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Bade silence o'er the bright assembly reign.

Streams into blood, and darkens into woe."

Then thus a herald. To the states of Greece 170 Thus she pursued." Near this great era, Rome

The Roman people, unconfin'd, restore
Their countries, citics, liberties, and laws:
Taxes remit, and garrisons withdraw.'

The crowd astonish'd half, and half inform'd, Star'd dubious round; some question'd, some exclaim'd,

(Like one who dreaming, between hope and fear, Is lost in anxious joy) Be that again,

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280

Be that again proclaim'd, distinct, and loud.'
Loud, and distinct, it was again proclaim'd;
And still as midnight in the rural shade,
When the gale slumbers, they the words devour'd.
A while severe amazement held them mute,
Then, bursting broad, the boundless shout to
Heaven

290

From many a thousand hearts ecstatic sprung.
On every hand rebellow'd to their joy
The swelling sea, the rocks, and vocal hills:
Through all her turrets stately Corinth shook;
And, from the void above of shatter'd air,
The flitting bird fell breathless to the ground.
What piercing bliss! how keen a sense of faine,
Did then, Flaminius, reach thy inmost soul!
And with what deep-felt glory didst thou then
Escape the fondness of transported Greece!
Mix'd in a tempest of superior joy,
They left the sports; like Bacchanals they flew,
Each other straining in a strict embrace,
Nor strain'd a slave; and loud acclaims till night
Round the proconsul's tent repeated rung.
Then, crown'd with garlands, came the festive

Hours;

299

And music, sparkling wine, and converse warm, Their raptures wak'd anew. Ye gods!' they

cry'd,

310

Ye guardian gods of Greece! And are we free? Was it not madness deem'd the very thought? And is it true? How did we purchase chains? At what a dire expense of kindred blood? And are they now dissolv'd? And scarce one drop For the fair first of blessings have we paid? Courage, and conduct, in the doubtful field, When rages wide the storm of mingling war, Are rare indeed; but how to generous ends To turn success, and conquest, rarer still: That the great gods and Romans only know. Lives there on Earth, almost to Greece unknown, A people so magnanimous, to quit Their native soil, traverse the stormy deep, And by their blood and treasure, spent for us, Redeem our states, our liberties, and laws! There does! there does! oh, saviour Titus! Rome!' Thus through the happy right they pour'd their And in my last reflected beams rejoic'd. [souls, As when the shepherd, on the mountain brow,322 Sits piping to his flocks, and gainesome kids; Meantime the Sun, beneath the green Farth sunk, Slants upward o'er the scene a parting gleam: Short is the glory that the mountain gilds, Plays on the glittering flocks, and glads the swain; To western worlds irrevocable roll'd, Rapid, the source of light recalls his ray." Here interposing I-" Oh, queen of men! 350 Beneath whose sceptre in essential rights Equal they live; though plac'd, for common good, Various, or in subjection, or command; And that by common choice: alas! the scene, With virtue, freedom, and with glory bright,

340

Began to feel the swift approach of fate,
That now her vitals gain'd; still more and more
Her deep divisions kindling into rage,
And war with chains and desolation charg'd.
From an unequal balance of her sons

These fierce contentions sprung; and, as increas'd
This hated inequality, more fierce

They flam'd to tumult. Independence fail'd;
Here by luxurious wants, by real there;
And with this virtue every virtue sunk,
As, with the sliding rock, the pile sustain'd.
A last attempt, too late, the Gracchi made,
To fix the flying scale, and poise the state.
On one side swell'd aristocratic pride;
With Usury, the villain! whose fell gripe
Bends by degrees to baseness the free soul;
And Luxury rapacious, cruel, mean,
Mother of vice! while on the other crept
A populace in want, with pleasure fir'd;
Fit for proscriptions, for the darkest deeds,
As the proud feeder bade: inconstant, blind,
Deserting friends at need, and dup'd by focs;
Loud and seditious, when a chief inspir'd
Their headlong fury, but, of him depriv'd,
Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand.

359

360

380.

