Or else, the purple o'er his shoulder thrown, In long majestic flow, to rule the state, With Wisdom's purest eye; or, clad in steel, To drive the steady battle on the foe. Hence every passion, e'en the proudest, stoop'd To common good: Camillus, thy revenge; Thy glory, Fabius. All submissive hence, Consuls, Dictators, still resign'd their rule, The very moment that the laws ordain'd. Though Conquest o'er them clapp'd her eagle- wings,
Was then kept firm, and with triumphant prow Rode out the storms. Oft though the native
That from the first their constitution shook, (A latent ruin, growing as it grew,) Stood on the threatening point of civil war Ready to rush: yet could the lenient voice Of wisdom, soothing the tumultuous soul, Those sons of virtue calm. Their generous hearts Unpetrified by self, so naked lay
And sensible to Truth, that o'er the rage
Her laurels wreath'd, and yoked her snowy steeds Of giddy faction, by oppression swell'd,
To the triumphal car; soon as expired
The latest hour of sway, taught to submit, (A harder lesson that than to command) Into the private Roman sunk the chief.
If Rome was served, and glorious, careless they By whom. Their country's fame they deem'd their own;
And above envy, in a rival's train, Sung the loud lös by themselves deserved. Hence matchless courage. On Cremera's bank, Hence fell the Fabii; hence the Decii died; And Curtius plunged into the flaming gulf. Hence Regulus the wavering fathers firm'd, By dreadful counsel never given before; For Roman honour sued, and his own doom. Hence he sustain'd to dare a death prepared By Punic rage. On earth his manly look Relentless fix'd, he from a last embrace, By chains polluted, put his wife aside, His little children climbing for a kiss; Then dumb through rows of weeping, wondering friends,
A new illustrious exile! press'd along.
Nor less impatient did he pierce the crowds Opposing his return, than if, escaped From long litigious suits, he glad forsook The noisy town a while and city cloud To breathe Venafrian, or Tarentine air. Need I these high particulars recount? The meanest bosom felt a thirst for fame;
Prevail'd a simple fable, and at once To peace recover'd the divided state. But if their often cheated hopes refused The soothing touch; still, in the love of Rome, The dread Dictator found a sure resource. Was she assaulted? was her glory stain'd? One common quarrel wide inflamed the whole. Foes in the forum in the field were friends, By social danger bound; each fond for each, And for their dearest country all, to die.
'Thus up the hill of empire slow they toil'd: Till, the bold summit gain'd, the thousand states Of proud Italia blended into one;
Then o'er the nations they resistless rush'd, And touch'd the limits of the failing world. 'Let Fancy's eye the distant lines unite. See that which borders wild the western main, Where storms at large resound, and tides im- mense;
From Caledonia's dim cerulean coast, And moist Hibernia, to where Atlas, lodged Amid the restless clouds and leaning heaven, Hangs o'er the deep that borrows thence its name. Mark that opposed, where first the springing morn Her roses sheds, and shakes around her dews: From the dire deserts by the Caspian laved, To where the Tigris and Euprates, join'd, Impetuous tear the Babylonian plain; And bless'd Arabia aromatic breathes. See that dividing far the watery north,
Drunk by Batavian meads, to where seven
In Euxine waves the flashing Danube roars: To where the frozen Tanais scarcely stirs The dead Mectic pool, or the long Rha,* In the black Scythian seat his torrent throws. Last, that beneath the burning zone behold: See where it runs, from the deep-loaded plains Of Mauritania to the Libyan sands, Where Ammon lifts amid the torrid waste A verdant isle, with shade and fountain fresh, And farther to the full Egyptian shore, To where the Nile from Ethiopian clouds,
Flight their worst death, and shame their only fear. Parent of floods! from the majestic Rhine, Life had no charms, nor any terrors fate, When Rome and glory call'd. But, in one view, Mark the rare boast of these unequal'd times. Ages revolved unsullied by a crime: Astrea reign'd, and scarcely needed laws To bind a race elated with the pride Of virtue, and disdaining to descend To meanness, mutual violence, and wrongs. While war around them raged, in happy Rome All peaceful smiled, all save the passing clouds That often hang on Freedom's jealous brow; And fair unblemish'd centuries elapsed, When not a Roman bled but in the field. Their virtue such, that an unbalanced state, Still between Noble and Plebeian tost, As flow'd the wave of fluctuating power,
The ancient name of the Volga, †The Caspian Sea.
