budgell, who afterwards drowned himself; sometimes Swift and Pope; and ultimately Tickell, who became his most confidential friend and the depositor of his literary remains. In mixed societies he was silent; but with a few select spirits around him, and especially after the "good wine did the good office" of banishing his bashfulness and taciturnity, he became the most delightful and fascinating of conversers. The staple of his conversation was quiet, sly humour; but there was fine sentiment, touches of pathos, and now and then imagination peeped over like an Alp above meaner hills. Swift alone, we suspect, was his match; but his power lay rather in severe and pungent sarcasm, in broad, coarse, though unsmiling wit, and at times in the fierce and terrible sallies of misanthropic rage and despair. Addison, on leaving England, had, by his modesty, geniality, and amiable manners, become the most popular man in the country, so much so, that, says Swift, "he might be king an' he had a mind."
In Ireland—although he sat as member for Cavan, and appears in Parliament to have got beyond his famous "I conceive—I conceive—I conceive"—(having, as the wag observed, "conceived three times and brought forth nothing"), and spoken sometimes, if not often—he did not feel himself at home. He must have loathed the licentious and corrupt Wharton, and felt besides a longing for the society of London, the noctes coenoeque Deûm he had left behind him. It was in Ireland, however, that his real literary career began. Steele, in the spring of 1709, had commenced the Tatler, a thrice-a-week miscellany of foreign news, town gossip, short sharp papers de omnibus rebus et guibusdum aliis, with a sprinkling of moral and literary criticism. When Addison heard of this scheme, he readily lent his aid to it, and then, as honest Richard admits, "I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid,—I was undone by my auxiliary." To the Tatler Addison contributed a number of papers, which, if slighter than his better ones in the Spectator, were nevertheless highly characteristic of his singular powers of observation, character-painting, humour, and invention.
In November 1709, he returned to England, and not long after he shared in the downfall of his party, and lost his secretaryship. This also is thought to have injured him in a tender point. He had already conceived an affection for the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, who had been disposed to encourage the addresses of the Secretary, but looked coldly on those of the mere man and scribbler Joseph Addison, who, to crown his misfortunes at this time, had resigned his Fellowship, suffered some severe pecuniary losses of a kind, and from a quarter which are both obscure, and was trembling lest he should be deprived of his small Irish office too. Yet, although reduced and well-nigh beggared, never did his mind approve itself more rich. Besides writing a great deal in the Tatler, he published a political journal, called the Whig Examiner, in which, although the wit, we think, is not so fine as in his Freeholder, there is a vigour and masculine energy which he has seldom equalled elsewhere. When it expired, Swift exulted over its death in terms which sufficiently proved that he was annoyed and oppressed by its life. "He might well," says Johnson, "rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed."
On the 2d of January 1711, the last Tatler came forth; and on the 1st of the following March appeared the Spectator, which is now the main pillar of Addison's fame, and the fullest revelation of his exquisite genius. Without being as a whole a great, or in any part of it a profound work, there are few productions which, if lost, would be more missed in literature. One reclines on its pages as on pillows. The sweetness of the spirit,—the trembling beauty of the sentences, like that of a twilight wave just touched by the west wind's balmy breath,—the nice strokes of humour, so gentle, yet so overpowering,—the feminine delicacy and refinement of the allusions,—the art which so dexterously conceals itself,—the mild enthusiasm for the works of man and God which glows in all its serious effusions,—the good nature of its satire,—the geniality of its criticism,—the everlasting April of the style, so soft and vivid,—the purity and healthiness of the moral tone,—and the childlike religion which breathes in the Saturday papers—one or two of which, such as the "Vision of Mirza," are almost scriptural in spirit and beautiful simplicity,—combine to throw a charm around the Spectator which works of far loftier pretensions, if they need not, certainly do not possess. Macaulay (whom we love for his love of Addison and Bunyan more than for aught else about his works) truly observes, that few writers have discovered so much variety and inventiveness as Addison, who, in the papers of a single week, sometimes traverses the whole gamut of literature, supplying keen sarcasm, rich portraiture of character, the epistle, the tale, the allegory, the apologue, the moral essay, and the religious meditation,—all first-rate in quality, and all suggesting the idea that his resources are boundless, and that the half has not been told. His criticisms have been ridiculed as shallow; but while his lucubrations on Milton were useful in their day as plain finger-posts, quietly pointing up to the stupendous sublimities of the theme, his essays on Wit are subtle, and his papers on the "Pleasures of Imagination" throw on the beautiful topic a light like that of a red evening west, giving and receiving glory from the autumnal landscape.
In the end of 1712 the Spectator, which had circulated at one time to the extent of 4000 copies a-day, was discontinued, and in a few weeks the Guardian supplied its place. It was two months ere Addison began to write, and during that time it was flippantly dull; but when he appeared its character changed, and his contributions to the new periodical were quite as good as the best of his Spectators.
In April 1713 his "Cato" was acted with immense success, and in circumstances so well known that they need not be detailed at length. Pope wrote the prologue; Booth enacted the hero; Steele packed the house; peers, both Tory and Whig, crowded the boxes; claps of applause were echoed back from High Churchmen to the members of the "Kit-Cat Club;" Bolingbroke sent fifty guineas, during the progress of the play, to Booth for defending the cause of liberty against a perpetual dictator, (Marlborough;) and with the exception of growling Dennis, everybody was in raptures. The play has long found its level. It has passages of power and thoughts of beauty, but it has one radical fault—formality. Mandeville described Addison as a parson in a tie-wig. "Cato" is a parson without the tie-wig; an intolerable mixture of the patriot and the pedant. Few would now give one of the Spectator's little papers about Sir Roger de Coverley for a century of Catos.
In September 1713 the Guardian stopped; but in June 1714 Addison, now separated from Steele, who was carrying on a political paper called the Englishman, added an eighth volume to the Spectator. Its contents are more uniformly serious than those of the first seven volumes, and it contains, besides Addison's matchless papers, some only inferior to these, especially four by Mr Grove, a dissenting minister in Taunton. It is recorded in "Boswell" that Baretti having, on the Continent, met with Grove's paper on "Novelty," it quickened his curiosity to visit Britain, for he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed!
When George I. succeeded to the throne, Addison's fortunes began to improve. A Council having been appointed to manage matters till the King arrived, Addison was chosen their secretary; and afterwards he went over again to Ireland in his old capacity, Sunderland being now Lord-Lieutenant. Here, much as he differed from Swift in politics, he resumed his intimacy with him,—an intimacy, considering the dispositions of the two men, singular, as though a lamb and a flayed bear were to form an alliance. In 1715 our poet returned to England, and obtained a seat at the Board of Trade. Early in the year he brought out, anonymously, on the stage his comedy of the "Drummer," which was coldly received. And towards the close of it, he commenced a very clever periodical called the Freeholder. We only met with this series a few years ago, but can assure our readers that some of the most delectable bits of Addison are to be found in it. There is a Tory fox-hunter yet riding along there, whom we would advise you to join if you would enjoy one of the richest treats of humour; and there is a Jacobite army still on its way to Preston, the only danger connected with approaching which, is lest you be killed with laughter.
Shortly after occurred his famous quarrel with Pope, to which we have already referred in our life of that poet, and do not intend to recur. Next year Addison's long courtship came to a successful close. He wedded the Dowager Warwick, went to reside at Holland-house, and became miserable for life. She was a proud, imperious woman, who, instead of seeking to wean Addison from his convivial habits, (if such habits in any excessive measure were his,) drove him deeper into the slough by her bitter words and haughty carriage. The tavern, which had formerly been his occasional resort, became now his nightly refuge. In 1717 he received his highest civil honour, being made Secretary of State under Lord Sunderland; but, as usual, the slave soon appeared in the chariot. His health began to break down, and asthma soon obliged him to resign his office, on receiving a retiring pension of £1500 a-year. Next Steele and he, having taken opposite sides in politics, got engaged in a paper war—Steele in the Plebeian, and Addison in the Old Whig; and personalities of a disagreeable kind passed between the two friends. In the meantime Addison was dying fast. Dropsy had supervened on asthma, and the help of physicians was vain. He prepared himself, like a man and a Christian, to meet the last stern foe. He sent for Gay and asked his forgiveness for some act of unkindness he had done him. Gay granted it, although utterly ignorant of what the offence had been. He had probably, on account of his Toryism, been deprived, through Addison's means, of some preferment. He entrusted his works to the care of Tickell, and dedicated them to Craggs, his successor in the secretaryship, in a touching and beautiful letter, written a few days before his death. He called, it is said, the young Earl of Warwick, his wife's son, a very dissipated young man, and of unsettled religious principles, to his bedside, and said, "I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die." He breathed his last on the 17th June 1709, forty-seven years old, and leaving one child, a daughter, who died, at an advanced age, at Bilton, Warwickshire, in 1797. His funeral took place, at dead of night, in Westminster Abbey, Bishop Atterbury meeting the procession and reading the service by torch-light. He was laid beside his friend Montague, and in a few months his successor, Craggs, was laid beside him. Nearly a century elapsed ere the present monument was erected over his dust. Tickell wrote a fine poem to his memory; and a splendid edition of his works was published by subscription in 1721.
Addison was cut off in the prime of life, and interrupted in some literary undertakings and projects of great pith and moment. He had written a portion of a treatise on the "Evidences of Christianity," and was meditating some works, such as a "Metrical Version of the Psalms" and a tragedy on the history of Socrates, still more suitable to his cast of mind.
We have already indicated our opinion alike of Addison's character and genius, but must be permitted a few closing remarks. Both partook of the feminine type. He was an amiable and highly gifted, rather than a strong or great man. His shrinking timidity of temperament, his singular modesty of manners, his quiet, sly power of humorous yet kindly observation, his minute style of criticism, even the peculiar cast of his piety, all served to stamp the lady-man. In taciturnity alone he bore the sex no resemblance. And hence it is that Campbell in poetry, and Addison in prose, are, or were, the great favourites of female readers. He had many weaknesses, but, as in the character of woman, they appeared beautiful, and cognate to his gentle nature. His fear of giving offence was one of the most prominent of these. In his writings and in his life, he seems always treading on thin ice. Pope said truly of him—
"He hints a fault, and hesitates dislike."
But this was not owing to malice, but to the bashful good nature which distinguished him. It is true, too, that he hints a beauty, and hesitates in his expressions of love. He says himself the finest things, and then blushes as if detected in a crime; or he praises an obvious and colossal merit in another, and then starts at the sound himself had made. His encomiums resemble the evening talk of lovers, being low, sweet, and trembling. Were we to speak of Addison phrenologically, we should say that, next to veneration, wit, and ideality, his principal faculties were caution and secretiveness. He was cautious to the brink of cowardice. We fancy him in a considerable fright in the storm on the Ligurian Gulf, amidst the exhalations of the unhealthy Campagna, and while the avalanches of the Alps—"the thunderbolts of snow"—were falling around him. We know that he walked about behind the scenes perspiring with agitation while the fate of "Cato" was still undecided. Had it failed, Addison never could, as Dr Johnson, when asked how he felt after "Irene" was damned, have replied, "Like the Monument." We know, too, that he sought to soothe the fury and stroke down the angry bristles of John Dennis. To call the author of the "Campaign" a coward were going too far; but he felt, we believe, more of a martial glow while writing it in his Haymarket garret than had he mingled in the fray. And as to his secretiveness, his still, deep, scarce-rippling stream of humour, his habit, commemorated by Swift, when he found any man invincibly wrong, of flattering his opinions by acquiescence, and sinking him yet deeper in absurdity; even the fact that no word is found more frequently in his writings than "secret" ("secret joy," "secret satisfaction," "secret solace," are phrases constantly occurring,) prove that, whatever else he had possessed of the female character, the title of the play, "A Wonder—a Woman keeps a Secret," had been no paradox in reference to him.
Having his lips in general barred by the double bolts of caution and secretiveness, one ceases to wonder that the "invisible spirit of wine" was welcomed by him as a key to open occasionally the rich treasures of his mind; but that he was a habitual drunkard is one calumny; that he wrote his best Spectators when too much excited with wine is another; and that he "died drunk" is a third,—and the most atrocious of all, propagated though it has been by Walpole and Byron. His habits, however, were undoubtedly too careless and convivial; and there used to be a floating tradition in Holland-house, that, when meditating his writings there, he was wont to walk along a gallery, at each end of which stood a separate bottle, out of both of which he never failed, en passant, to sip! This, after all, however, may be only a mythical fable.
While, as an author, the favourite of ladies, of the young, and of catholic-minded critics generally, Addison has had, and has still, severe and able detractors, who are wont to speak of him in such a manner as this:—"He is a highly cultivated artist, but not one thought of any vivid novelty did he put out in all his many books. You become placid reading him, but think of Ossian and Shakspeare, and be silent. He is a lapidary polishing pebbles,—a pretty art, but not vested with the glories of sculpture, nor the mathematical magnitude of architecture. He does not walk a demigod, but a stiff Anglicised imitator of French paces. He is a symmetrical, but a small invisible personage at rapier practice." Now, clever as this is, it only proves that Addison is not a Shakspeare or Milton. He does not pretend to be either. He is no demigod, but he is a man, a lady-man if you will, but the lovelier on that account. Besides, he was cut off in his prime, and when he might have girt himself up to achieve greater things than he has done. And although the French taste of his age somewhat affected and chilled his genius, yet he knew of other models than Racine and Boileau. He drank of "Siloa's brook." He admired and imitated the poetry of the Bible. He loves not, indeed, its wilder and higher strains; he gets giddy on the top of Lebanon; the Valley of Dry Bones he treads with timid steps; and his look up to the "Terrible Crystal" is more of fright than of exultation. But the lovelier, softer, simpler, and more pensive parts of the Bible are very dear to the gentle Spectator, and are finely, if faintly, reproduced in his writings. Indeed, the principle which would derogate from Addison's works, would lead to the depreciation of portions of the Scriptures too. "Ruth" is not so grand as the "Revelation;" the "Song of Solomon" is not so sublime as the "Song of Songs, which is Isaiah's;" and the story of Joseph has not the mystic grandeur or rushing fire of Ezekiel's prophecy. But there they are in the same Book of God, and are even dearer to many hearts than the loftier portions; and so with Addison's papers beside the works of Bacon, Milton, and Coleridge.
His poetry is now in our readers' hands, and should be read with a candid spirit. They will admire the elegance and gracefully-used learning of the "Epistle to Halifax." They will not be astonished at the "Campaign," but they will regard it with interest as the lever which first lifted Addison into his true place in society and letters. They will find much to please them in his verses to Dryden, Somers, King William, and his odes on St Cecilia's Day; and they will pause with peculiar fondness over those delightful hymns, some of which they have sung or repeated from infancy, which they will find again able to "beat the heavenward flame," and start the tender and pious tear, and which are of themselves sufficient to rank Addison high on the list of Christian poets.
[Footnote 1: Among these "others" was Abraham Stanyan, plenipotentiary extraordinary at Neufchatel at the settlement of the rival claims of the Duke of Brandenberg, Holland, and France, to that principality. He was afterwards ambassador to France. He married a daughter of Dr Pritchett, Bishop of Gloucester. It is said, that, having on one occasion borrowed a sum of money from Addison, the latter observed him to be very subservient, agreeing with every opinion Mr A. expressed, till Addison, provoked, and guessing the cause, said, "Stanyan, either contradict me, or pay me my money." Our friend, Mr J. Stanyan Bigg, author of the very brilliant poem, "Night and the Soul," is a descendant of Abraham Stanyan.]
