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To what are we to impute these disorders? And to what cause assign the decay of a state, so powerful and flourishing in past times the reason is plain.-The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people; punishments and rewards were properties of the people; all honors, dignities and preferments, were disposed by the voice and favor of the people; but the magistrate now has usurped the right of the people, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient and natural lord. You, miserable people! (the mean while without money, without friends) from being the ruler, are become the servant ; from being the master, the dependent; happy that these governors, into whose hands you have thus resigned your own power, are so good and so gracious as to continue your poor allowance to see plays.

Believe me, Athenians, if recovering from this lethargy, you would assume the ancient freedom and spirit of your fathers; if you would be your own soldiers and your own commanders, confiding no longer your affairs in foreign or mercenary hands; if you would charge yourselves with your own defence, employing abroad, for the public, what you waste in unprofitable pleasures at home; the world might, once more, behold you making a figure worthy of Athenians. You would have us then (you say) do service in our armies, in our own persons; and for so doing, you would have the pensions we receive,in timeof peace.accepted as pay in time of war. Is it thus we are to understand you " -Yes, Athenians, 'tis my plain meaning, I would make it a standing rule, that no person, great or little, should be the better for the public money, who should grudge lo employ it for the public service. Are we in peace? The public is charged with your subsistence. Are we in war, or under a necessity at this time, to enter into a war? Let your gratitude oblige you to accept, as pay, in defence of your benefactors, what you receive, in peace, as mere bounty.Thus, without any innovation, without altering or abolishing any thing, but perDicious novelties, introduced for the encouragement of sloth and idleness; by converting only, for the future, the same funds, for the use of the serviceable, which are

spent, at present, upon the unprofitable you may be well served in your armies; your troops regularly paid; justice duly administered; the public revenues reformed and increased; and every member of the commonwealth rendered useful to his country, according to his age and ability, without any further burthen to the state.

This, O men of Athens, is what my duty prompted me to represent to you upon this occasion. May the Gods inspire you, to determine upon such measures, as may be most expedient for the particular and general good of our country!

XII.-Jupiter to the inferior Deities, forbidding them to take any Part in the Contention between the Greeks and Trojans.-HOMER.

AURORA, now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn;
When Jave conven'd the senate of the skies,
Where high Olimpus' cloudy tops arise.
The sire of gods his awful silence broke;
The heavens, attentive, tremb ed as he spoke :·
"Celestial states! Immortal gods! Give ear:
Hear our decrees; and rev'rence what ye hear:
The fix'd decree, which not all heaven can move ;
Thou fare fulfil it: and ye powers approve.
What god shall enter yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance or but wilis to yield;

Back to the skies, with shame he shall be driven,
Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven:
Or, from our sacred hill, with tury thrown,
Deep in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan;
With burning chains fix'd to the brazen floors,
And lock'd by hell's inexorable doors:
As far beneath th' infernal centre hurl'd
As from that centre to th' etherial world.
Let each, submissive, dread these dire abodes,
Nor tempt the vengeance of the god of gods.
League all your forces, then, ye powers above;
Your strength unite against the might of Jove.
Let down our golden everlasting chain,

Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth and main.
Strive all of mortal and immortal birth,

To drag. by this, the thund'rer down to earth.
Ye strive in vain. If I but stretch this hand,

I heave the gods, the ocean and the land.

I fix the chain to great Olympus' height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight.
For such I reign unbounded and above:

And such are men, and gods, compar'd to Jove.

XIII.-Eneas to Queen Dido, giving an Account of the Sack of Toy-VIRGIL.

ALL were attentive to the godlike man,
When from his lofty couch, he thus began :-
Great Queen! What you command n e to relate
Renews the sad remen brance of our fate;
An empire from its old foundations rent,
And every woe the Troj us underwent ;
A pop'lous ci y made a desert place;
All that I saw and part of which i was,
Not e'en the hardest of our focs could hear,"
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.