His never drain'd ethereal urn, descends. In this vast space what various tongues and states! What bounding rocks, and mountains, floods, and seas!
What purple tyrants quell'd, and nations freed! 'O'er Greece, descended chief, with stealth di- vine,
The Roman bounty in a flood of day:
As at her Isthmian games, a fading pomp! Her full-assembled youth innumerous swarm'd. On a tribunal raised, Flaminius sat: A victor he, from the deep phalanx pierced Of iron-coated Macedon, and back
The Grecian tyrant* to his bounds repell'd. In the high thoughtless gaiety of game, While sport alone their unambitious hearts Possess'd; the sudden trumpet, sounding hoarse, Bade silence o'er the bright assembly reign. Then thus a herald:-" To the states of Greece The Roman people, unconfined, restore Their countries, cities, liberties, and laws: Taxes remit, and garrisons withdraw." The crowd astonish'd half, and half inform'd, Stared dubious round; some question'd, some ex- claim'd,
(Like one who dreaming, between hope and fear, Is lost in anxious joy,) 'Be that again, 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 Hea-
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 Corintht 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 fame, 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,
And is it true? How did we purchase chains? At what a dire expense of kindred blood? And are they now dissolved? 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 night they pour'd their souls,
And in my last reflected beams rejoiced. As when the shepherd, on the mountain-brow, Sits piping to his flocks and gamesome kids; Meantime the sun, beneath the green earth 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! Beneath whose sceptre in essential rights Equal they live; though placed for common good, Various, or in subjection or command; And that by common choice: alas! the scene, With virtue, freedom, and with glory bright, Streams into blood, and darkens into wo." Thus she pursued:-"Near this great era, Rome 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 charged. From an unequal balance of her sons These fierce contentions sprung: and, as increased This hated inequality, more fierce
They flamed to tumult. Independence fail'd;
They left the sports; like Bacchanals they flew, Here by luxurious wants, by real there; 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;
And music, sparkling wine, and converse warm, Their raptures waked anew. "Ye gods! (they cried)
Ye guardian gods of Greece! and are we free? Was it not madness deem'd the very thought?
The King of Macedonia.
The Isthmian games were celebrated at Corinth.
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 fired; Fit for proscriptions, for the darkest deeds, As the proud feeder bade; inconstant, blind, Deserting friends at need, and duped by foes:
Loud and seditious, when a chief inspired Their headlong fury, but of him deprived, Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand. "This firm republic, that against the blast Of opposition rose; that (like an oak, Nursed on ferocious Algidum,* whose boughs Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe,) By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself, E'en force and spirit drew; smit with the calm, The dead serene of prosperous fortune, pined. Nought now her weighty legions could oppose; Hert terror once, on Afric's tawny shore, Now smoked in dust, a stabling now for wolves; And every dreaded power received 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,
Combined in various storm, and from its base The broad republic tore. By Virtue built It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er shelter'd earth An ample roof: by Virtue too sustain❜d, And balanced steady, every tempest sung Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand. But when, with sudden and enormous change, 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 Effused the deluge dire of civil blood, Unceasing woes began, and this, or that, Deep-drenching their revenge, nor virtue spared, Nor sex, nor age, nor quality, nor name; Till Rome, into a human shambles turn'd,
And wealth-acquiring powers: while stupid self, Made deserts lovely,-Oh, to well earn'd chains,
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 closed. No more the laws inviolable reign'd, And public weal no more: but party raged; And partial power, and license unrestrain'd, 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 forced the trembling laws, The Forum and Comitia horrid grew, A scene of barter'd power, or reeking gore. When, half-ashamed, Corruption's thievish arts, And ruffian force begin 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 unatoned, 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
Devoted race!-If no true Roman then,
No Scævola there was, to raise for me
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 defiled? no friend, forlorn? No wretch that doubtful trembled for himself? None brave, or wild, to pierce a monster's heart, Who, heaping horror round, no more deserved 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 unhoped the commonwealth restored, Amazed the public, and effaced his crimes. Through streets yet streaming from his murderous hand
Unarm'd he stray'd, unguarded, unassail'd, And on the bed of peace his ashes laid; A grace, which I to his demission gave. But with him died not the despotic soul. Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear 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 Catiline, or Rullus,* swell'd With fell designs; and all the watchful art
• Publius Servilius Rulius, tribune of the people, proposeu an Agrarian Law, in appearance very advantageous for the people, but destructive of their liberty: and which was de feated by the eloquence of Cicero, in his speech against Rullus
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 A rage impatient of an equal name; Or to the nobler Cæsar, on whose brow O'er daring vice deluding virtue smiled, 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 untamed a rapid wing.