ADDISON'S POETICAL WORKS.
POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
TO MR DRYDEN.
How long, great poet, shall thy sacred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise?
Can neither injuries of time, nor age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote;
Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought;
Pensive and sad, his drooping Muse betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.
Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possess'd,
And second youth is kindled in thy breast;
_10
Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own;
Thy lines have heightened Virgil's majesty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle
In smoother numbers, and a clearer style;
And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,
Edges his satire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,
And still outshines the bright original.
_20
Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song,
And tells his story in the British tongue;
Thy charming verse and fair translations show
How thy own laurel first began to grow;
How wild Lycaon, changed by angry gods,
And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods.
Oh, mayst thou still the noble task prolong,
Nor age nor sickness interrupt thy song!
Then may we wondering read, how human limbs
Have watered kingdoms, and dissolved in streams;
_30
Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turned yellow by degrees, and ripened into gold:
How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,
Have lived a second life, and different natures tried.
Then will thy Ovid, thus transformed, reveal
A nobler change than he himself can tell.
Mag. Coll. Oxon, June 2, 1693.
The Author's age, 22.
A POEM TO HIS MAJESTY,[2] PRESENTED TO THE LORD KEEPER.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JOHN SOMERS,
LOKD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL.
If yet your thoughts are loose from state affairs,
Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares,
If yet your time and actions are your own,
Receive the present of a Muse unknown:
A Muse that in adventurous numbers sings
The rout of armies, and the fall of kings,
Britain advanced, and Europe's peace restored,
By Somers' counsels, and by Nassau's sword.
To you, my lord, these daring thoughts belong,
Who helped to raise the subject of my song;
_10
To you the hero of my verse reveals
His great designs; to you in council tells
His inmost thoughts, determining the doom
Of towns unstormed, and battles yet to come.
And well could you, in your immortal strains,
Describe his conduct, and reward his pains:
But since the state has all your cares engross'd,
And poetry in higher thoughts is lost,
Attend to what a lesser Muse indites,
Pardon her faults and countenance her flights.
_20
On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate,
Who, free from vulgar passions, are above
Degrading envy, or misguided love;
If you, well pleased, shall smile upon my lays,
Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise;
For next to what you write, is what you praise.
TO THE KING.
When now the business of the field is o'er,
The trumpets sleep, and cannons cease to roar;
When every dismal echo is decay'd,
And all the thunder of the battle laid;
Attend, auspicious prince, and let the Muse
In humble accents milder thoughts infuse.
Others, in bold prophetic numbers skill'd,
Set thee in arms, and led thee to the field;
My Muse, expecting, on the British strand
Waits thy return, and welcomes thee to land:
_10
She oft has seen thee pressing on the foe,
When Europe was concerned in every blow;
But durst not in heroic strains rejoice; is
The trumpets, drums, and cannons drowned her voice:
She saw the Boyne run thick with human gore,
And floating corps lie beating on the shore:
She saw thee climb the banks, but tried in vain
To trace her hero through the dusty plain,
When through the thick embattled lines he broke,
Now plunged amidst the foes, now lost in clouds of smoke.
_20
Oh that some Muse, renowned for lofty verse,
In daring numbers would thy toils rehearse!
Draw thee beloved in peace, and feared in wars,
Inured to noonday sweats, and midnight cares!
But still the godlike man, by some hard fate,
Receives the glory of his toils too late;
Too late the verse the mighty act succeeds;
One age the hero, one the poet breeds.
A thousand years in full succession ran
Ere Virgil raised his voice, and sung the man
_30
Who, driven by stress of fate, such dangers bore
On stormy seas and a disastrous shore,
Before he settled in the promised earth,
And gave the empire of the world its birth.
Troy long had found the Grecians bold and fierce,
Ere Homer mustered up their troops in verse;
Long had Achilles quelled the Trojans' lust,
And laid the labour of the gods in dust,
Before the towering Muse began her flight,
And drew the hero raging in the fight,
_40
Engaged in tented fields and rolling floods,
Or slaughtering mortals, or a match for gods.
And here, perhaps, by fate's unerring doom,
Some mighty bard lies hid in years to come,
That shall in William's godlike acts engage,
And with his battles warm a future age.
Hibernian fields shall here thy conquests show,
And Boyne be sung when it has ceased to flow;
Here Gallic labours shall advance thy fame,
And here Seneffe[3] shall wear another name.
_50
Our late posterity, with secret dread,
Shall view thy battles, and with pleasure read
How, in the bloody field, too near advanced,
The guiltless bullet on thy shoulder glanced.
The race of Nassaus was by Heaven design'd
To curb the proud oppressors of mankind,
To bind the tyrants of the earth with laws,
And fight in every injured nation's cause,
The world's great patriots; they for justice call,
And, as they favour, kingdoms rise or fall.
_60
Our British youth, unused to rough alarms,
Careless of fame, and negligent of arms,
Had long forgot to meditate the foe,
And heard unwarmed the martial trumpet blow;
But now, inspired by thee, with fresh delight
Their swords they brandish, and require the fight,
Renew their ancient conquests on the main,
And act their fathers' triumphs o'er again;
Fired, when they hear how Agincourt was strow'd
With Gallic corps and Cressi swam in blood,
_70
With eager warmth they fight, ambitious all
Who first shall storm the breach, or mount the wall.
In vain the thronging enemy by force
Would clear the ramparts, and repel their course;
They break through all, for William leads the way,
Where fires rage most, and loudest engines play.
Namur's late terrors and destruction show
What William, warmed with just revenge, can do:
Where once a thousand turrets raised on high
Their gilded spires, and glittered in the sky,
_80
An undistinguished heap of dust is found,
And all the pile lies smoking on the ground,
His toils, for no ignoble ends design'd,
Promote the common welfare of mankind;
No wild ambition moves, but Europe's fears,
The cries of orphans, and the widow's tears;
Oppressed religion gives the first alarms,
And injured justice sets him in his arms;
His conquests freedom to the world afford,
And nations bless the labours of his sword.
_90
Thus when the forming Muse would copy forth
A perfect pattern of heroic worth,
She sets a man triumphant in the field,
O'er giants cloven down, and monsters kill'd,
Reeking in blood, and smeared with dust and sweat,
Whilst angry gods conspire to make him great.
Thy navy rides on seas before unpress'd,
And strikes a terror through the haughty East;
Algiers and Tunis from their sultry shore
With horror hear the British engines roar;
_100
Fain from the neighbouring dangers would they run,
And wish themselves still nearer to the sun.
The Gallic ships are in their ports confined,
Denied the common use of sea and wind,
Nor dare again the British strength engage;
Still they remember that destructive rage
Which lately made their trembling host retire,
Stunned with the noise, and wrapt in smoke and fire;
The waves with wide unnumbered wrecks were strow'd,
And planks, and arms, and men, promiscuous flow'd.
_110
Spain's numerous fleet, that perished on our coast,
Could scarce a longer line of battle boast,
The winds could hardly drive them to their fate,
And all the ocean laboured with the weight.
Where'er the waves in restless errors roll,
The sea lies open now to either pole:
Now may we safely use the northern gales,
And in the Polar Circle spread our sails;
Or deep in southern climes, secure from wars,
New lands explore, and sail by other stars;
_120
Fetch uncontrolled each labour of the sun,
And make the product of the world our own.
At length, proud prince, ambitious Louis, cease
To plague mankind, and trouble Europe's peace;
Think on the structures which thy pride has razed,
On towns unpeopled, and on fields laid waste;
Think on the heaps of corps and streams of blood,
On every guilty plain, and purple flood,
Thy arms have made, and cease an impious war,
Nor waste the lives intrusted to thy care.
_130
Or if no milder thought can calm thy mind,
Behold the great avenger of mankind,
See mighty Nassau through the battle ride,
And see thy subjects gasping by his side:
Fain would the pious prince refuse the alarm,
Fain would he check the fury of his arm;
But when thy cruelties his thoughts engage,
The hero kindles with becoming rage,
Then countries stolen, and captives unrestored,
Give strength to every blow, and edge his sword.
_140
Behold with what resistless force he falls
On towns besieged, and thunders at thy walls!
Ask Villeroy, for Villeroy beheld
The town surrendered, and the treaty seal'd,
With what amazing strength the forts were won,
Whilst the whole power of France stood looking on.
But stop not here: behold where Berkley stands,
And executes his injured king's commands!
Around thy coast his bursting bombs he pours
On flaming citadels and falling towers;
_150
With hissing streams of fire the air they streak,
And hurl destruction round them where they break;
The skies with long ascending flames are bright,
And all the sea reflects a quivering light.
Thus Ætna, when in fierce eruptions broke,
Fills heaven with ashes, and the earth with smoke;
Here crags of broken rocks are twirled on high,
Here molten stones and scattered cinders fly:
Its fury reaches the remotest coast,
And strows the Asiatic shore with dust.
_160
Now does the sailor from the neighbouring main
Look after Gallic towns and forts in vain;
No more his wonted marks he can descry,
But sees a long unmeasured ruin lie;
Whilst, pointing to the naked coast, he shows
His wondering mates where towns and steeples rose,
Where crowded citizens he lately view'd,
And singles out the place where once St Maloes stood.
Here Russel's actions should my Muse require;
And, would my strength but second my desire,
_170
I'd all his boundless bravery rehearse,
And draw his cannons thundering in my verse:
High on the deck should the great leader stand,
Wrath in his look, and lightning in his hand;
Like Homer's Hector, when he flung his fire
Amidst a thousand ships, and made all Greece retire.
But who can run the British triumphs o'er,
And count the flames dispersed on every shore?
Who can describe the scattered victory,
And draw the reader on from sea to sea?
_180
Else who could Ormond's godlike acts refuse,
Ormond the theme of every Oxford Muse?
Fain would I here his mighty worth proclaim,
Attend him in the noble chase of fame,
Through all the noise and hurry of the fight,
Observe each blow, and keep him still in sight.
Oh, did our British peers thus court renown,
And grace the coats their great forefathers won,
Our arms would then triumphantly advance,
Nor Henry be the last that conquered France!
_190
What might not England hope, if such abroad
Purchased their country's honour with their blood:
When such, detained at home, support our state
In William's stead, and bear a kingdom's weight,
The schemes of Gallic policy o'erthrow,
And blast the counsels of the common foe;
Direct our armies, and distribute right,
And render our Maria's loss more light.
But stop, my Muse, the ungrateful sound forbear,
Maria's name still wounds each British ear:
_200
Each British heart Maria still does wound,
And tears burst out unbidden at the sound;
Maria still our rising mirth destroys,
Darkens our triumphs, and forbids our joys.
But see, at length, the British ships appear!
Our Nassau comes! and, as his fleet draws near,
The rising masts advance, the sails grow white,
And all his pompous navy floats in sight.
Come, mighty prince, desired of Britain, come!
May heaven's propitious gales attend thee home!
_210
Come, and let longing crowds behold that look
Which such confusion and amazement strook
Through Gallic hosts: but, oh! let us descry
Mirth in thy brow, and pleasure in thy eye;
Let nothing dreadful in thy face be found;
But for awhile forget the trumpet's sound;
Well-pleased, thy people's loyalty approve,
Accept their duty, and enjoy their love.
For as, when lately moved with fierce delight,
You plunged amidst the tumult of the fight,
_220
Whole heaps of dead encompassed you around,
And steeds o'erturned lay foaming on the ground:
So crowned with laurels now, where'er you go,
Around you blooming joys and peaceful blessings flow.
A TRANSLATION OF ALL
VIRGIL'S FOURTH GEORGIC,
EXCEPT THE STORY OF ARISTÆUS.
Ethereal sweets shall next my Muse engage,
And this, Maecenas, claims your patronage.
Of little creatures' wondrous acts I treat,
The ranks and mighty leaders of their state,
Their laws, employments, and their wars relate.
A trifling theme provokes my humble lays.
Trifling the theme, not so the poet's praise,
If great Apollo and the tuneful Nine
First, for your bees a proper station find,
_10
That's fenced about, and sheltered from the wind;
For winds divert them in their flight, and drive
The swarms, when loaden homeward, from their hive.
Nor sheep, nor goats, must pasture near their stores,
To trample underfoot the springing flowers;
Nor frisking heifers bound about the place,
To spurn the dew-drops off, and bruise the rising grass;
Nor must the lizard's painted brood appear,
Nor wood-pecks, nor the swallow, harbour near.
They waste the swarms, and, as they fly along,
_20
Convey the tender morsels to their young.
Let purling streams, and fountains edged with moss,
And shallow rills run trickling through the grass;
Let branching olives o'er the fountain grow;
Or palms shoot up, and shade the streams below;
That when the youth, led by their princes, shun
The crowded hive and sport it in the sun,
Refreshing springs may tempt them from the heat,
And shady coverts yield a cool retreat.
Whether the neighbouring water stands or runs,
_30
Lay twigs across and bridge it o'er with stones
That if rough storms, or sudden blasts of wind,
Should dip or scatter those that lag behind,
Here they may settle on the friendly stone,
And dry their reeking pinions at the sun.
Plant all the flowery banks with lavender,
With store of savory scent the fragrant air;
Let running betony the field o'erspread,
And fountains soak the violet's dewy bed.
Though barks or plaited willows make your hive,
_40
A narrow inlet to their cells contrive;
For colds congeal and freeze the liquors up,
And, melted down with heat, the waxen buildings drop.
The bees, of both extremes alike afraid,
Their wax around the whistling crannies spread,
And suck out clammy dews from herbs and flowers,
To smear the chinks, and plaster up the pores;
For this they hoard up glue, whose clinging drops,
Like pitch or bird-lime, hang in stringy ropes.
They oft, 'tis said, in dark retirements dwell,
_50
And work in subterraneous caves their cell;
At other times the industrious insects live
In hollow rocks, or make a tree their hive.
Point all their chinky lodgings round with mud,
And leaves must thinly on your work be strow'd;
But let no baleful yew-tree flourish near,
Nor rotten marshes send out steams of mire;
Nor burning crabs grow red, and crackle in the fire:
Nor neighbouring caves return the dying sound,
Nor echoing rocks the doubled voice rebound.
_60
Things thus prepared——
When the under-world is seized with cold and night,
And summer here descends in streams of light,
The bees through woods and forests take their flight.
They rifle every flower, and lightly skim
The crystal brook, and sip the running stream;
And thus they feed their young with strange delight,
And knead the yielding wax, and work the slimy sweet.
But when on high you see the bees repair,
Borne on the winds through distant tracts of air,
_70
And view the winged cloud all blackening from afar;
While shady coverts and fresh streams they choose,
Milfoil and common honeysuckles bruise,
And sprinkle on their hives the fragrant juice.
On brazen vessels beat a tinkling sound,
And shake the cymbals of the goddess round;
Then all will hastily retreat, and fill
The warm resounding hollow of their cell.
If once two rival kings their right debate,
And factions and cabals embroil the state,
_80
The people's actions will their thoughts declare;
All their hearts tremble, and beat thick with war;
Hoarse, broken sounds, like trumpets' harsh alarms,
Run through the hive, and call them to their arms;
All in a hurry spread their shivering wings,
And fit their claws, and point their angry stings:
In crowds before the king's pavilion meet,
And boldly challenge out the foe to fight:
At last, when all the heavens are warm and fair,
They rush together out, and join; the air
_90
Swarms thick, and echoes with the humming war.
