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HORACE.

BOOK I. ODE XXIII.

TO MISS D.

TELL me, Maria, tell me why

Thou dost from him that loves thee run;

Why from his fond embraces fly,

And every soft endearment shun?

So through the rocks, or dewy lawn,

With plaintive cries, its dam to find, Flies wing'd with fears the youngling fawn, And trembles at each breath of wind.

Ah! stop thy flight, why shouldst thou fly? What canst thou in a lover fear?

No angry boar, nor lion I,

Pursue thy tender limbs to tear.

Cease then, dear wildness, cease to toy;
But haste all rivals to outshine,
And grown mature and ripe for joy,

Leave mamma's arms and come to mine.

What though thou boast each soul subduing art, That rules the movements of the human heart; Though thine be every potent charm,

The rage of Envy to disarm:

Thus far Heav'n grants, the great reward

Of beauty, under Virtue's guard:

Yet all in vain ascends thy pious pray'r,

To bid th' impartial Pow'r one moment spare;
That Pow'r who chastens whom he dearest loves,
Deaf to the filial sorrows he approves;

Seal'd sacred by th' inviolable Fates,
Unlocks no more the adamantine gates,

When once th' etherial breath has wing'd its way,
And left behind its load of mortal clay.

Severe indeed! yet cease the duteous tear: 'Tis Nature's voice that calls aloud, " Forbear." See, see descending to thy aid,

Patience, fair celestial maid!

She strikes through life's dark gloom a brightening And smiles Adversity away:

[ray,

White-handed Hope advances in her train,
Leads to new life, aud wakens joy again;
She renders light the weight of human woes,
And teaches to submit when 'tis a crime t' oppose.

HORACE.

BOOK. I. ODE XXIV.

TO A YOUNG LADY ON THE DEATH OF HER

FATHER.

WHAT measure shall affliction know?

What bounds be set to such a woe,
That weeps the loss of one so dear!
Come, Muse of mourning! haste, ordain
The sacred melancholy strain:
When Virtue bids, 'tis impious to forbear.

Thy voice, with powerful blessings fraught,
Inspires the solemn serious thought;
A heavenly sorrow's healing art,
That, whilst it wounds, amends the heart.
A far more pleasing rapture thine,
When bending over Friendship's shrine,
Than Mirth's fantastic varied lay,
Deceitful, idle, fluttering, vain,
Still shifting betwixt joy and pain,

Where sport the wanton, or where feast the gay.
In dust the good and friendly lies.
Must endless slumber seal those eyes?-
Oh! when shall modest Worth again,
Integrity, that knows no stain,

Thy sister, Justice, free from blame,
Kind Truth, no false affected name,
To meet in social union, find

So plain, so upright, and so chaste a mind?
By many good bewail'd, he's lost;

By thee, O beauteous virgin! most:
Thou claim'st, ah pious! ah, in vain!
Thy father from the grave again.

Not on those terms, by dooming Heav'n,
His loan of mortal life was giv'n.
The equal lot is cast on all,
Obedient to the universal call.
Ev'n thou, each decent part fulfill'd,
Wife, sister, mother, friend, and child,
Must yield to the supreme decree,
And every social virtue weep for thee.

HORACE.

BOOK I. ODE XXXIE

TO HIS LYRE.

IF e'er with thee we fool'd away,
Vacant beneath the shade, a day,
Still kind to our desire;

A Scotish song we now implore,
To live this year, and some few more,
Come then, my Scotish lyre.

First strung by Stewart's cunning hand,
Who rul'd fair Scotia's happy land,
A long and wide domain:
Who bold in war, yet whether he,
Reliev'd his wave-beat ship from sea,
Or camp'd upon the plain,

The joys of wine, and Muses young,
Soft Beauty, and her page he sung,
That still to her adheres :
Margaret, author of his sighs,
Adorn'd with comely coal-black eyes,

And comely coal-black hairs.

O thou, the grace of song and love,
Exalted to the feasts above,

The feast's supreme delight;
Sweet balm to heal our cares below,
Gracious on me thy aid bestow,
If thee I seek aright.

HORACE.

BOOK I. ODE XXXIII.

TO A GENTLEMAN IN LOVE.