This firm republic, that against the blast
Of opposition rose; that (like an oak,
Nurs'd on feracious Algidum, whose boughs
Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe)
By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself,
Ev'n force and spirit drew; smit with the calm,
The dead serene of prosperous fortune, pin'd.
Nought now her weighty legions could oppose ;370
Her terrour once on Afric's tawny shore,
Now smok'd in dust, a stabling now for wolves;
And every dreaded power receiv'd the yoke.
Besides, destructive, from the conquer'd east,
In the soft plunder came that worst of plagues,
That pestilence of mind, a fever'd thirst
For the false joys which luxury prepares.
Unworthy joys! that wasteful leave behind
No mark of honour, in reflecting hour,
No secret ray to glad the conscious soul;
At once involving in one ruin wealth,
And wealth-acquiring powers: while stupid self,
Of narrow gust, and hebetating sense
Devour the nobler faculties of bliss.
Hence Roman virtue slacken'd into sloth;
Security relax'd the softening state;
And the broad eye of government lay clos'd;
No more the laws inviolable reign'd,
And public weal no more: but party rag'd;
And partial power, and licence unrestrain'd, 390
Let discord through the deathful city loose.
First, mild Tiberius, on thy sacred head
The fury's vengeance fell; the first, whose blood
Had since the consuls stain'd contending Rome.
Of precedent pernicious! with thee bled
Three hundred Romans; with thy brother, next,
Three thousand more; till, into battles turn'd
Debates of peace, and forc'd the trembling laws,
The forum and comitia horrid grew,

A scene of barter'd power, or reeking gore. 400
When, half-asham'd, Corruption's thievish arts,
And ruffian force began to sap the mounds
And majesty of laws; if not in time
Repress'd severe, for human aid too strong
The torrent turns, and overbears the whole,

Thus luxury, dissension, a mix'd rage
Of boundless pleasure and of boundless wealth,
Want wishing change, and waste repairing war,
Rapine for ever lost to peaceful toil,
Guilt unaton'd, profuse of blood revenge,
Corruption all avow'd, and lawless force,
Each heightening each, alternate shook the state.
Meantime ambition, at the dazzling head
Of hardy legions, with the laurels heap'd
And spoil of nations, in one circling blast
Combin❜d in various storm, and from its base
The broad republic tore. By virtue built,

411

It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er shelter'd Earth
An ample roof: by virtue too sustain'd,
And balanc'd steady, every tempest sung
Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand.

480

A rage impatient of an equal name;
Or to the nobler Cæsar, on whose brow
O'er daring vice deluding virtue smil'd,
And who no less a vain superior scorn'd.
Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rose,
The venal wiLL be bought, the base have lords.
To these vile wars I left ambitious slaves;
And from Philippi's field, from where in dust
The last of Romans, matchless Brutus! lay,
Spread to the north untam'd a rapid wing.
"What though the first smooth Cæsar's arts
Merit and virtue, simulating me? [caress'd,
Severely tender! cruelly humane!
The chain to clinch, and make it softer sit
On the new-broken still ferocious state.
From the dark third, succeeding, I beheld

But when, with sudden and enormous change, 420 Th' imperial monsters all.-A race on Earth 490
The first of mankind sunk into the last,
As once in virtue, so in vice extreme,
This universal fabric yielded loose,

Before ambition still; and thundering down,
At last, beneath its ruins crush'd a world.
A conquering people, to themselves a prey,
Must ever fall; when their victorious troops,
In blood and rapine savage grown, can find
No land to sack and pillage but their own.

"By brutal Marius, and keen Sylla, first
Effus'd the deluge dire of civil blood,
Unceasing woes began, and this, or that,
(Deep-drenching their revenge) nor virtue spar'd,
Nor sex, nor age, nor quality, nor name,
Till Rome, into an human shambles turn'd,
Made deserts lovely.-Oh, to well-earn'd chains
Devoted race!-If no true Roman then,
No Scævola there was, to raise for Me