All in a firm round cluster mix, and strow
With heaps of little corps the earth below,
As thick as hailstones from the floor rebound,
Or shaken acorns rattle on the ground.
No sense of danger can their kings control,
Their little bodies lodge a mighty soul:
Each obstinate in arms pursues his blow,
Till shameful flight secures the routed foe.
This hot dispute and all this mighty fray
_100
A little dust flung upward will allay.
But when both kings are settled in their hive,
Mark him who looks the worst, and, lest he live
Idle at home in ease and luxury,
The lazy monarch must be doomed to die;
So let the royal insect rule alone,
And reign without a rival in his throne.
The kings are different; one of better note,
All speck'd with gold, and many a shining spot,
Looks gay, and glistens in a gilded coat;
_110
But love of ease, and sloth, in one prevails,
That scarce his hanging paunch behind him trails:
The people's looks are different as their kings',
Some sparkle bright, and glitter in their wings;
Others look loathsome and diseased with sloth,
Like a faint traveller, whose dusty mouth
Grows dry with heat, and spits a mawkish froth.
The first are best——
From their o'erflowing combs you'll often press
Pure luscious sweets, that mingling in the glass
_120
Correct the harshness of the racy juice,
And a rich flavour through the wine diffuse.
But when they sport abroad, and rove from home,
And leave the cooling hive, and quit the unfinished comb,
Their airy ramblings are with ease confined,
Clip their king's wings, and if they stay behind
No bold usurper dares invade their right,
Nor sound a march, nor give the sign for flight.
Let flowery banks entice them to their cells,
And gardens all perfumed with native smells;
_130
Where carved Priapus has his fixed abode,
The robber's terror, and the scarecrow god.
Wild thyme and pine-trees from their barren hill
Transplant, and nurse them in the neighbouring soil,
Set fruit-trees round, nor e'er indulge thy sloth,
But water them, and urge their shady growth.
And here, perhaps, were not I giving o'er,
And striking sail, and making to the shore,
I'd show what art the gardener's toils require,
Why rosy pæstum blushes twice a year;
_140
What streams the verdant succory supply,
And how the thirsty plant drinks rivers dry;
With what a cheerful green does parsley grace,
And writhes the bellying cucumber along the twisted grass;
Nor would I pass the soft acanthus o'er,
Ivy nor myrtle-trees that love the shore;
Nor daffodils, that late from earth's slow womb
Unrumple their swoln buds, and show their yellow bloom.
For once I saw in the Tarentine vale,
Where slow Galesus drenched the washy soil,
_150
An old Corician yeoman, who had got
A few neglected acres to his lot,
Where neither corn nor pasture graced the field,
Nor would the vine her purple harvest yield;
But savoury herbs among the thorns were found,
Vervain and poppy-flowers his garden crown'd,
And drooping lilies whitened all the ground.
Blest with these riches he could empires slight,
And when he rested from his toils at night,
The earth unpurchased dainties would afford,
_160
And his own garden furnished out his board:
The spring did first his opening roses blow,
First ripening autumn bent his fruitful bough.
When piercing colds had burst the brittle stone,
And freezing rivers stiffened as they run,
He then would prune the tenderest of his trees,
Chide the late spring, and lingering western breeze:
His bees first swarmed, and made his vessels foam
With the rich squeezing of the juicy comb.
Here lindens and the sappy pine increased;
_170
Here, when gay flowers his smiling orchard dressed,
As many blossoms as the spring could show,
So many dangling apples mellowed on the bough.
In rows his elms and knotty pear-trees bloom,
And thorns ennobled now to bear a plum,
And spreading plane-trees, where, supinely laid,
He now enjoys the cool, and quaffs beneath the shade.
But these for want of room I must omit,
And leave for future poets to recite.
Now I'll proceed their natures to declare,
_180
Which Jove himself did on the bees confer
Because, invited by the timbrel's sound,
Lodged in a cave, the almighty babe they found,
And the young god nursed kindly under-ground.
Of all the winged inhabitants of air,
These only make their young the public care;
In well-disposed societies they live,
And laws and statutes regulate their hive;
Nor stray like others unconfined abroad,
But know set stations, and a fixed abode:
_190
Each provident of cold in summer flies
Through fields and woods, to seek for new supplies,
And in the common stock unlades his thighs.
Some watch the food, some in the meadows ply,
Taste every bud, and suck each blossom dry;
Whilst others, labouring in their cells at home,
Temper Narcissus' clammy tears with gum,
For the first groundwork of the golden comb;
On this they found their waxen works, and raise
The yellow fabric on its gluey base.
_200
Some educate the young, or hatch the seed
With vital warmth, and future nations breed;
Whilst others thicken all the slimy dews,
And into purest honey work the juice;
Then fill the hollows of the comb, and swell
With luscious nectar every flowing cell.
By turns they watch, by turns with curious eyes
Survey the heavens, and search the clouded skies,
To find out breeding storms, and tell what tempests rise.
By turns they ease the loaden swarms, or drive
_210
The drone, a lazy insect, from their hive.
The work is warmly plied through all the cells,
And strong with thyme the new-made honey smells.
So in their caves the brawny Cyclops sweat,
When with huge strokes the stubborn wedge they beat,
And all the unshapen thunderbolt complete;
Alternately their hammers rise and fall;
Whilst griping tongs turn round the glowing ball.
With puffing bellows some the flames increase,
And some in waters dip the hissing mass;
_220
Their beaten anvils dreadfully resound,
And Ætna shakes all o'er, and thunders under-ground.
Thus, if great things we may with small compare,
The busy swarms their different labours share.
Desire of profit urges all degrees;
The aged insects, by experience wise,
Attend the comb, and fashion every part,
And shape the waxen fret-work out with art:
The young at night, returning from their toils,
Bring home their thighs clogged with the meadows' spoils.
_230
On lavender and saffron buds they feed,
On bending osiers and the balmy reed,
From purple violets and the teile they bring
Their gathered sweets, and rifle all the spring.
All work together, all together rest,
The morning still renews their labours past;
Then all rush out, their different tasks pursue,
Sit on the bloom, and suck the ripening dew;
Again, when evening warns them to their home,
With weary wings and heavy thighs they come,
_240
And crowd about the chink, and mix a drowsy hum.
Into their cells at length they gently creep,
There all the night their peaceful station keep,
Wrapt up in silence, and dissolved in sleep.
None range abroad when winds and storms are nigh,
Nor trust their bodies to a faithless sky,
But make small journeys with a careful wing,
And fly to water at a neighbouring spring;
And lest their airy bodies should be cast
In restless whirls, the sport of every blast,
_250
They carry stones to poise them in their flight,
As ballast keeps the unsteady vessel right.
But, of all customs that the bees can boast,
'Tis this may challenge admiration most;
That none will Hymen's softer joys approve,
Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love,
But all a long virginity maintain,
And bring forth young without a mother's pain:
From herbs and flowers they pick each tender bee,
And cull from plants a buzzing progeny;
_260
From these they choose out subjects, and create
A little monarch of the rising state;
Then build wax kingdoms for the infant prince,
And form a palace for his residence.
But often in their journeys, as they fly,
On flints they tear their silken wings, or lie
Grovelling beneath their flowery load, and die.
Thus love of honey can an insect fire,
And in a fly such generous thoughts inspire.
Yet by repeopling their decaying state,
_270
Though seven short springs conclude their vital date,
Their ancient stocks eternally remain,
And in an endless race their children's children reign.
No prostrate vassal of the East can more
With slavish fear his haughty prince adore;
His life unites them all; but, when he dies,
All in loud tumults and distractions rise;
They waste their honey and their combs deface,
And wild confusion reigns in every place.
Him all admire, all the great guardian own,
_280
And crowd about his courts, and buzz about his throne.
Oft on their backs their weary prince they bear,
Oft in his cause, embattled in the air,
Pursue a glorious death, in wounds and war.
Some, from such instances as these, have taught,
'The bees' extract is heavenly; for they thought
The universe alive; and that a soul,
Diffused throughout the matter of the whole,
To all the vast unbounded frame was given,
And ran through earth, and air, and sea, and all the deep of heaven;
_290
That this first kindled life in man and beast,
Life, that again flows into this at last.
That no compounded animal could die,
But when dissolved, the spirit mounted high,
Dwelt in a star, and settled in the sky.'
Whene'er their balmy sweets you mean to seize,
And take the liquid labours of the bees,
Spurt draughts of water from your mouth, and drive
A loathsome cloud of smoke amidst their hive,
Twice in the year their flowery toils begin,
_300
And twice they fetch their dewy harvest in;
Once, when the lovely Pleiades arise,
And add fresh lustre to the summer skies;
And once, when hastening from the watery sign,
They quit their station, and forbear to shine.
The bees are prone to rage, and often found
To perish for revenge, and die upon the wound
Their venomed sting produces aching pains,
And swells the flesh, and shoots among the veins.
When first a cold hard winter's storms arrive,
_310
And threaten death or famine to their hive,
If now their sinking state and low affairs
Can move your pity, and provoke your cares,
Fresh burning thyme before their cells convey,
And cut their dry and husky wax away;
For often lizards seize the luscious spoils,
Or drones, that riot on another's toils:
Oft broods of moths infest the hungry swarms,
And oft the furious wasp their hive alarms
With louder hums, and with unequal arms;
_320
Or else the spider at their entrance sets.
Her snares, and spins her bowels into nets.
When sickness reigns, for they as well as we
Feel all the effects of frail mortality,
By certain marks the new disease is seen,
Their colour changes, and their looks are thin;
Their funeral rites are formed, and every bee
With grief attends the sad solemnity;
The few diseased survivors hang before
Their sickly cells, and droop about the door,
_330
Or slowly in their hives their limbs unfold,
Shrunk up with hunger, and benumbed with cold;
In drawling hums the feeble insects grieve,
And doleful buzzes echo through the hive,
Like winds that softly murmur through the trees,
Like flames pent up, or like retiring seas.
Now lay fresh honey near their empty rooms,
In troughs of hollow reeds, whilst frying gums
Cast round a fragrant mist of spicy fumes.
Thus kindly tempt the famished swarm to eat,
_340
And gently reconcile them to their meat.
Mix juice of galls, and wine, that grow in time
Condensed by fire, and thicken to a slime;
To these, dried roses, thyme, and ccntaury join,
And raisins, ripened on the Psythian vine.
Besides, there grows a flower in marshy ground,
Its name amellus, easy to be found;
A mighty spring works in its root, and cleaves
The sprouting stalk, and shows itself in leaves:
The flower itself is of a golden hue,
_350
The leaves inclining to a darker blue;
The leaves shoot thick about the flower, and grow
Into a bush, and shade the turf below:
The plant in holy garlands often twines
The altars' posts, and beautifies the shrines;
Its taste is sharp, in vales new-shorn it grows,
Where Mella's stream in watery mazes flows.
Take plenty of its roots, and boil them well
In wine, and heap them up before the cell.
But if the whole stock fail, and none survive;
_360
To raise new people, and recruit the hive,
I'll here the great experiment declare,
That spread the Arcadian shepherd's name so far.
How bees from blood of slaughtered bulls have fled,
And swarms amidst the red corruption bred.
For where the Egyptians yearly see their bounds
Refreshed with floods, and sail about their grounds,
Where Persia borders, and the rolling Nile
Drives swiftly down the swarthy Indian's soil,
Till into seven it multiplies its stream,
_370
And fattens Egypt with a fruitful slime:
In this last practice all their hope remains,
And long experience justifies their pains.
First, then, a close contracted space of ground,
With straitened walls and low-built roof, they found;
A narrow shelving light is next assign'd
To all the quarters, one to every wind;
Through these the glancing rays obliquely pierce:
Hither they lead a bull that's young and fierce,
When two years' growth of horn he proudly shows,
_380
And shakes the comely terrors of his brows:
His nose and mouth, the avenues of breath,
They muzzle up, and beat his limbs to death;
With violence to life and stifling pain
He flings and spurns, and tries to snort in vain,
Loud heavy blows fall thick on every side,
Till his bruised bowels burst within the hide;
When dead, they leave him rotting on the ground,
With branches, thyme, and cassia, strowed around.
All this is done, when first the western breeze
_390
Becalms the year, and smooths the troubled seas;
Before the chattering swallow builds her nest,
Or fields in spring's embroidery are dress'd.
Meanwhile the tainted juice ferments within,
And quickens as its works: and now are seen
A wondrous swarm, that o'er the carcase crawls,
Of shapeless, rude, unfinished animals.
No legs at first the insect's weight sustain,
At length it moves its new-made limbs with pain;
Now strikes the air with quivering wings, and tries
_400
To lift its body up, and learns to rise;
Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears
Full grown, and all the bee at length appears;
From every side the fruitful carcase pours
Its swarming brood, as thick as summer showers,
Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows,
When twanging strings first shoot them on the foes.
Thus have I sung the nature of the bee;
While Cæsar, towering to divinity,
The frighted Indians with his thunder awed,
_410
And claimed their homage, and commenced a god;
I flourished all the while in arts of peace,
Retired and sheltered in inglorious ease;
I who before the songs of shepherds made,
When gay and young my rural lays I play'd,
And set my Tityrus beneath his shade.
A SONG FOR ST CECILIA'S DAY,
AT OXFORD.
I.
Cecilia, whose exalted hymns
With joy and wonder fill the blest,
In choirs of warbling seraphims,
Known and distinguished from the rest,
Attend, harmonious saint, and see
Thy vocal sons of harmony;
Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our prayers;
Enliven all our earthly airs,
And, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee;
Tune every string and every tongue,
Be thou the Muse and subject of our song.
II.
Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,
Employ the echo in her name,
Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise,
At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;
The organ labours in her praise.
Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From every voice the tuneful accents fly,
In soaring trebles now it rises high,
And now it sinks, and dwells upon the base.
Cecilia's name through all the notes we sing,
The work of every skilful tongue,
The sound of every trembling string,
The sound and triumph of our song.
III.
For ever consecrate the day,
To music and Cecilia;
Music, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.
Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love;
With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre,
The streams stand still, the stones admire;
The listening savages advance,
The wolf and lamb around him trip,
The bears in awkward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance.
The moving woods attended, as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.
IV.
Music religious heats inspires,
It wakes the soul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with sublime desires,
And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
The Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue,
And seems well-pleased and courted with a song.
Soft moving sounds and heavenly airs
Give force to every word, and recommend our prayers.
When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurled,
Music shall then exert its power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree
In one eternal jubilee:
All heaven shall echo with their hymns divine,
And God himself with pleasure see
The whole creation in a chorus join.
CHORUS.
Consecrate the place and day,
To music and Cecilia.
Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallowed bounds,
Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,
Nor spoil the fleeting sounds.
Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard,
But gladness dwell on every tongue;
Whilst all, with voice and strings prepared,
Keep up the loud harmonious song,
And imitate the blest above,
In joy, and harmony, and love.
AN ODE FOR ST CECILIA'S DAY.
SET TO MUSIC BY MR DANIEL PURCELL. PERFORMED AT OXFORD 1699.