WHY do'st thou still in tears complain,
Too mindful of thy love's disdain?
Why still in melancholy verse
Unmeek Maria's hate reherse,

That Thirsis finds by fate's decree
More favour in her sight than thee?
The love of Cyrus does enthrall
Lycoris fair, with forehead small;
Cyrus declines to Pholoe's eyes,
Who unrelenting hears his sighs:
But wolves and lambs shall sooner join
Than they in mutual faith combine.
So seemeth good to Love, who binds
Unequal forms, unequal minds,
Cruel in his brazen yoke,
Pleas'd with too severe a joke.
Myself, in youth's more joyous reign,
My laundress held in pleasing chain;
When pliable to love's delights
My age excus'd the poet's flights:
More wrathful she, than storms that roar
Along the Solway's crooked shore.

HORACE.

BOOK II. ODE IV.

TO THE EARL MARSHAL OF SCOTLAND.

Ne sit ancillæ tibi amor pudori.→→→
Avow, my noble friend, thy kind desires,
If Phillis' gentle form thy breast inspires,
Nor glory, nor can reason disapprove;

What though unknown her humble name,
Unchronicled in records old,
Or tale by flattering poets told:
She to her beauties owes her noblest fame,
Her noblest honours to thy love.

Know Cupid scorns the trophied shield,
Vain triumph of some guilty field,
Where dragons hiss and lions roar,
Blazon'd with argent and with or,
His heraldry is hearts for hearts,

Love found his destin'd victim out,
And put the rude militia all to rout:
For whilst poor Abelard, ah! soon decreed
Love's richest sacrifice to bleed,
Unweeting drew the argumental thread,
A finer net the son of Venus' spread:
Involving in his ample category,
With all his musty schoolmen round,
Th' unhappy youth, alike renown'd,
In philosophic and in amorous story.

Inflexible and stern, the czar,
Amidst the iron sons of war,

With dangers and distress encompast round,
In his large bosom deep receiv'd the wound.
No Venus she, surrounded by the Loves,
Nor drawn by cooing harnest doves;

'Twas the caprice of Love to yoke
Two daring souls, unharnest and unbroke.
When now the many-laurell'd Swede,
The field of death his noblest triumph fled,
And forc'd by fate, but unsubdued of soul,
To the fell victor left the conquest of the pole.

Henry, a monarch to thy heart,
In action brave, in council wise,
Felt in his breast the fatal dart,

[eyes;

Shot from two snowy breasts, and two fair lovely
Though Gallia wept, though Sully frown'd,
Though rag'd the impious league around,
The little urchin entrance found,

And to his haughty purpose fore'd to yield
The virtuous conqueror of Coutra's field.
Who knows but some four-taii'd bashaw
May hail thee, peer, his son-in-law,
Some bright sultana, Asia's pride,

Was grandame to the beauteous bride:
For sure a girl so sweet, so kind,
Such a sincere and lovely mind,
Where each exalted virtue shines,
Could never spring from vulgar loins.

He stamps himself o'er all, and dignifies his darts. No, no, some chief of great Arsaces' line,

Smote by a simple village maid,
See noble Petrarch night and day
Pour his soft sorrows through the shade;
Nor could the Muse his pains allay:
What though with hands pontific crown'd,
With all the scarlet senate round,
He saw his brows adorn the living ray;
Though sighing virgins tried each winning art,
To cure their gentle poet's love-sick heart,

Cupid, more powerful than them all,
Resolv'd his tuneful captive to enthrall,
Subdued him with a shepherdess's look;

He wreathes his verdant honours round her crook,
And taught Valclusa's smiling groves
To wear the sable liveries of his Loves.

But this example scarce can move thy mind,
The gentle power with verse was ever join'd:
Then hear, my lord, a dreadful tale,
Not known in fair Arcadia's peaceful vale,
Nor in the Academic grove,

Where mild Philosophy might dwell with Love;
But poring o'er the mystic page,
Of old Stagira's wonderous sage,
In the dark cave of syllogistic doubt,

Where neither Muse, nor beauty's queen,
Nor wandering Grace was ever seen,

Has form'd her lineaments divine:
Who Rome's imperial fasces broke,
And spurn'd the nation's galling yoke,
Though now, oh! sad reverse of fate,
The former lustre of her royal state,
She sees injurious Time deface,
And weeps the ravish'd sceptres of her race.

Her melting eye, and slender waist
Fair tapering from the swelling breast,
All Nature's charms, all Nature's pride,
Whate'er they show, whate'er they hide,
I own. But swear by bright Apollo,
Whose priest I am, nought, nought can follow;
Suspect not thou a poet's praise,
Unhurt I hear, uninjur'd gaze:

Alas! such badinage but ill would suit
A married man, and forty years to boot.

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HORACE.

BOOK IV. ODE I.