Vindictive, sent the scourge of human-kind!
Whose blind profusion drain'd a bankrupt world;
Whose lust to forming Nature seems disgrace;
And whose infernal rage bade every drop
Of ancient blood, that yet retain'd my flame,
To that of Pætus, in the peaceful bath,
Or Rome's affrighted streets, inglorions flow.
But almost just the meanly-patient death,
That waits a tyrant's unprevented stroke.
430 Titus indeed gave one short evening gleam; 500
More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread
Of storm, and horrour. The delight of men ;
He who the day, when his o'erflowing hand
Had made no happy heart, concluded lost;
Trajan and he, with the mild sire and son,
His son of virtue! eas'd awhile mankind;
And arts reviv'd beneath their gentle beam.
Then was their last effort what sculpture rais'd
To Trajan's glory, following triumphs stole; 509
And mix'd with Gothic forms, (the chissel's shame)
On that triumphal arch, the forms of Greece.
"Meantime o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep
Of gelid Hemus, I pursued my flight; [vales
And, piercing farthest Scythia, westward swept
Sarmatia, travers'd by a thousand streams.
A sullen land of lakes, and fens immense,
Of rocks, resounding torrents, gloomy heaths,
And cruel deserts black with sounding pine;
Where Nature frowns: though sometimes into

440

450

A vengeful hand: was there no father, robb'd
Of blooming youth to prop his wither'd age?
No son, a witness to his hoary sire
In dust and gore defil'd? no friend, forlorn?
No wretch that doubtful trembled for himself?
None brave, or wild, to pierce a monster's heart,
Who, heaping horrour round, no more deserv'd
The sacred shelter of the laws he spurn'd?
No. Sad o'er all profound dejection sat,
And nerveless fear. The slave's asylum theirs:
Or flight, ill-judging, that the timid back
Turns weak to slaughter; or partaken guilt.
In vain from Sylla's vanity I drew
An unexampled deed. The power resign'd,
And all unhop'd the common-wealth restor❜d,
Amaz'd the public, and effac'd his crimes.
Through streets yet streaming from his murderous
Unarm'd he stray'd, unguarded, unassail'd, [hand
And on the bed of peace his ashes laid:
A grace, which I to his demission gave.
But with him dy'd not the despotic soul.
Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear 460
A master, nor had virtue to be free.

Hence, for succeeding years, my troubled reign
No certain peace, no spreading prospect, knew.
Destruction gather'd round. Still the black soul,
Or of a Catalme, or Rullus, swell'd
With fell designs; and all the watchful art
Of Cicero demanded, all the force,
All the state-wielding magic of his tongue;
And all the thunder of my Cato's zeal.
With these I linger'd; till the flame anew
Burst out in blaze immense, and wrapt the world.
The shameful contest sprung, to whom mankind
Should yield the neck to Pompey, who conceal'd
VOL XII

470

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She softens; and immediate, at the touch 520
Of southern gales, throws from the sudden glebe
Luxuriant pasture, and a waste of flowers.
But, cold-comprest, when the whole loaded heaven
Descends in snow, lost in one white abrupt,
Lies undistinguish'd earth; and, seiz'd by frost,
Lakes, headlong streams, and floods, and oceans
sleep,

530

Yet there life glows; the furry millions there,
Deep-dig their dens beneath the sheltering snows:
And there a race of men prolific swarms,
To various pain, to little pleasure us'd;
On whom, keen-parching beat Riphan winds;
Hard like their soil, and like their climate fierce,
The nursery of nations !-These I rous'd,
Drove land on land, on people people pour'd;
Till from almost perpetual night they broke,
As if in search of day; and o'er the banks
Of yielding empire, only slave-sustain'd,
Resistless rag'd, in vengeance urg'd by ine.

"Long in the barbarous heart the bury'd seeds
Of freedom lay, for many a wintery age; 540
And though my spirit work'd, by slow degrees,
Ii

Naught but its pride and fierceness yet appear'd. Then was the night of time, that parted worlds. I quitted Earth, the while. As when the tribes

Aerial, warn'd of rising winter, ride

550

Autumnal winds, to warmer climates borne;
So, arts and each good genius in my train,
I cut the closing gloom, and soar'd to Heaven.
"In the bright regions there of purest day,
Far other scenes, and palaces, arise,
Adorn'd profuse with other arts divine.
All beauty here below, to them compar'd,
Would, like a rose before the mid-day Sun,
Shrink up its blossom; like a bubble, break
The passing poor magnificence of kings.
For there the King of Nature, in full blaze,
Calls every splendour forth; and there his court
Amid ethereal powers, and virtues, holds:
Angel, archangel, tutelary gods,