Prepare the hallowed strain, my Muse,
Thy softest sounds and sweetest numbers choose;
The bright Cecilia's praise rehearse,
In warbling words, and gliding verse,
That smoothly run into a song,
And gently die away, and melt upon the tongue.
First let the sprightly violin
The joyful melody begin,
And none of all her strings be mute;
While the sharp sound and shriller lay
_10
In sweet harmonious notes decay,
Softened and mellowed by the flute.
'The flute that sweetly can complain,
Dissolve the frozen nymph's disdain;
Panting sympathy impart,
Till she partake her lover's smart.'[4]
CHORUS.
Next, let the solemn organ join
Religious airs, and strains divine,
Such as may lift us to the skies,
And set all Heaven before our eyes:
_20
'Such as may lift us to the skies;
So far at least till they
Descend with kind surprise,
And meet our pious harmony half-way.'
Let then the trumpet's piercing sound
Our ravished ears with pleasure wound.
The soul o'erpowering with delight,
As, with a quick uncommon ray,
A streak of lightning clears the day,
And flashes on the sight.
_30
Let Echo too perform her part,
Prolonging every note with art,
And in a low expiring strain
Play all the concert o'er again.
Such were the tuneful notes that hung
On bright Cecilia's charming tongue:
Notes that sacred heats inspired,
And with religious ardour fired:
The love-sick youth, that long suppress'd
His smothered passion in his breast,
_40
No sooner heard the warbling dame,
But, by the secret influence turn'd,
He felt a new diviner flame,
And with devotion burn'd.
With ravished soul, and looks amazed,
Upon her beauteous face he gazed;
Nor made his amorous complaint:
In vain her eyes his heart had charm'd,
Her heavenly voice her eyes disarm'd,
And changed the lover to a saint.
_50
GRAND CHORUS.
And now the choir complete rejoices,
With trembling strings and melting voices.
The tuneful ferment rises high,
And works with mingled melody:
Quick divisions run their rounds,
A thousand trills and quivering sounds
In airy circles o'er us fly,
Till, wafted by a gentle breeze,
They faint and languish by degrees,
And at a distance die.
_60
AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS
TO MR HENRY SACHEVERELL. APRIL 3, 1694.
Since, dearest Harry, you will needs request
A short account of all the Muse-possess'd,
That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,
Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes;
Without more preface, writ in formal length,
To speak the undertaker's want of strength,
I'll try to make their several beauties known,
And show their verses' worth, though not my own.
Long had our dull forefathers slept supine,
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine;
_10
Till Chaucer first, the merry bard, arose,
And many a story told in rhyme and prose.
But age has rusted what the poet writ,
Worn out his language, and obscured his wit;
In vain he jests in his unpolished strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.
Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amused a barbarous age;
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued
_20
Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleased at distance all the sights
Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights;
But when we look too near, the shades decay,
_30
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.
Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote,
O'errun with wit, and lavish of his thought:
His turns too closely on the reader press;
He more had pleased us, had he pleased us less.
One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With silent wonder, but new wonders rise.
As in the milky-way a shining white
O'erflows the heavens with one continued light;
That not a single star can show his rays,
_40
Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great poet, that I dare to name
The unnumbered beauties of thy verse with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excess,
But wit like thine in any shape will please.
What Muse but thine can equal hints inspire,
And fit the deep-mouthed Pindar to thy lyre;
Pindar, whom others, in a laboured strain
And forced expression, imitate in vain?
Well-pleased in thee he soars with new delight,
_50
And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a nobler flight.
Blest man! whose spotless life and charming lays
Employed the tuneful prelate in thy praise:
Blest man! who now shalt be for ever known
In Sprat's successful labours and thy own.
But Milton next, with high and haughty stalks,
Unfettered in majestic numbers walks;
No vulgar hero can his Muse engage;
Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallowed rage.
See! see! he upward springs, and towering high,
_60
Spurns the dull province of mortality,
Shakes heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms,
And sets the Almighty thunderer in arms.
Whate'er his pen describes I more than see,
Whilst every verse arrayed in majesty,
Bold, and sublime, my whole attention draws,
And seems above the critic's nicer laws.
How are you struck with terror and delight,
When angel with archangel copes in fight!
When great Messiah's outspread banner shines,
_70
How does the chariot rattle in his lines!
What sounds of brazen wheels, what thunder, scare,
And stun the reader with the din of war!
With fear my spirits and my blood retire,
To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire;
But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise,
And view the first gay scenes of Paradise,
What tongue, what words of rapture, can express
A vision so profuse of pleasantness!
Oh, had the poet ne'er profaned his pen,
_80
To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men,
His other works might have deserved applause;
But now the language can't support the cause;
While the clean current, though serene and bright,
Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.
But now, my Muse, a softer strain rehearse,
Turn every line with art, and smooth thy verse;
The courtly Waller next commands thy lays:
Muse, tune thy verse with art to Waller's praise.
While tender airs and lovely dames inspire
_90
Soft melting thoughts, and propagate desire;
So long shall Waller's strains our passion move,
And Sacharissa's beauties kindle love.
Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flattering song,
Can make the vanquished great, the coward strong.
Thy verse can show even Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
Oh, had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne,
How had his triumphs glittered in thy page,
_100
And warmed thee to a more exalted rage!
What scenes of death and horror had we view'd,
And how had Boyne's wide current reeked in blood!
Or, if Maria's charms thou wouldst rehearse,
In smoother numbers and a softer verse,
Thy pen had well described her graceful air,
And Gloriana would have seemed more fair.
Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by,
That makes even rules a noble poetry:
Rules, whose deep sense and heavenly numbers show
_110
The best of critics, and of poets too.
Nor, Denham, must we e'er forget thy strains,
While Cooper's Hill commands the neighbouring plains.
But see where artful Dryden next appears,
Grown old in rhyme, but charming even in years.
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords
The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears.
If satire or heroic strains she writes,
_120
Her hero pleases and her satire bites.
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall,
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.
How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourished, should decay with thee;
Did not the Muses' other hope appear,
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear:
Congreve! whose fancy's unexhausted store
Has given already much, and promised more.
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive,
_130
And Dryden's Muse shall in his friend survive.
I'm tired with rhyming, and would fain give o'er,
But justice still demands one labour more:
The noble Montague remains unnamed,
For wit, for humour, and for judgment famed;
To Dorset he directs his artful Muse,
In numbers such as Dorset's self might use.
How negligently graceful he unreins
His verse, and writes in loose familiar strains!
How Nassau's godlike acts adorn his lines,
_140
And all the hero in full glory shines!
We see his army set in just array,
And Boyne's dyed waves run purple to the sea.
Nor Simois choked with men, and arms, and blood;
Nor rapid Xanthus' celebrated flood,
Shall longer be the poet's highest themes,
Though gods and heroes fought promiscuous in their streams.
But now, to Nassau's secret councils raised,
He aids the hero, whom before he praised.
I've done at length; and now, dear friend, receive
_150
The last poor present that my Muse can give.
I leave the arts of poetry and verse
To them that practise them with more success.
Of greater truths I'll now prepare to tell,
And so at once, dear friend and Muse, farewell.
A LETTER FROM ITALY,
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES LORD HALIFAX, IN THE YEAR 1701.
Salve magna parens frugum Saturnia tellus,
Magna virûm! tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis
Aggredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes.
VIRG., Geor. ii.
While you, my lord, the rural shades admire,
And from Britannia's public posts retire,
Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please,
For their advantage sacrifice your ease;
Me into foreign realms my fate conveys,
Through nations fruitful of immortal lays,
Where the soft season and inviting clime
Conspire to trouble your repose with rhyme.
For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
_10
Poetic fields encompass me around
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung,
Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
How am I pleased to search the hills and woods
For rising springs and celebrated floods!
To view the Nar, tumultuous in his course,
And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source,
_20
To see the Mincio draw his watery store
Through the long windings of a fruitful shore,
And hoary Albula's infected tide
O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide.
Fired with a thousand raptures I survey
Eridanus[5] through flowery meadows stray,
The king of floods! that, rolling o'er the plains,
The towering Alps of half their moisture drains,
And proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows,
Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows.
_30
Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng
I look for streams immortalised in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,
(Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry,)
Yet run for ever by the Muse's skill,
And in the smooth description murmur still.
Sometimes to gentle Tiber I retire,
And the famed river's empty shores admire,
That, destitute of strength, derives its course
From thrifty urns and an unfruitful source,
_40
Yet sung so often in poetic lays,
With scorn the Danube and the Nile surveys;
So high the deathless Muse exalts her theme!
Such was the Boyne, a poor inglorious stream,
That in Hibernian vales obscurely stray'd,
And unobserved in wild meanders play'd;
Till by your lines and Nassau's sword renowned,
Its rising billows through the world resound,
Where'er the hero's godlike acts can pierce,
Or where the fame of an immortal verse.
_50
Oh could the Muse my ravished breast inspire
With warmth like yours, and raise an equal fire,
Unnumbered beauties in my verse should shine,
And Virgil's Italy should yield to mine!
See how the golden groves around me smile,
That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle,
Or when transplanted and preserved with care,
Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air.
Here kindly warmth their mounting juice ferments
To nobler tastes, and more exalted scents:
_60
Even the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom,
And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.
Bear me, some god, to Baia's gentle seats,
Or cover me in Umbria's green retreats;
Where western gales eternally reside,
And all the seasons lavish all 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,
_70
When Rome's exalted beauties I descry
Magnificent in piles of ruin lie.
An amphitheatre's amazing height
Here fills my eye with terror 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 displayed,
Their base, degenerate progeny upbraid:
_80
Whole rivers here forsake the fields below,
And wondering at their height through airy channels 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 softened 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;
_90
While the bright dames, to whom they humble sued,
Still show the charms that their proud hearts subdued.
Fain would I Raphæl's godlike art rehearse,
And show the immortal labours in my verse,
Where from the mingled 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 toss'd,
Amidst the soft variety I'm lost:
_100
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 adorned the happy land,
And scattered 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,
_110
While proud 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 he sees the growing oils and wines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:
Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curs'd,
And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.
O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
_120
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eased 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!
_130
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.
_140
Others with towering piles may please the sight,
And in their proud aspiring domes delight;
A nicer touch to the stretched 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 contending state,
To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war,
And answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer.
The Dane and Swede, roused up by fierce alarms,
Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms:
_150
Soon as her fleets appear, their terrors cease,
And all the northern world lies hushed in peace.
The ambitious Gaul beholds with secret dread
Her thunder aimed at his aspiring head,
And fain her godlike 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.
Fired with the name, which I so oft have found
The distant climes and different tongues resound,
_160
I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
That longs to launch 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,
IN A TRANSLATION OF A STORY OUT OF THE THIRD ÆNEID.
Lost in the gloomy horror of the night,
We struck upon the coast where Ætna 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,
Incensed, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or slings a broken rock aloft in air.
The bottom works with smothered fire involved
In pestilential vapours, stench, and smoke.
_10
'Tis said, that thunder-struck Enceladus
Groveling beneath the incumbent mountain's weight,
Lies stretched 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 convolved,
And shades the sun's bright orb, and blots out day.
Here in the shelter of the woods we lodged,
_20
And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells,
Nor saw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep lowering o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom
Opposed itself to Cynthia's silver ray,
And shaded all beneath. But now the sun
With orient beams had chased the dewy night
From earth and heaven; all nature stood disclosed:
When, looking on the neighbouring woods, we saw
The ghastly visage of a man unknown,
_30
An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay
Sat in his looks, his face, impaired and worn
With marks of famine, speaking sore distress;
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.
He first advanced in haste; but, when he saw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopp'd short, he back recoiled as one surprised:
But soon recovering speed he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries
_40
Our ears assailed: 'By heaven's eternal fires,
By every god that sits enthroned 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 accursed.
'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late
With sword and fire o'erturned Neptunian Troy
And laid the labours of the gods in dust;
For which, if so the sad offence deserves,
_50
Plunged in the deep, for ever let me lie
Whelmed under seas; if death must be my doom,
Let man inflict it, and I die well-pleased.'
He ended here, and now profuse to 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 encouraged, he began his tale.
_60
'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 furred with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repast: himself of mighty size,
_70
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 dashed and broke them on the grundsil edge;
The pavement swam in blood, the walls around
Were spattered o'er with brains. He lapp'd the blood,
And chewed the tender flesh still warm with life,
_80
That swelled and heaved itself amidst his teeth
As sensible of pain. Not less meanwhile
Our chief, incensed and studious of revenge,
Plots his destruction, which he thus effects.
The giant, gorged with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay stretched at length and snoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharged
With purple wine and cruddled gore confused.
We gathered round, and to his single eye,
The single eye that in his forehead glared
_90
Like a full moon, or a broad burnished shield,
A forky staff we dexterously applied,
Which, in the spacious socket turning round,
Scooped out the big round jelly from its orb.
But let me not thus interpose delays;
Fly, mortals, fly this cursed, 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,
_100
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard
Their voice and tread, oft seen them as they passed,
Sculking and cowering down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon washed all her orb in light,
Thrice travelled o'er, in her obscure sojourn,
The realms of night inglorious, since I've lived
Amidst these woods, gleaning 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
_110
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explored 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, deformed;
Full in the midst of his high front there gaped
The spacious hollow where his eye-ball rolled,
A ghastly orifice: he rinsed the wound,
And washed away the strings and clotted blood
That caked within; then, stalking through the deep,
_120
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave
Scarce reaches up his middle side; we stood
Amazed, be sure; a sudden horror chill
Ran through each nerve, and thrilled in every vein,
Till, using all the force of winds and oars,
We sped away; he heard us in our course,
And with his outstretched arms around him groped,
But finding nought within his reach, he raised
Such hideous shouts that all the ocean shook.
Even Italy, though many a league remote,
_130
In distant echoes answered; Ætna roared,
Through all its inmost winding caverns roared.
Roused 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
A host of giants covering all the shore.
So stands a forest tall of mountain oaks
Advanced to mighty growth: the traveller
_140
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 unnumbered rise,
A stately prospect, waving in the clouds.
THE CAMPAIGN, A POEM.
TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.
Rhení pæator et Istri.
Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit
Ordinibus; læctatur eques, plauditque senator,
Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori.
CLAUD. DE LAUD. STILIC.
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. 36.
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.
Fired 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 the important year,
_10
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 enlarged on every side,
Pirene's lofty barriers were subdued,
And in the midst of his wide empire stood;
Ausonia's states, the victor to restrain,
Opposed their Alps and Apennines in vain,
Nor found themselves, with strength of rocks immured,
Behind their everlasting hills secured;
_20
The rising Danube its long race began,
And half its course through the new conquests ran;
Amazed and anxious for her sovereign's fates,
Germania trembled through a hundred states;
Great Leopold himself was seized with fear;
He gazed around, but saw no succour near;
He gazed, and half abandoned to despair
His hopes on Heaven, and confidence in prayer.
To Britain's queen the nations turn their eyes,
On her resolves the Western world relies,
_30
Confiding 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 advanced so high,
And flourishing so near her 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-tried, faith, and friendship's holy ties:
_40
Their sovereign's well-distinguished 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,
_50
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 perjured 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 slaughtered hosts,
That wandered on her banks, her heroes' ghosts,
_60
Hoped, when they saw Britannia's arms appear,
The vengeance due to their great deaths was near.
