Priest of the Nine! who to their bard had giv'n Credunt se vidisse Jovem, cùm sæpè nigrantem Quid faciat lætas segetes, quo sidere terram What's due to flocks and herds; and how to rear * Gratum opus Agricolis! At nunc horrentia Martis + We may, without any great stretch of imagination, conceive Virgil, when taking Homer as his guide and model, to have found himself in the predicament of the daughter of Glaucus-"Deus-ecce Deus! Cui talia fanti Ante fores subitò, non vultus, non color unus, Nec mortale sonans! Bacchatur vates magnum si pectore possit Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo. When, throned He loved the Bards, and full return they made, ; * * Cùm tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus, † An vereris ne apud posteros infame tibi sit, quod videaris familiaris nobis esse. Such is the language of this great and accomplished prince, when reproaching one of his favourite poets for want of familiarity with him. O navis, referent in mare te novi Nudum remigio latus, Et malus celeri saucius africo, Antennæque gemant; ac sine funibus No more its shatter'd sides and sails expose To the dire tempest of domestic woes ; And pray'd those powers, that grace th' Olympian dome, * Immortal guardians of Imperial Rome, Whom valour raised into the blest abodes, And see yon temple lift its marble pride, † Vix durare Carinæ Possint imperiosius * Dii patrii indigetes, et Romule, Vestaque Mater, Hunc saltem everso Juvenem succurrere seclo Ne prohibete... Virgile n'est plus un simple ecrivain, qui decrit les travaux rustiques. C'est un nouvel Orphée, qui ne manie sa lyre, que pour faire deposer aux sauvages leur ferocité, et pour les réunir par les liens des mœurs et des loix. + Et viridi in campo Templum de marmore ponam, In medio mihi CESAR erit, templumque tenebit! Rear'd by the Nine! There CAESAR'S statue stands Eternal honours 'round her Patron's head, And graves beneath, and, as she graves, she sighs, NONE SUCH E'ER ROSE BEFORE- -OR EVER MORE SHALL RISE! * What, though he made, with arbitrary sway, † -Taken in the * NIL ORITURUM ALIAS, NIL ORTUM TALE! sense, to which the Rhapsodist applies it, there is nothing excessive, and, therefore, nothing disgusting, in the flattery convey'd in this passage; nor, we very much fear, any thing very extravagant in it, considered as a prediction. Octavius has many rivals in the modern world, many, even, who have completely outstripped him, in the career of atrocity; but, as a liberal encourager of learning, AUGUSTUS has none. His policy, not less than his taste, was evinced by such conduct. He left, to the very worst and the most brutal of his successors, the part of extinguishing literary freedom, by the persecution of authors, and the burning of their works, "scilicet, illo igne vocem Populi Romani, et libertatem Senatûs, et conscientiam Generis humani aboleri arbitrabantur.” + Qui etsi orbem Romanum, ipsamque Romam flecti sub principatu coegit, edocuitque procacem plebem cognata nomina Dominum atque Amicum commiscere animo, præcipitari tamen liberum spiritum permisit, nec ad obtundendam aciem ingenii, impetumve mentis coercendum unquam duravit. f |