VENUS! call'st thou once more to arms?
Sound'st thou once more thy dire alarms?
Annoy'st my peaceful state again-
Oh, faith of treaties sworn in vain!
Seal'd with the signet of thy doves,
And ratified by all the Loves.
Spare, goddess! I implore, implore!
Alas! thy suppliant is no more
What once he was in happier time,
(Illustrated by many a rhyme)
When, skill'd in every ruling art,
Good A****s sway'd his yielding heart:
Love's champion then, and known to fame,
He boasted no inglorious name.
Now, cruel mother of desires!

That doubts and anxious joys inspires,
Ah why, so long disus'd, again
Leviest thou thy dreadful train;
That, when in daring fights he toil'd,
So oft his youthful ardour foil'd?
Oh let thy hostile fury cease,
Thy faithful veteran rest in peace,
In the laborious service worn,
His arms decay'd, and ensigns torn.

Go, go, swan-wing'd, through liquid air,
Where the bland breath of youthful pray'
Recals thee from the long delay,
And, weeping, chides thee for thy stay.
My lowly roof, that knows no state,
Can't entertain a guest so great:
In P*****th's dome, majestic queen,
With better grace thou shalt be seen,
If, worthy of the Cyprian dart,
Thou seek'st to pierce a lovely heart:
For he to noble birth has join'd
A graceful form and gentle mind;
And to subdue a virgin breast

The youth with thousand arts is blest;
Nor silent in his country's cause,
The anxious guardian of her laws.
He, in thy noblest warfare tried,
Shall spread thy empire far and wide;
Confirm the glories of thy reign;
And not a glance shall fall in vain.
Then, when each rival shall submit
The prize of beauty and of wit,
And riches yield to fair desert
The triumph of a female heart;

Grateful thy marble form shall stand,

Fair breathing from the sculptor's hand,

Below the temple's pillar'd pride,

Fast by a sacred fountain's side.

Where Tweed sports round each winding maze, There song shall warble, incense blaze;

Nor dumb shall rest the silver lyre,

To animate the festive choir.

There twice a day fond boys shall come,
And tender virgins in their bloom,
(With fearful awe and infant shame)
To call upon thy hallow'd namie,
As thrice about the wanton round
With snowy feet they lightly bound.

-For me no beauty now invites,
Long recreant to the soft delights.
Lost to the charming arts that move,
Ah, dare I hope a mutual love?

The fond belief of pleasing pain

That hopes, fears, doubts, and hopes again?
No wreaths upon my forehead bloom,
Where flowers their vernal souls consume.
No more the reigning toast I claim:
I yield the fierce contended name,
Though daring once to drink all up,
While Bacchus could supply the cup.
"Farewel, delusive, idle power!
Welcome, contemplation's hour.
Now, now I search, neglected long,
The charms that lie in moral song,
How to assuage the boiling blood,
The lessons of the wise and good;
Now with fraternal sorrows mourn;
Now pour the tear o'er friendship's urn:
Or higher raise the wish refin'd,
The generous pray'r for human kind;
Or, anxious for my Britain's fate,
To freedom beg a longer date,
To calm her more than civil rage,
And spare her yet one other age,
These, these the labours I pursue:
Fantastic Love! a long adieu."

-Yet why, O beauteous *****, why,
Heaves the long forgotten sigh?
Why down my cheeks, when you appear,
Steals drop by drop th' unbidden tear?
Once skill'd to breathe the anxious vow,
Why fails my tongue its master now;
And, faltering, dubious strives in vain
The tender meaning to explain?
Why, in the visions of the night,
Rises thy image to my sight?
Now seiz'd, thy much-lov'd form I hold,
Now lose again the transient fold;
Unequal, panting far behind,
Pursue thee fleeter than the wind,
Whether the dear delusion strays

Through fair Hope-park's enchanting maze,
Or where thy cruel phantom glides
Along the swiftly running tides.

PART OF EPISTLE XI.

OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

WHEN thro' the world Fate led the destin'd way,
Tell me, my Mitchell, in the broad survey,
What country pleas'd thy roaving fancy most?
Say, wast thou smit with Baia's sunny coast?
Or wish'd thou rather, weary, to r pose
In some cool vale where peaceful Arno flows?
Or in Ombrosa dream the lonely hour, [bow'r;
Where high-arch'd hills th' Etrurian shades em-
Where Plenty pours her golden gifts in vain,
That dubious swell for Carlos or Lorrain?
Or charm'd thee more the happy viny plains,
And lofty tow'rs, where mighty Louis reigns?
Say, is it true what travellers report
Of glories shining in the Gallic court?
Or, do they all, though e'er so pompous, yield
To the thatch'd cottage in thy native field?