Our godlike leader, ere the stream he passed,
The mighty scheme of all his labours cast,
Forming the wondrous year within his thought;
His bosom glowed with battles yet unfought.
The long, laborious march he first surveys,
And joins the distant Danube to the Mæse,
Between whose floods such pathless forests grow,
Such mountains rise, so many rivers flow:
_70
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 chafed temples beat,
Till on the borders of the Maine he finds
Defensive shadows and refreshing winds.
Our British youth, with inborn freedom bold,
Unnumbered scenes of servitude behold,
_80
Nations of slaves, with tyranny debased,
(Their Maker's image more than half defaced,)
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 clay;
When now the Neckar on its friendly coast
With cooling streams revives the fainting host,
That cheerfully its labours past forgets,
The midnight watches, and the noonday heats.
_90
O'er prostrate towns and palaces they pass,
(Now covered o'er with weeds and hid in grass,)
Breathing revenge; whilst anger and disdain
Fire every breast, and boil in every vein:
Here shattered 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.
_100
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn;
A sudden friendship, while with stretched-out rays
They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze.
Polished in courts, and hardened in the field,
Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled,
Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood
Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood:
Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled,
Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled,
_110
In hours of peace content to be unknown,
And only in the field of battle shown:
To souls like these, in mutual friendship joined,
Heaven dares intrust the cause of humankind.
Britannia's graceful sons appear in arms,
Her harassed 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, and require the fight.
_120
So the staunch hound the trembling deer pursues,
And smells his footsteps in the tainted dews,
The tedious track unravelling by degrees:
But when the scent comes warm in every breeze,
Fired at the near approach, he shoots away
On his full stretch, and bears upon his prey.
The march concludes, the various realms are past,
The immortal Schellenberg appears at last:
Like hills the aspiring ramparts rise on high,
Like valleys at their feet the trenches lie;
_130
Batteries on batteries guard each fatal pass,
Threatening destruction; rows of hollow brass,
Tube behind tube, the dreadful entrance keep,
Whilst in their wombs ten thousand thunders sleep:
Great Churchill owns, charmed with the glorious sight,
His march o'erpaid by such a promised fight.
The western sun now shot a feeble ray,
And faintly scattered the remains of day;
Evening approached; but, oh! what hosts of foes
Were never to behold that evening close!
_140
Thickening their ranks, and wedged in firm array,
The close-compacted Britons win their way:
In vain the cannon their thronged war defaced
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 slaughtered legions filled 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
_150
With showers of bullets and with storms of fire,
Burns in full fury; heaps on heaps expire;
Nations with nations mixed 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!
The illustrious youths, that left their native shore
To march where Britons never marched before,
(O fatal love of fame! O glorious heat,
Only destructive to the brave and great!)
_160
After such toils o'ercome, such dangers past,
Stretched on Bavarian ramparts breathe their last.
But hold, my Muse, may no complaints appear,
Nor blot the day with an ungrateful tear:
While Marlborough lives, Britannia's stars dispense
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.
_170
Forbear, great man, renowned in arms, forbear
To brave the thickest terrors of the war,
Nor hazard thus, confused 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.
_180
At length the long-disputed pass they gain,
By crowded armies fortified in vain;
The war breaks in, the fierce Bavarians yield,
And see their camp with British legions filled.
So Belgian mounds bear on their shattered sides
The sea's whole weight, increased with swelling tides;
But if the rushing wave a passage finds,
Enraged by watery moons, and warring winds,
The trembling peasant sees his country round
Covered with tempests, and in oceans drowned.
_190
The few surviving foes dispersed 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 Donawert, 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,
_200
(The Danube's great increase,) Britannia shares,
The food of armies, and support of wars:
With magazines of death, destructive balls,
And cannons doomed to batter Landau's walls,
The victor finds each hidden cavern stored,
And turns their fury on their guilty lord.
Deluded prince! how is thy greatness crossed,
And all the gaudy dream of empire lost,
That proudly set thee on a fancied throne,
And made imaginary realms thy own!
_210
Thy troops that now behind the Danube join,
Shall shortly seek for shelter from the Rhine,
Nor find it there: surrounded with alarms,
Thou hopest 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, the aspiring Gaul
Shares thy destruction, and adorns thy fall.
Unbounded courage and compassion joined,
Tempering each other in the victor's mind,
_220
Alternately proclaim him good and great,
And make the hero and the man complete.
Long did he strive the obdurate foe to gain
By proffered grace, but long he strove in vain;
Till fired at length, he thinks it vain to spare
His rising wrath, and gives a loose to war.
In vengeance roused, the soldier fills his hand
With sword and fire, and ravages the land,
A thousand villages to ashes turns,
In crackling flames a thousand harvests burns.
_230
To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat,
And mixed with bellowing herds confus'dly bleat;
Their trembling lords the common shade partake,
And cries of infants sound in every brake:
The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands,
Loth to obey his leader's just commands;
The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed,
To see his just commands so well obeyed.
But now the trumpet, terrible from far,
In shriller clangors animates the war,
_240
Confederate drums in fuller consort beat,
And echoing hills the loud alarm repeat:
Gallia's proud standards, to Bavaria's joined,
Unfurl their gilded lilies in the wind;
The daring prince his blasted hopes renews,
And while the thick embattled host he views
Stretched out in deep array, and dreadful length,
His heart dilates, and glories in his strength.
The fatal day its mighty course began,
That the grieved world had long desired in vain:
_250
States that their new captivity bemoaned,
Armies of martyrs that in exile groaned,
Sighs from the depth of gloomy dungeons heard,
And prayers in bitterness of soul preferred,
Europe's loud cries, that Providence assailed,
And Anna's ardent vows, at length prevailed;
The day was come when heaven designed to show
His care and conduct of the world below.
Behold, in awful march and dread array
The long-expected squadrons shape their way!
_260
Death, in approaching terrible, imparts
An anxious horror to the bravest hearts;
Yet do their beating breasts demand the strife,
And thirst of glory quells the love of life.
No vulgar fears can British minds control:
Heat of revenge and noble pride of soul
O'erlook the foe, advantaged by his post,
Lessen his numbers, and contract his host.
Though fens and floods possessed the middle space,
That unprovoked they would have feared to pass,
_270
Nor fens nor floods can stop Britannia's bands,
When her proud foe ranged on their borders stands.
But, O my Muse, what numbers wilt thou find
To sing the furious troops in battle joined!
Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound
The victor's shouts and dying groans confound,
The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies,
And all the thunder of the battle rise.
'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved,
That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved,
_280
Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,
Examined all the dreadful scenes of war;
In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,[6]
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
_290
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Hides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
But see the haughty household-troops advance!
The dread of Europe, and the pride of France.
The war's whole art each private soldier knows,
And with a general's love of conquest glows;
Proudly he marches on, and, void of fear,
Laughs at the shaking of the British spear:
Vain insolence! with native freedom brave,
The meanest Briton scorns the highest slave;
_300
Contempt and fury fire their souls by turns,
Each nation's glory in each warrior burns,
Each fights, as in his arm the important day
And all the fate of his great monarch lay:
A thousand glorious actions, that might claim
Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame,
Confused in clouds of glorious actions lie,
And troops of heroes undistinguished die.
O Dormer, how can I behold thy fate,
And not the wonders of thy youth relate!
_310
How can I see the gay, the brave, the young,
Fall in the cloud of war and lie unsung!
In joys of conquest he resigns his breath,
And, filled with England's glory, smiles in death.
The rout begins, the Gallic squadrons run,
Compelled in crowds to meet the fate they shun;
Thousands of fiery steeds with wounds transfixed
Floating in gore, with their dead masters mixed,
Midst heaps of spears and standards driven around,
Lie in the Danube's bloody whirlpools drowned,
_320
Troops of bold youths, born on the distant Soane,
Or sounding borders of the rapid Rhône,
Or where the Seine her flowery fields divides,
Or where the Loire through winding vineyards glides;
In heaps the rolling billows sweep away,
And into Scythian seas their bloated corps convey.
From Blenheim's towers the Gaul, with wild affright,
Beholds the various havoc of the fight;
His waving banners, that so oft had stood,
Planted in fields of death, and streams of blood,
_330
So wont the guarded enemy to reach,
And rise triumphant in the fatal breach,
Or pierce the broken foe's remotest lines,
The hardy veteran with tears resigns.
Unfortunate Tallard![7] Oh, who can name
The pangs of rage, of sorrow, and of shame,
That with mixed tumult in thy bosom swelled!
When first thou saw'st thy bravest troops repelled,
Thine only son pierced with a deadly wound,
Choked in his blood, and gasping on the ground,
_340
Thyself in bondage by the victor kept!
The chief, the father, and the captive wept.
An English Muse is touched with generous woe,
And in the unhappy man forgets the foe.
Greatly distressed! thy loud complaints forbear,
Blame not the turns of fate, and chance of war;
Give thy brave foes their due, nor blush to own
The fatal field by such great leaders won,
The field whence famed Eugenio bore away
Only the second honours of the day.
_350
With floods of gore that from the vanquished fell,
The marshes stagnate, and the rivers swell.
Mountains of slain lie heaped upon the ground,
Or 'midst the roarings of the Danube drowned;
Whole captive hosts the conqueror detains
In painful bondage and inglorious chains;
Even those who'scape the fetters and the sword,
Nor seek the fortunes of a happier lord,
Their raging king dishonours, to complete
Marlborough's great work, and finish the defeat.
_360
From Memminghen's high domes, and Augsburg's walls,
The distant battle drives the insulting Gauls;
Freed by the terror of the victor's name,
The rescued states his great protection claim;
Whilst Ulm the approach of her deliverer waits,
And longs to open her obsequious gates.
The hero's breast still swells with great designs,
In every thought the towering genius shines:
If to the foe his dreadful course he bends,
O'er the wide continent his march extends;
_370
If sieges in his labouring thoughts are formed,
Camps are assaulted, and an army stormed;
If to the fight his active soul is bent,
The fate of Europe turns on its event.
What distant land, what region, can afford
An action worthy his victorious sword?
Where will he next the flying Gaul defeat,
To make the series of his toils complete?
Where the swoln Rhine, rushing with all its force,
Divides the hostile nations in its course,
_380
While each contracts its bounds, or wider grows,
Enlarged or straitened as the river flows,
On Gallia's side a mighty bulwark stands,
That all the wide extended plain commands;
Twice, since the war was kindled, has it tried
The victor's rage, and twice has changed its side;
As oft whole armies, with the prize o'erjoyed,
Have the long summer on its walls employed.
Hither our mighty chief his arms directs,
Hence future triumphs from the war expects;
_390
And though the dog-star had its course begun,
Carries his arms still nearer to the sun:
Fixed on the glorious action, he forgets
The change of seasons, and increase of heats:
No toils are painful that can danger show,
No climes unlovely that contain a foe.
The roving Gaul, to his own bounds restrained,
Learns to encamp within his native land,
But soon as the victorious host he spies,
From hill to hill, from stream to stream he flies:
_400
Such dire impressions in his heart remain
Of Marlborough's sword, and Hochstet's fatal plain:
In vain Britannia's mighty chief besets
Their shady coverts, and obscure retreats;
They fly the conqueror's approaching fame,
That bears the force of armies in his name,
Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway
Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey,
Whose boasted ancestry so high extends
That in the pagan gods his lineage ends,
_410
Comes from afar, in gratitude to own
The great supporter of his father's throne;
What tides of glory to his bosom ran,
Clasped in the embraces of the godlike man!
How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixed
To see such fire with so much sweetness mixed,
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port,
So turned and finished for the camp or court!
Achilles thus was formed with every grace,
And Nireus shone but in the second place;
_420
Thus the great father of almighty Rome
(Divinely flushed with an immortal bloom,
That Cytherea's fragrant breath bestowed)
In all the charms of his bright mother glowed.
The royal youth by Marlborough's presence charmed,
Taught by his counsels, by his actions warmed,
On Landau with redoubled fury falls,
Discharges all his thunder on its walls,
O'er mines and caves of death provokes the fight,
And learns to conquer in the hero's sight.
_430
The British chief, for mighty toils renowned,
Increased in titles, and with conquests crowned,
To Belgian coasts his tedious march renews,
And the long windings of the Rhine pursues,
Clearing its borders from usurping foes,
And blessed by rescued nations as he goes.
Treves fears no more, freed from its dire alarms;
And Trærbach feels the terror of his arms,
Seated on rocks her proud foundations shake,
While Marlborough presses to the bold attack,
_440
Plants all his batteries, bids his cannon roar,
And shows how Landau might have fallen before.
Scared at his near approach, great Louis fears
Vengeance reserved for his declining years,
Forgets his thirst of universal sway,
And scarce can teach his subjects to obey;
His arms he finds on vain attempts employed,
The ambitious projects for his race destroyed,
The work of ages sunk in one campaign,
And lives of millions sacrificed in vain.
_450
Such are the effects of Anna's royal cares:
By her, Britannia, great in foreign wars,
Ranges through nations, wheresoo'er disjoined,
Without the wonted aid of sea and wind.
By her the unfettered Ister's states are free,
And taste the sweets of English liberty:
But who can tell the joys of those that lie
Beneath the constant influence of her eye!
Whilst in diffusive showers her bounties fall,
Like heaven's indulgence, and descend on all,
_460
Secure the happy, succour the distressed,
Make every subject glad, and a whole people blessed.
Thus would I fain Britannia's wars rehearse,
In the smooth records of a faithful verse;
That, if such numbers can o'er time prevail,
May tell posterity the wondrous tale.
When actions, unadorned, are faint and weak,
Cities and countries must be taught to speak;
Gods may descend in factions from the skies,
And rivers from their oozy beds arise;
_470
Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,
And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze.
Marlborough's exploits appear divinely bright,
And proudly shine in their own native light;
Raised of themselves, their genuine charms they boast,
And those who paint them truest praise them most.
COWLEY'S EPITAPH ON HIMSELF.
TRANSLATED BY MR ADDISON.
From life's superfluous cares enlarged,
His debt of human toil discharged,
Here Cowley lies! beneath this shed,
To every worldly interest dead;
With decent poverty content,
His hours of ease not idly spent;
To fortune's goods a foe profess'd,
And hating wealth by all caress'd.
'Tis true he's dead; for oh! how small
A spot of earth is now his all:
_10
Oh! wish that earth may lightly lay,
And every care be far away;
Bring flowers; the short-lived roses bring,
To life deceased, fit offering:
And sweets around the poet strow,
Whilst yet with life his ashes glow.
PROLOGUE TO THE TENDER HUSBAND.[8]
SPOKEN BY MR WILKS.
In the first rise and infancy of Farce,
When fools were many, and when plays were scarce,
The raw, unpractised authors could, with ease,
A young and unexperienced audience please:
No single character had e'er been shown,
But the whole herd of fops was all their own;
Rich in originals, they set to view,
In every piece, a coxcomb that was new.
But now our British theatre can boast
Drolls of all kinds, a vast, unthinking host!
_10
Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows
Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and beaux;
Rough country knights are found of every shire;
Of every fashion gentle fops appear;
And punks of different characters we meet,
As frequent on the stage as in the pit.
Our modern wits are forced to pick and cull,
And here and there by chance glean up a fool:
Long ere they find the necessary spark,
They search the town, and beat about the Park;
_20
To all his most frequented haunts resort,
Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court,
As love of pleasure or of place invites;
And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's.