560

Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds.
But sacred be the veil, that kindly clouds
A light too keen for mortals: wraps a view
Too softening fair, for those that here in dust
Must cheerful toil out their appointed years,
A sense of higher life would only damp
The school-boy's task, and spoil his playful hours.
Nor could the child of reason, feeble man,
With vigour through this infant being drudge;
Did brighter worlds, their unimagin'd bliss
Disclosing, dazzle and dissolve his mind."

NOTES ON PART III.

570

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Ver. 34. Samos, over which then reigned the tyrant Polycrates.

Ver. 37. The southern parts of Italy, and Sicily, so called because of the Grecian colonies there settled.

Ver. 38. His scholars were enjoined silence for five years.

Ver. 57. The four cardinal virtues.

Ver. 244. The ancient name of the Volga.
Ver. 245. The Caspian sea.

Ver. 264. The king of Macedonia.

Ver. 286. The Isthmian games were celebrated at Corinth.

Ver. 369. Carthage.

Ver. 390. Tib. Gracchus.

Ver. 465. Pub. Servilius Rullus, tribune of the people, proposed an Agrarian Law, in appearance very advantageous for the people, but destructive of their liberty; and which was defeated by the eloquence of Cicero, in his speech against Rullus. Ver. 489. Tiberius.

Ver. 496. Thrasca Pætus, put to death by Nero. Tacitus introduces the account he gives of his death thus." After having inhumanly slaughtered so many illustrious men, he (Nero) burned at last with a desire of cutting off virtue itself in the person of Thrasea, &c."

Ver. 505. Antoninus Pius, and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, afterwards called Antoninus Philosophus.

Ver. 511. Constantine's arch, to build which, that of Trajan was destroyed, sculpture having been then almost entirely lost.

Yer. 515. The ancient Sarmatia contained a vast tract of country running all along the north of Ecope, and Asia.

BRITAIN:

BEING THE FOURTH PART OF

LIBERTY,

A POEM.

THE CONTENTS OF PART IV. DIFFERENCE betwixt the ancients and moderns slightly touched upon, to ver. 30. Description of the dark ages. The goddess of Liberty, who during these is supposed to have left Earth, returns, attended with Arts and Science, to ver. 100. She first descends on Italy. Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture fix at Rome, to revive their several arts by the great models of antiquity there, which many barbarous invasions had not been able to destroy. The revival of these arts marked out. That sometimes arts may flourish for a while under despotic governments, though never the natural and genuine production of them, to ver. 254. Learning begins to dawn. The Muse and Science attend Liberty, who in her progress towards Great Britain raises several free states and cities. These enumerated, to ver. 381. Author's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the British seas and coasts rise in the vision, which painted whatever the goddess of Liberty said. She resumes her narration. The Genius of the Deep appears, and, addressing Liberty, associates Great Britain into his domi nion, to ver. 451. Liberty received and congratulated by Britannia, and the native Genii or Virtues of the island. These described. Animated by the presence of Liberty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence contrasted with the works and delusions of opposing demons, to ver. 626. Concludes with an abstract of the English history, marking the several advances of Liberty, down to her complete establishment at the Revolution.

LIBERTY. PART IV.

STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I amaz'd:
"Ah, goddess, what a change! Is Earth the same?
Of the same kind the ruthless race she feeds?
And does the same fair Sun and ether spread
Round this vile spot their all-enlivening soul?
Lo! beauty fails; lost in unlovely forms
Of little pomp, magnificence no more
Exalts the mind, and bids the public smile:
While to rapacious interest glory leaves
Mankind, and every grace of life is gone."