But hark, methinks I hear thee anxious say That thou at Palestine would'st choose to stay. Yes, Palestine; I know the place full well, Where boly dotards riot in cach cell,

The hapless peasant pines with want and sorrow, And all unpeopled as a royal borough:

Yet there for ever would thy friend remain, Rather than change once more the frantic scene, And distant hear the rollings of the main; Unenvied, calm, enjoy a peaceful lot,

My friends remembering, nor by them forget.

HORACE,

BOOK I. EPISTLE XVIII.

DEAR Ramsay, if I know thy soul aright,
Plain-dealing honesty's thy dear delight:
Not great, but candid born; not rich, but free;
Thinks kings most wretched, and most happy me:
Thy tongue untaught to lie, thy knee to bend,

I fear no flatterer where I wish a friend.
As the chaste matron's tender look and kind,
Where sits the soul to speak the yearning mind,
From the false colouring of the wanton shows
Th' unhallow'd roses and polluted snows,
A glare of beauty, nauseous to the sight,
Gross but to feed desire, not raise delight:
So differs far, in value, use, and end,
The praising for from the reproring friend,
Such distance lies between, nay greater far,
Who bears an honest heart or bears a star.
A fault there is, but of another sort,
That aims by nastiness to make its court;
By downright rudeness would attempt to please,
And sticks his friendship on your lips in grease;
With him (for such were Sparta's rigid rules)
All the polite are knaves; the cleanly, fools;
Good humour for impertinence prevails;
So strangely honest,-he'll not pair his nails.
Know, virtuous sir, if not indeed a slave,
Yet, sordid as the thing, thou art a knave;
Virtue, its own and every plain man's guide,
Serenely walks, with vice on every side,
Keeps its own course, to its own point does bend,
To follies deaf, that call from either end.
This simple maxim should a statesman doubt,
Two characters shall make it plainly out:
The first is his (the opposite of proud),

By far more humble than a Christian should,
Pursues, distasteful of plain sober cheer,
Th' inhospitable dinner of a peer;
Usurps, without the task of saying grace,
The poor starv'd chaplain's perquisities and place;
To vice gives virtue, to old age gives youth;
So well-bred he, he never spoke one truth:
With watchful eyes sits full against my lord,
And catches, as it falls, each heavy word;
That, echo'd back, and sent from lungs more able,
Assumes new force, and bandies round the table.
All stare: "Was ever thing so pretty spoke?
You'd almost swear it was his grace's joke."
Yet such as these divide the great man's store,
And flatter out the friendless and the poor.

Nor less the fool our censure must engage,
Whom every trifle rouses into rage.
He arms for all, so fierce the wordy war,
Labeo far less tenacious at the bar;
Words heap'd on words so fast together drive,
Like clustring bees that darken from the hive,
He fights, alas! what mortal dares confute him?
With tongue, hand, eyes, and every inch about
him.

"Deny me this; ah! rather than comply
A thing so plain,-I'd sooner starve or die."

But, pray, what all this mighty fury draws?
Say, raves the patriot o'er expiring laws?
Say, on the oppressor does his anger fall?
Pleads he for the distress'd, like good Newhall?
Against corruption does his vengeance rise?
The army? or the general excise?

On trifling themes like these our man is mute,
As S-
if fee-less you present your suit.
More sacred truths his zealous rage supply;
What all acknowledge, or what all deny:

If rogues in red are worse than rogues in lawn;
Or *** be as great a dunce as —;
Or if our Hannibal's fam'd Alpine road
Be thirty foot, or five-and-thirty broad.

The vicious man, though in the worst degree, His neighbour thinks more vicious still than he. Is there whom lawless love should bring to gallows? He cries, "What vengeance waits on perjur'd fellows!"

Ruchead, who pin'd amidst his boundless store,
Could wonder why rich Selkirk wish'd for more:
The youthful knight, who squanders all away
On whores, on equipage, on dress, and play;
The man who thirsts and hungers after gold;
The tricking tradesman, and the merchant bold,
Whom fear of poverty compels to fly
Through seas, excisemen, rocks, oaths, perjury;
Start at each other's crimes with pious fright,
Yet think themselves for ever in the right.