Howe'er, to do you right, the present age
Breeds very hopeful monsters for the stage;
That scorn the paths their dull forefathers trod,
And wont be blockheads in the common road.
Do but survey this crowded house to-night:—
Here's still encouragement for those that write.
_30
Our author, to divert his friends to-day,
Stocks with variety of fools his play;
And that there may be something gay and new,
Two ladies-errant has exposed to view:
The first a damsel, travelled in romance;
The t'other more refined; she comes from France:
Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger;
And kindly treat, like well-bred men, the stranger.
EPILOGUE TO THE BRITISH
ENCHANTERS.[9]
When Orpheus tuned his lyre with pleasing woe,
Rivers forgot to run, and winds to blow,
While listening forests covered as he played,
The soft musician in a moving shade.
That this night's strains the same success may find,
The force of magic is to music joined;
Where sounding strings and artful voices fail,
The charming rod and muttered spells prevail.
Let sage Urganda wave the circling wand
On barren mountains, or a waste of sand,
_10
The desert smiles; the woods begin to grow,
The birds to warble, and the springs to flow.
The same dull sights in the same landscape mixed,
Scenes of still life, and points for ever fixed,
A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow,
And pall the sense with one continued show;
But as our two magicians try their skill,
The vision varies, though the place stands still,
While the same spot its gaudy form renews,
Shifting the prospect to a thousand views.
_20
Thus (without unity of place transgressed)
The enchanter turns the critic to a jest.
But howsoe'er, to please your wandering eyes,
Bright objects disappear and brighter rise:
There's none can make amends for lost delight,
While from that circle we divert your sight.
PROLOGUE TO SMITH'S[10] PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLITUS.
SPOKEN BY MR WILKS.
Long has a race of heroes fill'd the stage,
That rant by note, and through the gamut rage;
In songs and airs express their martial fire,
Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire:
While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit,
Calm and serene you indolently sit,
And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free,
Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee:
Our home-spun authors must forsake the field,
And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield.
_10
To your new taste the poet of this day
Was by a friend advised to form his play.
Had Valentini, musically coy,
Shunn'd Phædra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy,
It had not moved your wonder to have seen
An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen:
How would it please, should she in English speak,
And could Hippolitus reply in Greek!
But he, a stranger to your modish way,
By your old rules must stand or fall to-day,
_20
And hopes you will your foreign taste command,
To bear, for once, with what you understand.
HORACE.-ODE III., BOOK III.
Augustus had a design to rebuild Troy, and make it the metropolis of the Roman empire, having closeted several senators on the project: Horace is supposed to have written the following Ode on this occasion.
The man resolved, and steady to his trust,
Inflexible to ill, and obstinately just,
May the rude rabble's insolence despise,
Their senseless clamours and tumultuous cries;
The tyrant's fierceness he beguiles,
And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,
And with superior greatness smiles.
Not the rough whirlwind, that deforms
Adria's black gulf, and vexes it with storms,
The stubborn virtue of his soul can move;
_10
Not the red arm of angry Jove,
That flings the thunder from the sky,
And gives it rage to roar, and strength to fly.
Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
In ruin and confusion hurled,
He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,
And stand secure amidst a falling world.
Such were the godlike arts that led
Bright Pollux to the blest abodes;
Such did for great Alcides plead,
_20
And gained a place among the gods;
Where now Augustus, mixed with heroes, lies,
And to his lips the nectar bowl applies:
His ruddy lips the purple tincture show,
And with immortal strains divinely glow.
By arts like these did young Lyæus [11] rise:
His tigers drew him to the skies,
Wild from the desert and unbroke:
In vain they foamed, in vain they stared,
In vain their eyes with fury glared;
_30
He tamed them to the lash, and bent them to the yoke.
Such were the paths that Rome's great founder trod,
When in a whirlwind snatched on high,
He shook off dull mortality,
And lost the monarch in the god.
Bright Juno then her awful silence broke,
And thus the assembled deities bespoke.
'Troy,' says the goddess, 'perjured Troy has felt
The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt;
The towering pile, and soft abodes,
_40
Walled by the hand of servile gods,
Now spreads its ruins all around,
And lies inglorious on the ground.
An umpire, partial and unjust,
And a lewd woman's impious lust,
Lay heavy on her head, and sunk her to the dust.
Since false Laomedon's tyrannic sway,
That durst defraud the immortals of their pay,
Her guardian gods renounced their patronage,
Nor would the fierce invading foe repel;
_50
To my resentment, and Minerva's rage,
The guilty king and the whole people fell.
And now the long protracted wars are o'er,
The soft adulterer shines no more;
No more does Hector's force the Trojans shield,
That drove whole armies back, and singly cleared the field.
My vengeance sated, I at length resign
To Mars his offspring of the Trojan line:
Advanced to godhead let him rise,
And take his station in the skies;
_60
There entertain his ravished sight
With scenes of glory, fields of light;
Quaff with the gods immortal wine,
And see adoring nations crowd his shrine:
The thin remains of Troy's afflicted host,
In distant realms may seats unenvied find,
And flourish on a foreign coast;
But far be Rome from Troy disjoined,
Removed by seas from the disastrous shore;
May endless billows rise between, and storms unnumbered roar.
_70
Still let the cursed, detested place,
Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race,
Be cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in grass.
There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray;
Or, while the lonely shepherd sings,
Amidst the mighty ruins play,
And frisk upon the tombs of kings.
May tigers there, and all the savage kind,
Sad, solitary haunts and silent deserts find;
In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces,
_80
May the unmolested lioness
Her brinded whelps securely lay,
Or couched, in dreadful slumbers waste the day.
While Troy in heaps of ruins lies,
Rome and the Roman Capitol shall rise;
The illustrious exiles unconfined
Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind.
In vain the sea's intruding tide
Europe from Afric shall divide,
And part the severed world in two:
_90
Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread,
And the long train of victories pursue
To Nile's yet undiscovered head.
Riches the hardy soldier shall despise,
And look on gold with undesiring eyes,
Nor the disbowelled earth explore
In search of the forbidden ore;
Those glittering ills concealed within the mine,
Shall lie untouched, and innocently shine.
To the last bounds that nature sets,
_100
The piercing colds and sultry heats,
The godlike race shall spread their arms;
Now fill the polar circle with alarms,
Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine;
Now sweat for conquest underneath the line.
This only law the victor shall restrain,
On these conditions shall he reign;
If none his guilty hand employ
To build again a second Troy,
If none the rash design pursue,
_110
Nor tempt the vengeance of the gods anew.
A curse there cleaves to the devoted place,
That shall the new foundations raze:
Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire
To storm the rising town with fire,
And at their armies' head myself will show
What Juno, urged to all her rage, can do.
Thrice should Apollo's self the city raise,
And line it round with walls of brass,
Thrice should my favourite Greeks his works confound,
_120
And hew the shining fabric to the ground;
Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return,
And their dead sons and slaughtered husbands mourn.'
But hold, my Muse, forbear thy towering flight,
Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light:
In vain would thy presumptuous verse
The immortal rhetoric rehearse;
The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound,
Forget their majesty, and lose their sound.
THE VESTAL.
FROM OVID DE FASTIS, LIB. III. EL. 1.
Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis, &c.
As the fair vestal to the fountain came,
(Let none be startled at a vestal's name)
Tired with the walk, she laid her down to rest,
And to the winds exposed her glowing breast,
To take the freshness of the morning-air,
And gather'd in a knot her flowing hair;
While thus she rested, on her arm reclined,
The hoary willows waving with the wind,
And feather'd choirs that warbled in the shade,
And purling streams that through the meadow stray'd,
_10
In drowsy murmurs lull'd the gentle maid.
The god of war beheld the virgin lie,
The god beheld her with a lover's eye;
And by so tempting an occasion press'd,
The beauteous maid, whom he beheld, possess'd:
Conceiving as she slept, her fruitful womb
Swell'd with the founder of immortal Rome.
OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
BOOK II.
THE STORY OF PHÆTON.
The sun's bright palace, on high columns raised,
With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed;
The folding gates diffused a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refreshed the sight;
Of polished ivory was the covering wrought:
The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,
For in the portal was displayed on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
A waving sea the inferior earth embraced,
And gods and goddesses the waters graced.
_10
Ægeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus, (the deceiving god,)
With Doris here were carved, and all her train,
Some loosely swimming in the figured main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in every face.
On earth a different landscape courts the eyes,
Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise,
_20
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O'er all, the heaven's refulgent image shines;
On either gate were six engraven signs.
Here Phaëton, still gaining on the ascent,
To his suspected father's palace went,
Till, pressing forward through the bright ahode,
He saw at distance the illustrious god:
He saw at distance, or the dazzling light
Had flashed too strongly on his aching sight.
The god sits high, exalted on a throne
_30
Of blazing gems, with purple garments on:
The Hours, in order ranged on either hand,
And days, and months, and years, and ages, stand.
Here Spring appears with flowery chaplets bound;
Here Summer in her wheaten garland crowned;
Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear;
And hoary Winter shivers in the rear.
Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye, which looks on all, was fixed on one.
He saw the boy's confusion in his face,
_40
Surprised at all the wonders of the place;
And cries aloud, 'What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so.'
'Light of the world,' the trembling youth replies,
'Illustrious parent! since you don't despise
The parent's name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene's proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve.'
The tender sire was touched with what he said.
And flung the blaze of glories from his head,
_50
And bid the youth advance: 'My son,' said he,
'Come to thy father's arms! for Clymene
Has told thee true; a parent's name I own,
And deem thee worthy to be called my son.
As a sure proof, make some request, and I,
Whate'er it be, with that request comply;
By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,
And roll impervious to my piercing sight.'
The youth transported, asks, without delay,
To guide the Sun's bright chariot for a day.
_60
The god repented of the oath he took,
For anguish thrice his radiant head he shook;
'My son,' says he, 'some other proof require,
Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.
I'd fain deny this wish which thou hast made,
Or, what I can't deny, would fain dissuade.
Too vast and hazardous the task appears,
Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.
Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly
Beyond the province of mortality:
_70
There is not one of all the gods that dares
(However skilled in other great affairs)
To mount the burning axle-tree, but I;
Not Jove himself, the ruler of the sky,
That hurls the three-forked thunder from above,
Dares try his strength; yet who so strong as Jove?
The steeds climb up the first ascent with pain:
And when the middle firmament they gain,
If downward from the heavens my head I bow,
And see the earth and ocean hang below;
_80
Even I am seized with horror and affright,
And my own heart misgives me at the sight.
A mighty downfal steeps the evening stage,
And steady reins must curb the horses' rage.
Tethys herself has feared to see me driven
Down headlong from the precipice of heaven.
Besides, consider what impetuous force
Turns stars and planets in a different course:
I steer against their motions; nor am I 89
Born back by all the current of the sky.
_90
But how could you resist the orbs that roll
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?
But you perhaps may hope for pleasing woods,
And stately domes, and cities filled with gods;
While through a thousand snares your progress lies,
Where forms of starry monsters stock the skies:
For, should you hit the doubtful way aright,
The Bull with stooping horns stands opposite;
Next him the bright Hæmonian Bow is strung;
And next, the Lion's grinning visage hung:
_100
The Scorpion's claws here clasp a wide extent,
And here the Crab's in lesser clasps are bent.
Nor would you find it easy to compose
The mettled steeds, when from their nostrils flows
The scorching fire, that in their entrails glows.
Even I their headstrong fury scarce restrain,
When they grow warm and restive to the rein.
Let not my son a fatal gift require,
But, oh! in time recall your rash desire;
You ask a gift that may your parent tell,
_110
Let these my fears your parentage reveal;
And learn a father from a father's care:
Look on my face; or if my heart lay bare,
Could you but look, you'd read the father there.
Choose out a gift from seas, or earth, or skies,
For open to your wish all nature lies,
Only decline this one unequal task,
For 'tis a mischief, not a gift you ask;
You ask a real mischief, Phaëton:
Nay, hang not thus about my neck, my son:
_120
I grant your wish, and Styx has heard my voice,
Choose what you will, but make a wiser choice.'
Thus did the god the unwary youth advise;
But he still longs to travel through the skies,
When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)
At length to the Vulcanian chariot leads.
A golden axle did the work uphold,
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orbed with gold.
The spokes in rows of silver pleased the sight,
The seat with party-coloured gems was bright;
_130
Apollo shined amid the glare of light.
The youth with secret joy the work surveys;
When now the morn disclosed her purple rays;
The stars were fled; for Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.
Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,
And the moon shining with a blunter horn,
He bid the nimble Hours without delay
Bring forth the steeds; the nimble Hours obey:
From their full racks the generous steeds retire,
_140
Dropping ambrosial foams and snorting fire.
Still anxious for his son, the god of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
His temples with celestial ointment wet,
Of sovereign virtue to repel the heat;
Then fixed the beaming circle on his head,
And fetched a deep, foreboding sigh, and said,
'Take this at least, this last advice, my son:
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast,
_150
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
Drive them not on directly through the skies,
But where the Zodiac's winding circle lies,
Along the midmost zone; but sally forth
Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.
The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show,
But neither mount too high nor sink too low,
That no new fires or heaven or earth infest;
Keep the mid-way, the middle way is best.
Nor, where in radiant folds the Serpent twines,
_160
Direct your course, nor where the Altar shines.
Shun both extremes; the rest let Fortune guide,
And better for thee than thyself provide!
See, while I speak the shades disperse away,
Aurora gives the promise of a day;
I'm called, nor can I make a longer stay.
Snatch up the reins; or still the attempt forsake,
And not my chariot, but my counsel take,
While yet securely on the earth you stand;
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.
_170
Let me alone to light the world, while you
Enjoy those beams which you may safely view.'
He spoke in vain: the youth with active heat
And sprightly vigour vaults into the seat;
And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives
Those thanks his father with remorse receives.
Meanwhile the restless horses neighed aloud,
Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood.
Tethys, not knowing what had passed, gave way,
And all the waste of heaven before them lay.
_180
They spring together out, and swiftly bear
The flying youth through clouds and yielding air;
With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind,
And leave the breezes of the morn behind.
The youth was light, nor could he fill the seat,
Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight:
But as at sea the unballast vessel rides,
Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides;
So in the bounding chariot tossed on high,
The youth is hurried headlong through the sky.
_190
Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake
Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.
The youth was in a maze, nor did he know
Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;
Nor would the horses, had he known, obey.
Then the Seven Stars first felt Apollo's ray
And wished to dip in the forbidden sea.
The folded Serpent next the frozen pole,
Stiff and benumbed before, began to roll,
And raged with inward heat, and threatened war,
_200
And shot a redder light from every star;
Nay, and 'tis said, Bootes, too, that fain
Thou wouldst have fled, though cumbered with thy wain.
The unhappy youth then, bending down his head,
Saw earth and ocean far beneath him spread:
His colour changed, he startled at the sight,
And his eyes darkened by too great a light.
Now could he wish the fiery steeds untried,
His birth obscure, and his request denied:
Now would he Merops for his father own,
_210
And quit his boasted kindred to the Sun.
So fares the pilot, when his ship is tossed
In troubled seas, and all its steerage lost,
He gives her to the winds, and in despair
Seeks his last refuge in the gods and prayer.
What could he do? his eyes, if backward cast,
Find a long path he had already passed;
If forward, still a longer path they find:
Both he compares, and measures in his mind;
And sometimes casts an eye upon the east,
_220
And sometimes looks on the forbidden west.
