With many a well-diffembled Wile,

The kind, convenient Husband's Care beguile : More deeply vers'd in Venus' mystic Lore, Yet for fuch meaner Arts too lofty and fublime, The proud, high-born, Patrician Whore Bears unabafh'd her Front, and glories in her Crime.

IX.

Hither, from City, and from Court,
The Votaries of Love refort;

The Rich, the Great, the Gay, and the Severe;
The penfion'd Architect of Laws;

The Patriot, loud in Virtue's Caufe; Proud of imputed Worth, the Peer: Regardless of his Faith, his Country, or his Name, He pawns his Honour and Eftate,

Nor reckons, at how dear a Rate

He purchases Disease, and Servitude, and Shame.

X.

Not from fuch daftard Sires, to every Virtue loft, Sprung the brave Youth, which Britain once could

boast;

Who curb'd the Gaul's ufurping Sway,
Who swept unnumber'd Hofts away,
On Agincourt and Crefy's glorious Plain ;
Who dy'd the Seas with Spanish Blood,
Their vainly-vaunted Fleets fubdu'd,

And fpread the mighty Wreck o'er all the vanquifh'd Main.

XI.

No; 'twas a generous Race, by Worth transmiffive known:

In their bold Breasts their Fathers Spirit glow'd;
In their pure Veins their Mothers Virtue flow'd;
They made hereditary Praise their own.
The Sire his emulous Offspring led

The rougher Paths of Fame to tread ;
The Matron train'd their fpotlefs Youth,
In Honour, Sanctity, and Truth:

Form'd by th'united Parents Care,

The Sons, though bold, were wife; the Daughters chafte, though fair.

XII.

How Time, all-wafting, ev'n the worst impairs, And each foul Age to Dregs ftill fouler runs! Our Sires, more vicious ev'n than theirs, Left us, ftill more degenerate Heirs,

To spawn a baser Brood of Monster-breedingSons! 1746.

ΝΟΤΕ.

It is obfervable, that in the laft Stanza of this excellent Imitation, the Author has improved on his Original by introducing a Generation more, by the happy Ufe of the Compound Epithet Monfer-breeding. D.

ODE

O DE VII.

To ASTERIE.

By Mr. DUNCOMBE, Senior.

AY, why does fair Afterie mourn?
Why doubt her Lover's wifh'd Return?
The vernal Gales her Gyges shall restore,
And kindly waft the longing Youth,
Of conftant and unfhaken Truth,
With a rich Cargo from Bithynia's Shore.

At Oricum, by Southern Gales
Detain'd, his Doom he now bewails,

Nor through long freezing Nights can clofe his
Eyes:

While ftormy Winds confine him there,
Impatient the Restraint to bear,

He lengthens out the ling'ring Hours with Sighs..

Mean while, his Hoftefs ftrives to move,

And tempt him to licentious Love ;

Her Envoy fhows, how his obliging Dame
Is prey'd upon by fecret Fire;

Describes her pining with Defire,

And tries each Art alluring Wit can frame;

Relates how Sthenobaea's Tears
Provok'd believing Prætus' Fears ; :
How, ftung by fatal Jealousy, she strove
The Son of Glaucus to destroy,
(Rash to refuse the proffer'd Joy!)

And Vengeance vow'd for her affronted Love :

How Peleus, on the Brink of Fate,
Felt the dire Force of female Hate,
Whilft from Hippolyté, too chafte, he fled:
3 With various Tales he plies the Youth,
To wake his Fears, or taint his Truth,
And win him to defpairing Chloë's Bed.

In vain!-He, faithful, hears no more Than Rocks, when Seas and Tempests roar ; Nor owns the Conqueft of her wily Eyes But thou, my Fair, perform thy Part, Nor let Enipeus' fubtle Art

Thy foft unguarded Soul by Stealth surprize.

What though no Youth, in Mars's Field, Such Proofs of manly Strength can yield, To curb the Courfer; and, with nervous Arms, The rapid Tyber to divide,

And ftem the Torrent of the Tide;

With Caution view thy Neighbour's dangerous Charms !

Bellerophon.

At

At 4 Night's Approach, thy Door be barr'd; Nor from thy Window once regard His plaintive Flute with tender pitying Eye: And though he vows, and mourns his Pains, Oft calls thee cruel, and complains, Yet ftill be cruel, and his Suit deny!

NOTES.

Horace addreffes this Ode to a Lady. It feems, at first, as if his Defign was to comfort her for the Absence of her Husband, or of her Lover, whofe Return was prevented by contrary Winds: But we find, at the End of the Ode, that this is only an Artifice, which he employs to admonish her to be conftant to Gyges, and to with ftand the Sollicitations of her Neighbour Enipeus, as Gyges was proof against the Tenderness of his Hotels Chloë DACIER.

1 Ut Prætum mulier perfida credulum.] Homer calls the Wife of Pratus, Antéa: but the Tragic Writers, Sthenobaa. Being unable to prevail on Bellerophon to gratify her Paffion, and fearing left he should discover her criminal Love to her Husband, she first accused him. This Story is related at large in the 6th Book of the Iliad, and in the 2d Book of Apollodorus.

2 Narrat pene datum Pelea Tartaro.] Peleus, the Father of Achilles, was accufed by Hippolyté, in the fame Manner as Bellerophon had been by Antea. Pindar relates this Story in his 5th Nemean Ode, and Apollodorus in his 3d Book.

3 Peccare docentes biflorias.] Horace prettily feigns, that this Confidant of Chloë makes use of two Means to prevail upon Gyges to comply with her Wishes: 1. He threatens him with the Fate of Bellerophon and Peleus, who were expofed to great Dangers, for refifting the Sollicitations of the Ladies who entertained them. 2. He propofes the Examples of thofe, who had not been fo hard-hearted. This is what Horace calls peccare docentes hiftorias, Stories teaching to tranfgrefs. Such are the

D 6

Stories