How chaste the conduct, how divine the rage!
A Roman worthy on a Grecian stage!
But where shall Cato's praise begin or end;
Inclin'd to melt, and yet untaught to bend,
The firmest patriot, and the gentlest friend!
How great his genius when the traitor crowd
Ready to strike the blow their fury vow'd;
Quell'd by his look, and list'ning to his lore,
Learn, like his passions, to rebel no more!
When, lavish of his boiling blood, to prove
The cure of slavish life, and slighted love,
Brave Marcus new in early death appears
While Cato counts his wounds, and not his years;
Who, checking private grief, the public mourns,
Commands the pity he so greatly scorns.
But when he strikes (to crown his generous part)
That honest, stanch, impracticable heart;
No tears, no sobs, pursue his parting breath;
The dying Roman shames the pomp of death.
O! sacred freedom, which the powers bestow
To season blessings, and to soften woe;
Plant of our growth, and aim of all our cares,
The toil of ages, and the crown of wars :
If taught by thee, the poet's wit has flow'd
In strains as precious as his hero's blood;
Preserve those strains, an everlasting charm
To keep that blood, and thy remembrance warm:
Be this thy guardian image still secure,
In vain shall force invade, or fraud allure;
Our great Palladium shall perform its part,
Fix'd and enshrin'd in every British heart.
THE mind to virtue is by verse subdued ;
And the true poet is a public good.
This Britain feels, while, by your lines inspir'd,
Her free-born sons to glorious thoughts are fir'd.
In Rome had you espous'd the vanquish'd cause,
Inflam'd her senate, and upheld her laws;
Your manly scenes had liberty restor❜d,
And giv'n the just success to Cato's sword:
O'er Cæsars arms your genius had prevail'd;
And the muse triumph'd, where the patriot fail'd.
AMBR. PHILIPS.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure heav'n itself surveys;
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Even when proud Cæsar, 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state,
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast.
The triumph ceas'd-tears gush'd from every eye,
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by:
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæsar's less than Cato's sword.
Britons attend1: be worth like this approv❜d,
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued.
Our scene precariously subsists too long
On French translation, and Italian song:
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone should please a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.
1 This was first written, "Britons arise, be worth like this approv'd:" but as Addison was frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, the line was liquidated to "Britons attend."-See JOHNSON'S Life.
SCENE, a large hall in the governor's palace of Utica.
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