The horses' names he knew not in the fright:
Nor would he loose the reins, nor could he hold them tight.
Now all the horrors of the heavens he spies,
And monstrous shadows of prodigious size,
That, decked with stars, lie scattered o'er the skies.
There is a place above, where Scorpio, bent
In tail and arms, surrounds a vast extent;
In a wide circuit of the heavens he shines,
And fills the space of two celestial signs.
_230
Soon as the youth beheld him, vexed with heat,
Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,
Half dead with sudden fear he dropped the reins;
The horses felt them loose upon their manes,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
Ran uncontrolled where'er their fury drove;
Rushed on the stars, and through a pathless way
Of unknown regions hurried on the day.
And now above, and now below they flew,
And near the earth the burning chariot drew.
_240
The clouds disperse in fumes, the wondering Moon
Beholds her brother's steeds beneath her own;
The highlands smoke, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fuel blaze.
Next o'er the plains, where ripened harvests grow,
The running conflagration spreads below.
But these are trivial ills; whole cities burn,
And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn.
The mountains kindle as the car draws near,
Athos and Tmolus red with fires appear;
_250
Oeagrian Hæmus (then a single name)
And virgin Helicon increase the flame;
Taurus and Oete glare amid the sky,
And Ida, spite of all her fountains, dry.
Eryx, and Othrys, and Cithgeron, glow;
And Rhodope, no longer clothed in snow;
High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus sweat,
And Ætna rages with redoubled heat.
Even Scythia, through her hoary regions warmed,
In vain with all her native frost was armed.
_260
Covered with flames, the towering Apennine,
And Caucasus, and proud Olympus, shine;
And, where the long extended Alps aspire,
Now stands a huge, continued range of fire.
The astonished youth, where'er his eyes could turn,
Beheld the universe around him burn:
The world was in a blaze; nor could he bear
The sultry vapours and the scorching air,
Which from below as from a furnace flowed,
And now the axle-tree beneath him glowed:
_270
Lost in the whirling clouds, that round him broke,
And white with ashes, hovering in the smoke,
He flew where'er the horses drove, nor knew
Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.
'Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun
To change his hue, and blacken in the sun.
Then Libya first, of all her moisture drained,
Became a barren waste, a wild of sand.
The water-nymphs lament their empty urns,
Boeotia, robbed of silver Dirce, mourns;
_280
Corinth, Pyrene's wasted spring bewails,
And Argos grieves whilst Aniymone fails.
The floods are drained from every distant coast,
Even Tanaïs, though fixed in ice, was lost.
Enraged Caicus and Lycormas roar,
And Xanthus, fated to be burned once more.
The famed Meeander, that unwearied strays
Through mazy windings, smokes in every maze.
From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies;
The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise
_290
In thickening fumes, and darken half the skies.
In flames Ismenos and the Phasis rolled,
And Tagus floating in his melted gold.
The swans, that on Cayster often tried
Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died.
The frighted Nile ran off, and under-ground
Concealed his head, nor can it yet be found:
His seven divided currents all are dry,
And where they rolled seven gaping trenches lie.
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
_300
Nor Tiber, of his promised empire vain.
The ground, deep cleft, admits the dazzling ray,
And startles Pluto with the flash of day.
The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose
Wide, naked plains, where once their billows rose;
Their rocks are all discovered, and increase
The number of the scattered Cyclades.
The fish in shoals about the bottom creep,
Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap;
Gasping for breath, the unshapen phocæ die,
_310
And on the boiling wave extended lie.
Nereus, and Doris with her virgin train,
Seek out the last recesses of the main;
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
And secret in their gloomy regions pant,
Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld
His face, and thrice was by the flames repelled.
The Earth at length, on every side embraced
With scalding seas, that floated round her waist,
When now she felt the springs and rivers come,
_320
And crowd within the hollow of her womb.
Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head,
And clapped her hands upon her brows, and said;
(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,
Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat:)
'If you, great king of gods, my death approve,
And I deserve it, let me die by Jove;
If I must perish by the force of fire,
Let me transfixed with thunderbolts expire.
See, whilst I speak, my breath the vapours choke,
_330
(For now her face lay wrapt in clouds of smoke,)
See my singed hair, behold my faded eye
And withered face, where heaps of cinders lie!
And does the plough for this my body tear?
This the reward for all the fruits I bear,
Tortured with rakes, and harassed all the year?
That herbs for cattle daily I renew,
And food for man, and frankincense for you?
But grant me guilty; what has Neptune done?
Why are his waters boiling in the sun?
_340
The wavy empire, which by lot was given,
Why does it waste, and further shrink from heaven?
If I nor lie your pity can provoke,
See your own heavens, the heavens begin to smoke!
Should once the sparkles catch those bright abodes,
Destruction seizes on the heavens and gods;
Atlas becomes unequal to his freight,
And almost faints beneath the glowing weight.
If heaven, and earth, and sea together burn,
All must again into their chaos turn.
_350
Apply some speedy cure, prevent our fate,
And succour nature, e'er it be too late.'
She ceased; for, choked with vapours round her spread,
Down to the deepest shades she sunk her head.
Jove called to witness every power above,
And even the god whose son the chariot drove,
That what he acts he is compelled to do,
Or universal ruin must ensue.
Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne,
From whence he used to dart his thunder down,
_360
From whence his showers and storms he used to pour,
But now could meet with neither storm nor shower.
Then aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,
Full at his head he hurled the forky brand,
In dreadful thunderings. Thus the almighty sire
Suppressed the raging of the fires with fire.
At once from life and from the chariot driven,
The ambitious boy fell thunder-struck from heaven.
The horses started with a sudden bound,
And flung the reins and chariot to the ground:
_370
The studded harness from their necks they broke,
Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke,
Here were the beam and axle torn away;
And, scattered o'er the earth, the shining fragments lay.
The breathless Phaëton, with flaming hair,
Shot from the chariot, like a falling star,
That in a summer's evening from the top
Of heaven drops down, or seems at least to drop;
Till on the Po his blasted corpse was hurled,
Far from his country, in the western world.
_380
PHÆTON'S SISTERS TRANSFORMED INTO TREES.
The Latian nymphs came round him, and amazed
On the dead youth, transfixed with thunder, gazed;
And, whilst yet smoking from the bolt he lay,
His shattered body to a tomb convey;
And o'er the tomb an epitaph devise:
'Here he who drove the Sun's bright chariot lies;
His father's fiery steeds he could not guide,
But in the glorious enterprise he died.'
Apollo hid his face, and pined for grief,
And, if the story may deserve belief,
_10
The space of one whole day is said to run,
From morn to wonted even, without a sun:
The burning ruins, with a fainter ray,
Supply the sun, and counterfeit a day,
A day that still did nature's face disclose:
This comfort from the mighty mischief rose.
But Clymene, enraged with grief, laments,
And, as her grief inspires, her passion vents:
Wild for her son, and frantic in her woes,
With hair dishevelled, round the world she goes,
_20
To seek where'er his body might be cast;
Till, on the borders of the Po, at last
The name inscribed on the new tomb appears:
The dear, dear name she bathes in flowing tears,
Hangs o'er the tomb, unable to depart,
And hugs the marble to her throbbing heart.
Her daughters too lament, and sigh, and mourn,
(A fruitless tribute to their brother's urn,)
And beat their naked bosoms, and complain,
And call aloud for Phaëton in vain:
_30
All the long night their mournful watch they keep,
And all the day stand round the tomb, and weep.
Four times revolving the full moon returned;
So long the mother and the daughters mourned:
When now the eldest, Phaëthusa, strove
To rest her weary limbs, but could not move;
Lampetia would have helped her, but she found
Herself withheld, and rooted to the ground:
A third in wild affliction, as she grieves,
Would rend her hair, but fills her hands with leaves;
_40
One sees her thighs transformed, another views
Her arms shot out, and branching into boughs.
And now their legs and breasts and bodies stood
Crusted with bark, and hardening into wood;
But still above were female heads displayed,
And mouths, that called the mother to their aid.
What could, alas! the weeping mother do?
From this to that with eager haste she flew,
And kissed her sprouting daughters as they grew.
She tears the bark that to each body cleaves,
_50
And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves:
The blood came trickling, where she tore away
The leaves and bark: the maids were heard to say,
'Forbear, mistaken parent, oh! forbear;
A wounded daughter in each tree you tear;
Farewell for ever.' Here the bark increased,
Closed on their faces, and their words suppressed.
The new-made trees in tears of amber run,
Which, hardened into value by the sun,
Distil for ever on the streams below:
_60
The limpid streams their radiant treasure show,
Mixed in the sand; whence the rich drops conveyed,
Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF CYCNUS INTO A SWAN.
Cycnus beheld the nymphs transformed, allied
To their dead brother on the mortal side,
In friendship and affection nearer bound;
He left the cities and the realms he owned,
Through pathless fields and lonely shores to range,
And woods, made thicker by the sisters' change.
Whilst here, within the dismal gloom, alone,
The melancholy monarch made his moan,
His voice was lessened, as he tried to speak,
And issued through a long extended neck;
_10
His hair transforms to down, his fingers mee
In skinny films, and shape his oary feet;
From both his sides the wings and feathers break;
And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak:
All Cycnus now into a swan was turned,
Who, still remembering how his kinsman burned,
To solitary pools and lakes retires,
And loves the waters as opposed to fires.
Meanwhile Apollo, in a gloomy shade
(The native lustre of his brows decayed)
_20
Indulging sorrow, sickens at the sight
Of his own sunshine, and abhors the light:
The hidden griefs, that in his bosom rise,
Sadden his looks, and overcast his eyes,
As when some dusky orb obstructs his ray,
And sullies in a dim eclipse the day.
Now secretly with inward griefs he pined,
Now warm resentments to his grief he joined,
And now renounced his office to mankind.
'E'er since the birth of time,' said he, 'I've borne
_30
A long, ungrateful toil without return;
Let now some other manage, if he dare,
The fiery steeds, and mount the burning car;
Or, if none else, let Jove his fortune try,
And learn to lay his murdering thunder by;
Then will he own, perhaps, but own too late,
My son deserved not so severe a fate.'
The gods stand round him, as he mourns, and pray
He would resume the conduct of the day,
Nor let the world be lost in endless night:
_40
Jove too himself descending from his height,
Excuses what had happened, and entreats,
Majestically mixing prayers and threats.
Prevailed upon, at length, again he took
The harnessed steeds, that still with horror shook,
And plies them with the lash, and whips them on,
And, as he whips, upbraids them with his son.
THE STORY OF CALISTO.
The day was settled in its course; and Jove
Walked the wide circuit of the heavens above,
To search if any cracks or flaws were made;
But all was safe: the earth he then surveyed,
And cast an eye on every different coast,
And every land; but on Arcadia most.
Her fields he clothed, and cheered her blasted face
With running fountains, and with springing grass.
No tracks of heaven's destructive fire remain,
The fields and woods revive, and nature smiles again.
_10
But as the god walked to and fro the earth,
And raised the plants, and gave the spring its birth,
By chance a fair Arcadian nymph he viewed,
And felt the lovely charmer in his blood.
The nymph nor spun, nor dressed with artful pride;
Her vest was gathered up, her hair was tied;
Now in her hand a slender spear she bore,
Now a light quiver on her shoulders wore;
To chaste Diana from her youth inclined,
The sprightly warriors of the wood she joined.
_20
Diana too the gentle huntress loved,
Nor was there one of all the nymphs that roved
O'er Mænalus, amid the maiden throng,
More favoured once; but favour lasts not long.
The sun now shone in all its strength, and drove
The heated virgin panting to a grove;
The grove around a grateful shadow cast:
She dropped her arrows, and her bow unbraced;
She flung herself on the cool, grassy bed;
And on the painted quiver raised her head.
_30
Jove saw the charming huntress unprepared,
Stretched on the verdant turf, without a guard.
'Here I am safe,' he cries, 'from Juno's eye;
Or should my jealous queen the theft descry,
Yet would I venture on a theft like this,
And stand her rage for such, for such a bliss!'
Diana's shape and habit straight he took,
Softened his brows, and smoothed his awful look,
And mildly in a female accent spoke.
'How fares my girl? How went the morning chase?'
_40
To whom the virgin, starting from the grass,
'All hail, bright deity, whom I prefer
To Jove himself, though Jove himself were here.'
The god was nearer than she thought, and heard,
Well-pleased, himself before himself preferr'd.
He then salutes her with a warm embrace,
And, ere she half had told the morning chase,
With love inflamed, and eager on his bliss,
Smothered her words, and stopped her with a kiss;
His kisses with unwonted ardour glow'd,
_50
Nor could Diana's shape conceal the god.
The virgin did whate'er a virgin could;
(Sure Juno must have pardoned, had she view'd;)
With all her might against his force she strove;
But how can mortal maids contend with Jove!
Possessed at length of what his heart desired,
Back to his heavens the exulting god retired.
The lovely huntress, rising from the grass,
With downcast eyes, and with a blushing face
By shame confounded, and by fear dismay'd,
_60
Flew from the covert of the guilty shade,
And almost, in the tumult of her mind,
Left her forgotten bow and shafts behind.
But now Diana, with a sprightly train
Of quivered virgins, bounding over the plain,
Called to the nymph; the nymph began to fear
A second fraud, a Jove disguised in her;
But, when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress'd
Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.
How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
_70
Slowly she moved, and loitered in the rear;
Nor slightly tripped, nor by the goddess ran,
As once she used, the foremost of the train.
Her looks were flushed, and sullen was her mien,
That sure the virgin goddess (had she been
Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.
'Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guessed aright:
And now the moon had nine times lost her light,
When Dian, fainting in the mid-day beams,
Found a cool covert, and refreshing streams
_80
That in soft murmurs through the forest flow'd,
And a smooth bed of shining gravel show'd.
A covert so obscure, and streams so clear,
The goddess praised: 'And now no spies are near,
Let's strip, my gentle maids, and wash,' she cries.
Pleased with the motion, every maid complies;
Only the blushing huntress stood confused,
And formed delays, and her delays excused;
In vain excused; her fellows round her press'd,
And the reluctant nymph by force undress'd.
_90
The naked huntress all her shame reveal'd,
In vain her hands the pregnant womb conceal'd;
'Begone!' the goddess cries with stern disdain,
'Begone! nor dare the hallowed stream to stain:'
She fled, for ever banished from the train.
This Juno heard, who long had watched her time
To punish the detested rival's crime:
The time was come; for, to enrage her more,
A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.
The goddess cast a furious look, and cried,
_100
'It is enough! I'm fully satisfied!
This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove
My husband's baseness, and the strumpet's love:
But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms,
That drew the Thunderer from Juno's arms,
No longer shall their wonted force retain,
Nor please the god, nor make the mortal vain.'
This said, her hand within her hair she wound,
Swung her to earth, and dragged her on the ground.
The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in prayer;
_110
Her arms grow shaggy, and deformed with hair,
Her nails are sharpened into pointed claws,
Her hands bear half her weight, and turn to paws;
Her lips, that once could tempt a god, begin
To grow distorted in an ugly grin.
And, lest the supplicating brute might reach
The ears of Jove, she was deprived of speech:
Her surly voice through a hoarse passage came
In savage sounds: her mind was still the same.