'Twas now the dead of night, when sleep repairs
Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,
When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:
Shrouded in bloed he stood, and bath'd in tears:
Such as when, by the fierce Pelides slain,

Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain.
Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust
Through the pierc'd limbs; his body black with dust.
Unlike that Hector, who return'd from toils
Of war, triumphant, in Æacian spoils;

Or him, who made the fainting Greeks retire,'
Hurling amidst their fleets the Phrygian fire.
His hair and beard were clotted stiff with gore;
The ghastly wounds he for his country bore,
Now stream'd afresh.

I wept to see the visionary man;

And, whilst my trance continued thus began ;
Olight of Trojans, and support of Troy,
Thy father's champion, and toy country's joy!
O long expected by thy friends! From whence
Art thou so late return'd to our defence?

Alas! what wounds are these? What new disgrace
Deforms the manly honors of thy face?"

The spectre groaning from his inmost breast
This warning, in these mournful words express'd.

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Haste, goddess born! Escape by timely flight,
The flames and horrors of this fatal night,
Thy foes already have possess'd our wall;
Troy nods from high, and totters to her fall.
Enough is paid to Priam's royal name,
Enough to country, and to deathless fame.

if by a mortal arm my father's throne

Could have been sav'd-this arm the feat had done.
Troy now commends to thee her future state,
And gives her gous companions of thy fate;
Under their un brage hope for happier walls,
And follow where thy various fortune calls."
He said, and brought from forth the sacred choir,
The gods and reics of th' immortal fire.

Now peals of shouts came thund'ring from afar,
Cries, threat, and loud lament, and mingled war.
The noise approaches, though our palace stood
Alof from streets embosom'd close with wood;
Louder and louder still i hear th' alarms
Ofhaman cries distinct, and clashing arms.
Fear broke my slumbers.

I mount the terrace; thence the town survey,
And listen what the sweil ng sounds convey.
Then Hector's faith was manifestly clear'd;
And Grecian traud in open light appear'd.
The palace of Deiophobus ascends

In smoky flames, and catches on his friends.
Ucalegon burns next; the seas are bright

With splendors not their own,and shine with sparkling light,
New clamors and new clangors now arise,

The trumpets' voice, with agonizing cries.
With phrenzy sciz'd. I run to meet th' alarms,
Resolv❜d on death, resolv'd to die in arms.
But firs: to gather friends, with whom t'oppose,
If fortune tavor'd and repel the foes,
By courage rous'd, by love of country fir'd,
With sense of honor and revenge inspir'd.

Pantheus, Apollo's priest, a sacred name,
Had scap'd the Grecian swords and pass'd the flame:
With relics loaded, to my doors he fled,
And by the hand his tender grandson led.

What hope, O Pantheus? Whither can we run ?
Where make a stand? Or, What can yet be done?"
Scarce had I spoke, when Pantheus, with a groan,
Troy is no more! Her glories now are gone,

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The fatal day, th' appointed hour is come,

When wrathful Jove's irrevocable doom
Transfers the Trojan state to Grecian hands:
Our ci y's wrapt in flames; the foe commands.
To several posts their parties they divide ;

Some block the narrow streets; some scour the wide,
The bold they kill; th' unwary they surprise;

Who fights meets death, and death finds him who flies"

XIV.-Moloch, the fallen Angel. to the infernal powers, in2 citing them to renew the War-MILTON.

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MY sentence is for open war. Of wiles
More unexpert, I boast not; then let those
Contrive who need: or when they need, not now.
For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,
Heav'n's fugitives, and for tlier dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny, who reigns
By our delay? No, let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once,
O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms,
Aguns the tort'rer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder; and for lightning, see,
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels-and his throne itself,
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps,
The way seems difficult and steep to scale,
With upright wing, against a higher fce.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep
With what compulsion and laborious flight,
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then,
Th' event is fear'd. Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find,
To our destruction; if there be in hell,

Fear to be worse destroyed: What can be worse,
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire,
Must exercise us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

Inexorable, and the tort'ring hour

Calls us to penance? More destroy'd than thus
We should be quite abolish'd and expire.
What fear we then? What doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? Which to the height enragus
Will either quite consume us, and reduce

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