10

[depth

To this the power, whose vital radiance calls From the brute mass of man an order'd world: "Wait till the morning shines, and from the Of Gothic darkness springs another day. True genius droops; the tender ancient taste Of beauty, then fresh-blooming in her prime, But faintly trembles through the callous soul, And grandeur, or of morals, or of life, Sinks into safe pursuits, and creeping cares. Ev'n cautious virtue seems to stoop her flight, 20 And aged life to deem the generous deeds Of youth romantic. Yet in cooler thought Well-reason'd, in researches piercing deep Through Nature's works, in profitable arts, And all that calm experience can disclose, (Slow guide, but sure) behold the world anew

Exalted rise, with other honours crown'd;
And, where my Spirit wakes the finer powers,
Athenian laurels still afresh shall bloom.

**Oblivious ages pass'd; while Earth, forsook 30
By her best genii, lay to demons foul,
And unchain'd furies, an abandon'd prey.
Contention led the van; first small of size,
But soon dilating to the skies she towers:
Then, wide as air, the livid fury spread,
And high her head above the stormy clouds,
She blaz'd in omens, swell'd the groaning winds
With wild surmises, battlings, sounds of war:
From land to land the maddening trumpet blew,
And pour'd her venom through the heart of man. 40
Shook to the pole, the north obey'd her call.
Forth rush'd the bloody power of Gothic war,
War against human kind: Rapine, that led
Millions of raging robbers in his train:
Unlistening, barbarous Force, to whom the sword
Is reason, honour, law: the foe of arts
By monsters follow'd, hideous to behold,
That claim'd their place. Outrageous mix'd with
Another species of tyrannic rule,
[these
Unknown before, whose cancrous shackles seiz'd 50
Th' envenom'd soul: a wilder fury, she
Ev'n o'er her elder sister tyranniz'd;
Or, if perchance agreed, inflam'd her rage,
Dire was her train, and loud; the sable band,
Thundering,- Submit, ye laity! ye prophane!
Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours; let kings
Allow the common claim, and half be theirs;
If not, behold! the sacred lightning flies:'
Scholastic Discord, with an hundred tongues,
For science uttering jangling words obscure,
Where frighted Reason never yet could dwell:
Of peremptory feature, Cleric Pride,
Whose reddening check no contradiction bears,
And Holy Slander, his associate firm,
On whom the lying spirit still descends:
Mother of tortures! Persecuting Zeal,
High-flashing in her hand the ready torch,
Or poniard bath'd in unbelieving blood;
Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure,
Assuming a celestial seraph's name,

60

To civil broil; and glory to romance.
Thus human life unhing'd to ruin reel'd,
And giddy Reason totter'd on her throne.

At last Heaven's best inexplicable scheme, 100
Disclosing, bade new brightening eras smile.
The high command gone forth, Arts in my train,
And azure-mantled Science, swift we spread
A sounding pinion. Eager pity, mixt
With indignation, urg'd her downward flight.
On Latium first we stoop'd, for doubtful life
That panted, sunk beneath unnumber'd woes.
Ah, poor Italia! what a bitter cup [Huns,
Of vengeance hast thou drain'd! Goths, Vandals,
Lombards, barbarians broke from every land, 110
How many a ruffian form hast thou beheld!
What horrid jargons heard, where rage alone
Was all thy frighted ear could comprehend!
How frequent by the red inhuman hand,
Yet warm with brother's, husband's, father's blood,
Hast thou thy matrons and thy virgins seen
To violation dragg'd, and mingled death!
What conflagrations, earthquakes, ravage, floods,
Have turn'd thy cities into stony wilds;
And succourless, and bare, the poor remains 120
Of wretches forth to nature's common cast!
Added to these, the still continued waste
Of inbred foes, that on thy vitals prey,
And, double tyrants, seize the very soul.
Where hadst thou treasures for this rapine al
These hungry myriads, that thy bowels tore,
Heap'd sack on sack, and bury'd in their rage
Wonders of art; whence this grey scene a mine
Of more than gold becomes and orient gems,
Where Egypt, Greece, and Rome, united glow. 130
"Here Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, bent
From ancient models to restore their arts,
Remain'd. A little trace we how they rose.

"Amid the hoary ruins Sculpture first,
Deep-digging, from the cavern dark and damp,
Their grave for ages, bid her marble race
Spring to new light. Joy sparkled in her eyes,
And old remembrance thrill'd in every thought,
70 As she the pleasing resurrection saw.

