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470

All the state-wielding magic of his tongue,
And all the thunder of My Cato's zeal.
With these I lingered, 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 Cæfar, on whose brow

475

O'er daring Vice deluding Virtue smil'd,
And who no less a vain fuperior scorn'd.
Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rofe.
The venal will be bought, the base have lords.
To these vile wars I left ambitious flaves,
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 tho' the first smooth Cæfars arts caress'd

480

Merit, and virtue, simulating Me?
Severely tender! cruelly humane!
The chain to clench, and make it fofter fit
On the new-broken still ferocious state,

485

From the dark Third *, fucceeding, I beheld

Th' imperial monsters all. A race on earth

490

Vindictive sent, the scourge of human-kind! Whose blind profusion drain'd a bankrupt world; Whose luft to forming Nature seems disgrace,

And whose infernal rage bade every drop

Of ancient blood that yet retain'd my flame,

Tiberius.

495

To that of Pætus * in the peaceful bath,
O'er 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, 500
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 Sire and Son t, 505
His fon of virtue! eas'd a while 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,
And mixt with Gothic forms (the chiffel's shame),
On that triumphal arch †, the forms of Greece. 511

Mean time o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep vales
Of gelid Hæmus, I pursu'd my flight,
And, piercing farthest Scythia, westward swept
Sarmatia, travers'd by a thousand streams : 515
A fullen land of lakes, and fens immenfe,

* Thrafea Pætus, put to death by Nero. Tacitus introduces the account he gives of his death thus: -" After having inhumanely flaughtered fo many illustrious men, he (Nero) burned at laft with a defire of cutting off Virtue itself in the perfon " of Thrafea," &c.

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+ Antoninus Pius, and his adopted fon, Marcus At relius, afterwards called Antoninus Philofophus.

Conftantine's arch, to build which that of Trajan was destroyed, sculpture having been then almost entirely loft. The ancient Sarmatia contained a vast tract of country, runaing all along the north of Europe and Afia. Volume II.

G

520

Of rocks, resounding torrents, gloomy heaths,
And cruel deferts, black with founding pine,
Where Nature frowns; tho sometimes into smiles
She softens, and immediate, at the touch
Of fouthern gales, throws from the fudden glebe
Luxuriant pasture and a waste of flowers.
But, cold-comprest, when the whole loaded heaven
Descends in snow, loft in one white abrupt

530

Lies undistinguish'd earth; and, seiz'd by frost, 525
Lakes, headlong streams, and floods, and oceans, sleep.
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 Riphæan winds,
Hard like their foil, 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, 535
As if in search of day, and o'er the banks
Of yielding Empire, only flave-sustain'd,
Resistless rag'd, in vengeance urg'd by Me.
Long in the barbarous heart the bury'd feeds
Of Freedom lay for many a wintry age,
And tho' My spirit work'd by flow 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

540 545

Aerial, warn'd of rifing winter, ride
Autumnal winds, to warmer climates borne;
So, Arts and each good Genius in My train,
I cut the closing gloom, and foar'd to heaven.
In the bright regions there of purest day,
Far other scenes and palaces arife,
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 bloffom; 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,

550

555

Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds. 560

365

But facred be the veil that kindly clouds
A light too keen for mortals, wraps a view
Too foftening fair, for those that here in dust
Muft cheerful toil out their appointed years.
A fenfe of higher life would only damp
The schoolboy's talk, and fpoil his playful hours:
Nor could the child of Reafon, feeble Man!
With vigour thro' this infant being drudge,
Did brighter worlds, their unimagin'd bliss
Disclofing, dazzle and dissolve his mind.

570

BRITAIN.

LIBERTY.

PART IV.

The Contents.

DIFFERENCE betwixt the Ancients and Moderns flightly 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 Sciences, 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 produftion of them, to ver. 254. Learning begins to dawn. The Mufe and Science attend Liberty, who, in her progress towards Great-Britain, raifes several free flates and cities. These enumerated, to ver. 381. Author's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the British seas and coaft rise in the Vision, which painted whatever the Goddess of Liberty faid. She refumes her narraeion. The Genius of the Deep appears, and, addreffing Liberty, affociates Great-Britain into his dominion, to ver. 451. Liberty received and congratulated by Britannia and the native Genii or Virtues of the island. These defcribed. Animated by the prefence of Liberty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence contrafted with the works and delufions of oppoing demons, to ver. 626. Concludes with an abstract of the English history, marking the feveral advances of Liberty, down to her complete eftablishmere at the Revolution.

STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I, amaz'dAh! Goddess; what a change! Is earth the fame? Of the fame kind the ruthless race she feeds? And does the fame fair fun and ether spread

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