And, piercing farthest Scythia, westward swept Sarmatia, traversed 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 smiles
She softens; and immediate at the touch
Of southern gales, throws from the sudden glebe Luxuriant pasture, and a waste of flowers. But, cold-compress'd, when the whole loaded heaven
Descends in snow, lost in one white abrupt, Lies undistinguish'd earth; and, seized by frost Lakes, headlong streams, and floods, and oceans sleep.
Yet there life glows; the furry millions there
'What though the first smooth Cæsars arts ca- Deep dig their dens beneath the sheltering snows:
Merit and virtue, stimulating me? 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 The imperial monsters all.-A race on earth Vindictive, sent the scourge of humankind! 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, inglorious flow. But almost just the meanly patient death, That waits a tyrant's unprevented stroke. Titus indeed gave one short evening gleam; More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread Of storm, and horror. 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 siret and son, His son of virtue! eased awhile mankind; And arts revived beneath their gentle beam. Then was their last effort: what sculpture raised To Trajan's glory, following triumphs stole; And mix'd with Gothic forms, (the chisel's shame) On that triumphal arch,5 the forms of Greece. Meantime o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep
Of gelid Hæmus, I pursued my flight;
+ Thrasea 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.
Antoninus Pius, and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, afterwards called Antoninus Philosophus.
$ Constantine's arch, to build which, that of Trajan was! dent roved, sculpture having been then almost entirely last.
And there a race of men prolific swarms, To various pain, to little pleasure used; On whom, keen-parching, beat Riphæan winds; Hard like their soil, and like their climate fierce, The nursery of nations!-These I roused, 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 raged; in vengeance urged by me.
'Long in the barbarous heart the buried seeds Of Freedom lay, for many a wintry age; And though my spirit work'd, by slow degrees, Nought 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 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 compared, Would, like a rose before the midday 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,
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 schoolboy's task, and spoil his playful hours.
The ancient Sarmatia contained a vast tract of country running all along the north of Europe and Asia
Nor could the child of Reason, feeble man, With vigour through this infant-being drudge; Did brighter worlds, their unimagined bliss Disclosing, dazzle and dissolve his mind.'
Difference betwixt the Ancients and Moderns slightly
touched upon. Description of the dark ages. The Goddess of Liberty, who during these is supposed to have left earth, returns, attended with Arts and Science. 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. Learning begins to dawn. The Muse and Science attend Liberty, who in her progress towards Great Britain thor'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 dominion. Liberty received and congratusated by Britannia, and the Native Genii or Virtues of the
raises several free states and cities. These enumerated. Au
island. These described. Animated by the presence of Li
berty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence contrasted with the works and delusions of opposing Demons. Concludes with an abstract of the English history, marking the several Advances of Liberty, down to her complete esta
blishment at the Revolution.
STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I amazed: 'Ah, Goddess, what a change! is earth the
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 bid the public smile: While to rapacious interest Glory leaves Mankind, and every grace of life is gone.'
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 depth
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. E'en cautious Virtue seems to stoop her flight, 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 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 blazed 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. 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 these
Another species of tyrannic* rule, Unknown before, whose cankerous shackles seized The envenom'd soul; a wilder Fury, she Even o'er her Elder Sistert tyrannized; Or, if perchance agreed, inflamed her rage. Dire was her train, and loud: the sable band, Thundering;-" Submit, ye Laity! ye profane! Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours; let king Allow the common claim, and half be theirs; If not, behold! the sacred lightning flies!" Scholastic Discord, with a hundred tongues, For science uttering jangling words obscure, Where frighted reason never yet could dwell: Of peremptory feature, cleric Pride, Whose reddening cheek 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 bathed in unbelieving blood; Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure, Assuming a celestial seraph's name,
While she beneath the blasphemous pretence Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the Source of Love! Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds, Than all the rest combined. 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 forma With legends ply'd them, and with tenets, meant To charm or scare the simple into slaves,
⚫Church power, or ecclesiastical tyranny. ↑ Civil tyranny.
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