80

While she beneath the blasphemous pretence
Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the source of love!
Has wrought more horrours, more detested deeds,
Than all the rest combin'd. Led on by her,
And wild of head to work her fell designs,
Came idiot Superstition; round with ears
Innumerous strow'd, ten thousand monkish forms
With legends ply'd them, and with tenets, meant
To charm or scare the simple into slaves,
And poison reason; gross, she swallows all,
The most absurd believing ever most.
Broad o'er the whole her universal night,
The gloom still doubling, Ignorance diffus'd.
Nought to be seen, but visionary monks
To councils strolling, and embroiling creeds;
Banditti saints, disturbing distant lands;
And unknown nations, wandering for a home.
All lay revers'd: the sacred arts of rule
Turn'd to flagitious leagues against mankind,
And arts of plunder more and more avow'd;
Pure plain devotion to a solemn farce;
To holy dotage virtue, ev'n to guile,
To murder, and a mockery of oaths;
Brave ancient freedom to the rage of slaves,
Proud of their state, and fighting for their chains;
Dishonour'd courage to the bravo's trade,

140

In leaning site, respiring from his toils,
The well-known hero, who deliver'd Greece,
His ample chest, all tempested with force,
Unconquerable rear'd. She saw the head,
Breathing the hero, small, of Grecian size,
Scarce more extensive than the sinewy neck;
The spreading shoulders, muscular, and broad;
The whole a mass of swelling sinews, touch'd
Into harmonious shape; she saw, and joy'd.
The yellow hunter, Meleager, rais'd
His beauteous front, and through the finish'd whole
Shows what ideas smil'd of old in Greece.
Of raging aspect, rush'd impetuous forth
The Gladiator. Pityless his look,

[150

And each keen sinew brac'd, the storm of war,
Ruffling, o'er all his nervous body frowns.
The dying Otho from the gloom she drew.
Supported on his shorten'd arm he leans,
Prone agonizing; with incumbent fate,
Heavy declines his head; yet dark beneath
90 The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers, 160
Shame, indignation, unaccomplish'd rage,
And still the cheated eye expects his fall.
All conquest-flush'd, from prostrate Python, came
The Quiver'd God. In graceful act he stands,
His arm extended with the slacken'd bow.
Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays

To those of Venice she the magic art Of colours melting into colours gave. Theirs too it was by one embracing mass 170 Of light and shade that settles round the whole, 240 Or varies tremulous from part to part, O'er all a binding harmony to throw, To raise the picture, and repose the sight. The Lombard school succeeding, mingled both. "Meantime dread fanes, and palaces, around, Rear'd the magnific front. Music again Her universal language of the heart Renew'd; and, rising from the plaintive vale, To the full concert spread, and solemn quire.

A manly-soften'd orm. The bloom of gods
Seems youthful o'er the beardless cheek to wave.
His features yet heroic ardour warms;
And sweet subsiding to a native sinile,
Mixt with the joy elating conquest gives,
A scatter'd frown exalts his matchless air.
On Flora mov'd; her full-proportion'd limbs
Rise through the mantle fluttering in the breeze.
The queen of Love arose, as from the deep
She sprung in all the melting pomp of charms.
Bashful she bends, her well-taught look aside
Turns in enchanting guise, where dubious mix
Vain conscious beauty, a dissembled sense
Of modest shame, and slippery looks of love. 180
The gazer grows enamour'd, and the stone,
As if exulting in its conquest, smiles.

190

So turn'd each limb, so swell'd with softening art,
That the deluded eye the marble doubts.
At last her utmost master-piece she found,
That Maro fir'd; the miserable sire,
Wrapt with his sons in fate's severest grasp.
The serpents, twisting round, their stringent folds
Inextricable tie. Such passion here,
Such agonies, such bitterness of pain,
Seem so to tremble through the tortur'd stone,
That the touch'd heart engrosses all the view.
Almost unmark'd the best proportions pass,
That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone,
On the rapt eye th' imperious passions seize :
The father's double pangs, both for himself
And sons convuls'd: to Heaven his rueful look,
Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast;
His fell despair with indignation mixt,

As the strong-curling monsters from his side 200
His full-extended fury cannot tear.

