While horror fills the region vast,
Rheumatic tortures Eurus brings,
Pregnant with agues flies the northern blast,
And clouds drop quartans from their flagging wings.
Doft thou explore Sabrina's fountful fource,
Where huge Plinlimmon's hoary height ascends:
Then downward mark her vagrant course,
Till mix'd with clouds the landscape ends?
Doft thou revere the hallow'd foil
Where druids old sepulchred lie;
Or up cold Snowden's craggy summits toil,
And muse on ancient savage liberty?
Ill fuit fuch walks with bleak autumnal air,
Say, can November yield the joys of May?
When Jove deforms the blasted year,
Can Wallia boast a chearful day?
The town expects thee.
Thro' every street of gay refort,
New chariots rattle with awak'ning sound,
And croud the levees, and besiege the court.
The patriot, kindling as his wars ensue,
Now fires his foul with liberty and fame,
Marshals his threat'ning tropes anew,
And gives his hoarded thunders aim.
Now feats their absent lords deplore,
Neglected villas empty stand,
Capacious Gro'venor gathers all its ftore,
And mighty London swallows up the land.
See sportive Vanity her flights begin,
See new-blown Folly's plenteous harvests rise,
See mimick beauties dye their skin,
And harlots roll their venal eyes.
Fashions are set, and fops return,
And young coquettes in arms appear;
Dreaming of conquest, how their bosoms burn,
Trick'd in the new fantastry of the year.
Fly then away, nor scorn to bear a part
In this gay scene of folly amply spread:
Follies well us'd refine the heart,
And pleasures clear the studious head;
By grateful interchange of mirth
The toils of study sweeter grow,
As varying seasons recommend the earth,
Nor does Apollo always bend his bow.
HILE born to bring the Muse's happier days,
WHILE born to
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays:
While nurs'd by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb:
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell:
With confcious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespear's name.
Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd,
Unown'd by Science, and by years obfcur'd:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confefs'd
A fixt despair in ev'ry tuneful breast.
Not with more grief th' afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When ling'ring frosts the ruin'd feats invade
Where Peace refsorted, and the Graces play'd.
Each rifing art by just gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves:
The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,
And grac'd with noblest pomp her earliest stage.
Preserv'd thro' time, the speaking scenes impart
Each changeful wish of Phædra's tortur'd heart:
Or paint the curse, that mark'd the * Theban's reign,
A bed incestuous, and a father slain.
With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,
Trace the sad tale, and own another's woe.
To Rome remov'd, with wit secure to please,
The Comic fifters kept their native ease.
With jealous fear declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almost excell'd!
But ev'ry Muse essay'd to raise in vain
Some labour'd rival of her Tragic strain;
Ilyssus' laurels, tho' transferr'd with toil,
Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew th' unfriendly soil.
* The Edipus of Sophocles.
As arts expir'd, resistless Dulness rose;
Goths, priests, or Vandals, all were Learning's foes.
Till * Julius first recall'd each exil'd maid,
And Cosmo own'd them in th' Etrurian shade:
Then deeply skill'd in love's engaging theme,
The soft Provencial pass'd to Arno's stream:
With graceful ease the wanton lyre he strung,
Sweet flow'd the lays-but love was all he sung.
The gay description could not fail to move;
For, led by nature, all are friends to love.
But heav'n, still various in its works, decreed
The perfect boast of time should last succeed.
The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian strength:
One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn,
And ev'n a Shakespear to her fame be born!
Yet ah! so bright her morning's op'ning ray,
In vain our Britain hop'd an equal day!
No fecond growth the western ifle could bear,
At once exhausted with too rich a year.
Too nicely Johnson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Of fofter mold the gentle Fletcher came,
The next in order, as the next in name.
With pleas'd attention 'midst his scenes we find
Each glowing thought, that warms the female mind;
* Julius II. the immediate predeceffor of Leo X.
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