The furry monster fixed her eyes above,
_120
And heaved her new unwieldy paws to Jove,
And begged his aid with inward groans; and though
She could not call him false, she thought him so.
How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,
And haunt the fields and meadows once her own!
How often would the deep-mouthed dogs pursue,
Whilst from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!
How did she fear her fellow-brutes, and shun
The shaggy bear, though now herself was one!
How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,
_130
Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!
But now her son had fifteen summers told,
Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;
When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,
He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gazed: the boy was in a fright,
And aimed a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbade, and snatched them through the air
_140
In whirlwinds up to heaven, and fixed them there:
Where the new constellations nightly rise,
And add a lustre to the northern skies.
When Juno saw the rival in her height,
Spangled with stars, and circled round with light,
She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,
And Tethys; both revered among the gods.
They ask what brings her there: 'Ne'er ask,' says she,
'What brings me here, heaven is no place for me.
You'll see, when night has covered all things o'er,
_150
Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore
Usurp the heavens; you 'll see them proudly roll
In their new orbs, and brighten all the pole.
And who shall now on Juno's altars wait,
When those she hates grow greater by her hate?
I on the nymph a brutal form impress'd,
Jove to a goddess has transformed the beast;
This, this was all my weak revenge could do:
But let the god his chaste amours pursue,
And, as he acted after Io's rape,
_160
Restore the adulteress to her former shape.
Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead
The great Lycaon's offspring to his bed.
But you, ye venerable powers, be kind,
And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,
Receive not in your waves their setting beams,
Nor let the glaring strumpet taint your streams.'
The goddess ended, and her wish was given.
Back she returned in triumph up to heaven;
Her gaudy peacocks drew her through the skies,
_170
Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;
The eyes of Argus on their tails were ranged,
At the same time the raven's colour changed.
THE STORY OF CORONIS, AND BIRTH OF ÆSCULAPIUS.
The raven once in snowy plumes was dress'd,
White as the whitest dove's unsullied breast,
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;
His tongue, his prating tongue, had changed him quite
To sooty blackness from the purest white.
The story of his change shall here be told:
In Thessaly there lived a nymph of old,
Coronis named; a peerless maid she shined,
Confessed the fairest of the fairer kind.
_10
Apollo loved her, till her guilt he knew,
While true she was, or whilst he thought her true.
But his own bird, the raven, chanced to find
The false one with a secret rival joined.
Coronis begged him to suppress the tale,
But could not with repeated prayers prevail.
His milk-white pinions to the god he plied;
The busy daw flew with him, side by side,
And by a thousand teasing questions drew
The important secret from him as they flew.
_20
The daw gave honest counsel, though despised,
And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised:
'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse,
Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
Be warned by my example: you discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
My foolish honesty was all my crime;
Then hear my story. Once upon a time,
The two-shaped Ericthonius had his birth
(Without a mother) from the teeming earth;
_30
Minerva nursed him, and the infant laid
Within a chest, of twining osiers made.
The daughters of King Cecrops undertook
To guard the chest, commanded not to look
On what was hid within. I stood to see
The charge obeyed, perched on a neighbouring tree.
The sisters Pandrosos and Herse keep
The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,
And saw the monstrous infant in a fright,
And called her sisters to the hideous sight:
_40
A boy's soft shape did to the waist prevail,
But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.
I told the stern Minerva all that passed,
But for my pains, discarded and disgraced,
The frowning goddess drove me from her sight,
And for her favourite chose the bird of night.
Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong
Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.
'But you, perhaps, may think I was removed,
As never by the heavenly maid beloved:
_50
But I was loved; ask Pallas if I lie;
Though Pallas hate me now, she won't deny:
For I, whom in a feathered shape you view,
Was once a maid, (by heaven, the story's true,)
A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.
A crowd of lovers owned my beauty's charms;
My beauty was the cause of all my harms;
Neptune, as on his shores I went to rove,
Observed me in my walks, and fell in love.
He made his courtship, he confessed his pain,
_60
And offered force when all his arts were vain;
Swift he pursued: I ran along the strand,
Till, spent and wearied on the sinking sand,
I shrieked aloud, with cries I filled the air
To gods and men; nor god nor man was there:
A virgin goddess heard a virgin's prayer.
For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,
I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;
I strove to fling my garment to the ground;
My garment turned to plumes, and girt me round:
_70
My hands to beat my naked bosom try;
Nor naked bosom now nor hands had I.
Lightly I tripped, nor weary as before
Sunk in the sand, but skimmed along the shore;
Till, rising on my wings, I was preferred
To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird:
Preferred in vain! I now am in disgrace:
Nyctimene, the owl, enjoys my place.
'On her incestuous life I need not dwell,
(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell,)
_80
And of her dire amours you must have heard,
For which she now does penance in a bird,
That, conscious of her shame, avoids the light,
And loves the gloomy covering of the night;
The birds, where'er she flutters, scare away
The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day.'
The raven, urged by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And cursed the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:
The raven to her injured patron flew,
_90
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis and the favoured youth.
The god was wroth; the colour left his look,
The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook:
His silver bow and feathered shafts he took,
And lodged an arrow in the tender breast,
That had so often to his own been pressed.
Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groaned,
And pulled his arrow reeking from the wound;
And weltering in her blood, thus faintly cried,
_100
'Ah, cruel god! though I have justly died,
What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
That he should fall, and two expire in one?
This said, in agonies she fetched her breath.
The god dissolves in pity at her death;
He hates the bird that made her falsehood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feathered shaft, that sent her to the fates,
And his own hand that sent the shaft he hates.
Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,
_110
And tries the compass of his art in vain.
Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire,
With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,
And, if a god could weep, the god had wept.
Her corpse he kissed, and heavenly incense brought,
And solemnised the death himself had wrought.
But, lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spite of the immortal mixture in his make,
He ripped her womb, and set the child at large,
_120
And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:
Then in his fury blacked the raven o'er,
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.
OCYRRHOE TRANSFORMED TO A MARE.
Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore
The nymph Chariclo to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevelled on her shoulders came
To see the child, Ocyrrhöe was her name;
She knew her father's arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once, as the sacred infant she surveyed,
The god was kindled in the raving maid,
_10
And thus she uttered her prophetic tale;
'Hail, great physician of the world, all hail;
Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb;
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfined!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou die; but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a god.
_20
And thou, my sire, not destined by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to die,
And quit thy claim to immortality;
When thou shalt feel, enraged with inward pains,
The Hydra's venom rankling in thy veins'?
The gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the power of Fate.'
Thus, entering into destiny, the maid
The secrets of offended Jove betrayed;
_30
More had she still to say; but now appears
Oppressed with sobs and sighs, and drowned in tears.
'My voice,' says she, 'is gone, my language fails;
Through every limb my kindred shape prevails:
Why did the god this fatal gift impart,
And with prophetic raptures swell my heart!
What new desires are these? I long to pace
O'er flowery meadows, and to feed on grass:
I hasten to a brute, a maid no more;
But why, alas! am I transformed all o'er?
_40
My sire does half a human shape retain,
And in his upper parts preserves the man.'
Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,
But in shrill accents and mishapen words
Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare
The human form confounded in the mare:
Till by degrees accomplished in the beast,
She neighed outright, and all the steed expressed.
Her stooping body on her hands is borne,
Her hands are turned to hoofs, and shod in horn;
_50
Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,
And in a flowing tail she frisks her train.
The mare was finished in her voice and look,
And a new name from the new figure took.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF BATTUS TO A TOUCHSTONE.
Sore wept the centaur, and to Phoebus prayed;
But how could Phoebus give the centaur aid?
Degraded of his power by angry Jove,
In Elis then a herd of beeves he drove;
And wielded in his hand a staff of oak,
And o'er his shoulders threw the shepherd's cloak;
On seven compacted reeds he used to play,
And on his rural pipe to waste the day.
As once, attentive to his pipe, he played,
The crafty Hermes from the god conveyed
_10
A drove, that separate from their fellows strayed.
The theft an old insidious peasant viewed,
(They called him Battus in the neighbourhood,)
Hired by a wealthy Pylian prince to feed
His favourite mares, and watch the generous breed.
The thievish god suspected him, and took
The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke:
'Discover not the theft, whoe'er thou be,
And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee.'
'Go, stranger,' cries the clown, 'securely on,
_20
That stone shall sooner tell;' and showed a stone.
The god withdrew, but straight returned again,
In speech and habit like a country swain;
And cries out, 'Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray
Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way?
In the recovery of my cattle join,
A bullock and a heifer shall be thine.'
The peasant quick replies, 'You'll find 'em there,
In yon dark vale:' and in the vale they were.
The double bribe had his false heart beguiled:
_30
The god, successful in the trial, smiled;
'And dost thou thus betray myself to me?
Me to myself dost thou betray?' says he:
Then to a touchstone turns the faithless spy,
And in his name records his infamy.
THE STORY OF AGLAUROS, TRANSFORMED INTO A STATUE.
This done, the god flew up on high, and passed
O'er lofty Athens, by Minerva graced,
And wide Munichia, whilst his eyes survey
All the vast region that beneath him lay.
'Twas now the feast, when each Athenian maid
Her yearly homage to Minerva paid;
In canisters, with garlands covered o'er,
High on their heads their mystic gifts they bore;
And now, returning in a solemn train,
The troop of shining virgins filled the plain.
_10
The god well-pleased beheld the pompous show,
And saw the bright procession pass below;
Then veered about, and took a wheeling flight,
And hovered o'er them: as the spreading kite,
That smells the slaughtered victim from on high,
Flies at a distance, if the priests are nigh,
And sails around, and keeps it in her eye;
So kept the god the virgin choir in view,
And in slow winding circles round them flew.
As Lucifer excels the meanest star,
_20
Or as the full-orbed Phoebe, Lucifer,
So much did Herse all the rest outvie,
And gave a grace to the solemnity.
Hermes was fired, as in the clouds he hung:
So the cold bullet, that with fury slung
From Balearic engines mounts on high,
Glows in the whirl, and burns along the sky.
At length he pitched upon the ground, and showed
The form divine, the features of a god.
He knew their virtue o'er a female heart,
_30
And yet he strives to better them by art.
He hangs his mantle loose, and sets to show
The golden edging on the seam below;
Adjusts his flowing curls, and in his hand
Waves with an air the sleep-procuring wand;
The glittering sandals to his feet applies,
And to each heel the well-trimmed pinion ties.
His ornaments with nicest art displayed,
He seeks the apartment of the royal maid.
The roof was all with polished ivory lined,
_40
That, richly mixed, in clouds of tortoise shined.
Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were placed,
The midmost by the beauteous Herse graced;
Her virgin sisters lodged on either side.
Aglauros first the approaching god descried,
And as he crossed her chamber, asked his name,
And what his business was, and whence he came.
'I come,' replied the god, 'from heaven, to woo
Your sister, and to make an aunt of you;
I am the son and messenger of Jove,
_50
My name is Mercury, my business, love;
Do you, kind damsel, take a lover's part,
And gain admittance to your sister's heart.'
She stared him in the face with looks amazed,
As when she on Minerva's secret gazed,
And asks a mighty treasure for her hire,
And, till he brings it, makes the god retire.
Minerva grieved to see the nymph succeed;
And now remembering the late impious deed,
When, disobedient to her strict command,
_60
She touched the chest with an unhallowed hand;
In big-swoln sighs her inward rage expressed,
That heaved the rising Ægis on her breast;
Then sought out Envy in her dark abode,
Defiled with ropy gore and clots of blood:
Shut from the winds, and from the wholesome skies,
In a deep vale the gloomy dungeon lies,
Dismal and cold, where not a beam of light
Invades the winter, or disturbs the night.
Directly to the cave her course she steered;
_70
Against the gates her martial lance she reared;
The gates flew open, and the fiend appeared.
A poisonous morsel in her teeth she chewed,
And gorged the flesh of vipers for her food.
Minerva loathing turned away her eye;
The hideous monster, rising heavily,
Came stalking forward with a sullen pace,
And left her mangled offals on the place.
Soon as she saw the goddess gay and bright,
She fetched a groan at such a cheerful sight.
_80
Livid and meagre were her looks, her eye
In foul, distorted glances turned awry;
A hoard of gall her inward parts possessed,
And spread a greenness o'er her cankered breast;
Her teeth were brown with rust; and from her tongue,
In dangling drops, the stringy poison hung.
She never smiles but when the wretched weep,
Nor lulls her malice with a moment's sleep,
Restless in spite: while watchful to destroy,
She pines and sickens at another's joy;
_90
Foe to herself, distressing and distressed,
She bears her own tormentor in her breast.
The goddess gave (for she abhorred her sight)
A short command: 'To Athens speed thy flight;
On cursed Aglauros try thy utmost art.
And fix thy rankest venoms in her heart.'
This said, her spear she pushed against the ground,
And mounting from it with an active bound,
Flew off to heaven: the hag with eyes askew
Looked up, and muttered curses as she flew;
_100
For sore she fretted, and began to grieve
At the success which she herself must give.
Then takes her staff, hung round with wreaths of thorn,
And sails along, in a black whirlwind borne,
O'er fields and flowery meadows: where she steers
Her baneful course, a mighty blast appears,
Mildews and blights; the meadows are defaced,
The fields, the flowers, and the whole year laid waste;
On mortals next and peopled towns she falls,
And breathes a burning plague among their walls,
_110
When Athens she beheld, for arts renowned,
With peace made happy, and with plenty crowned,
Scarce could the hideous fiend from tears forbear,
To find out nothing that deserved a tear.
The apartment now she entered, where at rest
Aglauros lay, with gentle sleep oppressed.
To execute Minerva's dire command,
She stroked the virgin with her cankered hand,
Then prickly thorns into her breast conveyed,
That stung to madness the devoted maid;
_120
Her subtle venom still improves the smart,
Frets in the blood, and festers in the heart.
To make the work more sure, a scene she drew,
And placed before the dreaming virgin's view
Her sister's marriage, and her glorious fate:
The imaginary bride appears in state;
The bridegroom with unwonted beauty glows,
For Envy magnifies whate'er she shows.
Full of the dream, Aglauros pined away
In tears all night, in darkness all the day;
_130
Consumed like ice, that just begins to run,
When feebly smitten by the distant sun;
Or like unwholesome weeds, that, set on fire,
Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire.
Given up to Envy, (for in every thought,
The thorns, the venom, and the vision wrought).
Oft did she call on death, as oft decreed,
Rather than see her sister's wish succeed,
To tell her awful father what had passed:
At length before the door herself she cast;
_140
And, sitting on the ground with sullen pride,
A passage to the love-sick god denied.
The god caressed, and for admission prayed,
And soothed, in softest words, the envenomed maid.
In vain he soothed; 'Begone!' the maid replies,
'Or here I keep my seat, and never rise.'
'Then keep thy seat for ever!' cries the god,
And touched the door, wide-opening to his rod.
Fain would she rise, and stop him, but she found
Her trunk too heavy to forsake the ground;
_150
Her joints are all benumbed, her hands are pale,
And marble now appears in every nail.
As when a cancer in her body feeds,
And gradual death from limb to limb proceeds;
So does the dullness to each vital part
Spread by degrees, and creeps into her heart;
Till, hardening everywhere, and speechless grown,
She sits unmoved, and freezes to a stone.
But still her envious hue and sullen mien
Are in the sedentary figure seen.
_160