More tender touch'd, with varied art, his sons
All the soft rage of younger passions show.
In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppress'd!
While, yet unpierc'd, the frighted other tries
His foot to steal out of the horrid twine.

"She bore no more, but straight from Gothic rust
Her chisel clear'd, and dust and fragments drove
Impetuous round. Successive as it went,
From son to son, with more enlivening touch, 210
From the brute rock it call'd the breathing form;
Till, in a legislator's awful grace
Dress'd, Buonaroti bid a Moses rise,
And, looking love immense, a Saviour-God.

920

"Of these observant, Painting felt the fire
Burn inward. Then ecstatic she diffus'd
The canvas, seiz'd the pallet, with quick hand
The colours brew'd; and on the void expanse
Her gay creation pour'd, her mimic world.
Poor was the manner of her eldest race,
Barren, and dry; just struggling from the taste,
That had for ages scar'd in cloysters dim
The superstitious herd: yet glorious then.
Were deem'd their works; where undevelop'd lay
The future wonders that enrich'd mankind,
And a new light and grace o'er Europe cast.
Arts gradual gather streams. Enlarging this
To each his portion of her various gifts
The goddess dealt, to none indulging all;
No, not to Raphael. At kind distance still
Perfection stands, like happiness, to tempt
Th' eternal chase. In elegant design
Improving Nature; in ideas fair,

Or great, extracted from the fine antique ;
In attitude, expression, airs divine,

Her sons of Rome and Florence bore the prize.

230

"Ev'n bigots smil'd; to their protection took 250 Arts not their own, and from them borrow'd pomp: For in a tyrant's garden these a while

66

May bloom, though freedom be their parent soil.
And now confest, with gently-glowing gleam,
The morning shone, and westward stream'd its light.
The Muse awoke. Not sooner on the wing
Is the gay bird of dawn. Artless her voice,
Untaught and wild, yet warbling through the woods
Romantic lays. But as her northern course
She, with her tutor Science, in my train,
Ardent pursu'd, her strains more noble grew:
While reason drew the plan, the heart inform'd
The moral page, and fancy lent it grace.

"Rome and her circling deserts cast behind, Ì pass'd not idle to my great sojourn.

"On Arno's fertile plain, where the rich vine Luxuriant o'er Etrurian mountains roves, Safe in the lap repos'd of private bliss,

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I small republics rais'd. Thrice happy they'
Had social freedom bound their peace, and arts, 270
Instead of ruling power, ne'er meant for them,
Employ'd their little cares, and sav'd their fate.
Beyond the rugged Apennines, that roll
Far through Italian bounds their wavy tops,
My path too I with public blessings strow'd ;
Free states and cities, where the Lombard plain,
In spite of culture negligent and gross,
From her deep bosom pours unbidden joys,
And green o'er all the land a garden spreads.

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"The barren rocks themselves beneath my foot Relenting bloom'd on the Ligurian shore. Thick-swarming people there, like emmets, seiz'd Amid surrounding cliffs, the scatter'd spots, Which Nature left in her destroying rage, Made their own fields, nor sigh'd for other lands. There, in white prospect, from the rocky hill, Gradual descending to the shelter'd shore, By me proud Genoa's marble turrets rose. And while my genuine spirit warm'd her sons, Beneath her Dorias, not unworthy, she Vy'd for the trident of the narrow seas, Ere Britain yet had open'd all the main. "Nor be the then triumphant state forgot, [still, Where, push'd from plunder'd earth, a remnant Inspir'd by me, through the dark ages kept Of my old Roman flame some sparks alive: The seeming god built city! which my hand Deep in the bosom fix'd of wondering seas. Astonish'd mortals sail'd, with pleasing awe, Around the sea-girt walls, by Neptune fenc'd, 300 And down the briny street; where on each hand, Amazing seen amid unstable waves, The splendid palace shines; and rising tides, The green steps marking, murmur at the door. To this fair queen of Adria's stormy gulf, The mart of nations! long, obedient seas

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