But, above all, the rogue of wealth exclaims,
And calls the poorer sinner filthy names;
Though his foul soul, discolour'd all within,
Has deeper drank the tincture of each sin:
Or else advises, as the mother sage

Rebukes the hopes and torment of her age,
(And, faith, though insolent of wealth, in this
Methinks, good friend, he talks not much amiss)
"Yield, yield, O fool! to my superior merit,
Without a sixpence thou, and sin with spirit!
For me those high adventures kept by fate;
For crimes look graceful with a large estate:
Then cease, vain madman, and contend no more;
Heav'n meant thee virtuous when it made thee
poor."

But crimes like these to gold we can forgive; What boots it how they die or how they live? Then weep, my friend, when wicked wealth you To change the species of the virtuous mind. [find, You've doubtless heard how 'twas a statesman's Whene'er he would oblige, that is, betray, [way, Invited first the destin'd prey to dine, Then whisper'd in his ear, "You must be fine: Fine clothes, gay equipage, a splendid board Give youth a lustre, and become a lord. Why loiter meanly in paternal grounds, To neighbours owe thy ease, thy health to hounds? Go roam about in gilded chariot hurl'd; [world: Make friends of strangers, child, and learn the These kind instructors teach you best of any, The wise sir William, and the good lord Fanny." Guiltless he hears of pension and of place, Then sinks in honour as he swells in lace; Each hardy virtue yields, and, day by day, Melts in the sunshine of a court away. At first (not every manly thought resign'd) He wonders why he dares not tell his mind; Feels the last footsteps of retiring grace, And virtuous blushes lingering on his face: The artful tempter plies the slavish hour, And works the gudgeon now within his pow'r;

VOL. XV.

Then tips his fellow statesman, "He'll assume
New modes of thinking in the drawing-room;
See idle dreams of greatness strike his eyes,
See pensions, ribbons, coronets arise.
The man, whom labour only could delight,
Shall loiter all the day, and feast all night:
Who, mild, did once the kindest nature boast,
Unmov'd shall riot at the orphan's cost;
To pleasures vile, that health and fame destroy,
Yield the domestic charm, the social joy.
See, charm'd no more with Maro's rural page,
He slumbers over Lucan's free-born rage.
Each action in inverted lights is seen;
Meanness, frugality; and freedom, spleen;
How foolish Cato! Cæsar how divine!
In spite of Tully, friend to Catiline."
Thus to each fair idea long unknown,
The slave of each man's vices and his own,
Enroll'd a member of the hireling tribe,
He tow'rs to villany's last act, a bribe;
And turns, to make his ruin'd fortunes clear,
Or gamester bully, jobber, pimp, or peer;
Till, late refracted through a purer air,
The beams of royal favour fall elsewhere:
Lo, vile, obscure, he ends his bustling day,
All stain'd the lustre of his orient ray;
And envies, poor, unpitied, scorn'd by all,
Marchmont the glories of a generous fall.
Such sad examples can this land afford?
Why 'tis the history of many a lord!

But you, perhaps, think odd whate'er I say:
Yet drink with such originals each day.
Then censure we no more, too daring friend,
Whom Scandalum Magnatum may offend.
How poor a figure should a poet make,
Ta'en into custody for scribbling's sake?
Ah, how (you know the Muses never pay)
With all his verses earn five pounds a day?
Leave we to Pope each knave of high degree,
Sing we such rules as suit or you or me.
Then, first, into no other's secrets pry;
To such be deaf your ear, be blind your eye:
Of these, unask'd, why should you claim a share?
But keep these safe intrusted to your care:
For this, beware the cunning low design,
That takes advantage of your rage or wine;
For rage no pause of cooler thought affords,
Is rash, intemperate, headlong in its words.
Lock fast your lips; then guard whate'er you say,
Lest in the fit of passion you betray;
And dread the wretch, who boasts the fatal pow'r
To cheat in friendship's unsuspecting hour!

There is a certain pleasing force, that binds Faster than chains do slaves, two willing minds. Tempers oppos'd each may itself controul, And melt two varying natures in one soul. This made two brothers' different humours hit, Though one had probity, and one had wit: Of sober manners this and plain good sense, Avoided cards, wine, company, expense; Safe from the tempting fatal sex withdrew, Nor made advances further than a bow. A different train of life his twin pursues; [stews, Lov'd pictures, books, (nay authors write) the A mistress, opera, play, each darling theme; To scribble, above all, his joy supreme. Must these two brothers always meet to scold, Or quarrel, like to Jove's fam'd twins of old? Each yielding, mutual, could each other please, And drew life's yoke with tolerable ease:

TT

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