XX. Our ftrains divide The laurel's pride; With those we lift to life, we live; By fame enroll'd With heroes bold, And fhare the bleffings which we give. XXI. What hero's praise Can fire my lays, Like his, with whom my lay begun ? 66 Justice fincere, 66 "And courage clear, Rife the two columns of his throne. XXII. "How form'd for sway! "Who look, obey; They read the Monarch in his port. "Their love and awe "Supply the law; " And his own luftre makes the court; XXIII. "But fhines fupreme, "Where heroes flame; "In war's high-hearted pomp he prides? "By godlike arts "Enthron'd in hearts, "Our bofom-lord o'er wills prefides." XXIV. Our 1 XXIV. Our factions end! The nations bend! For when Britannia's fons, combin'd In fair array, Ali march one way; They march the terror of mankind. If equal all XXV. Who tread the ball, Our bounded profpect, here, would end; But heroes prove As steps to Jove, By which our thoughts, with eafe, afcend. XXVI. From what we view We take the clue, Which leads from great, to greater things; Men doubt no more, But Gods adore, When fuch resemblance fhines in Kings. XXVII. On yonder height, Triumphant fhines, and fhines alone? Unrivall'd blaze! The nations gaze! 'Tis not the fun, 'tis Britain's throne. XXVIII. Our XXVIII. Our Monarch, there, Rear'd high in air, Should tempefts rife, difdains to bend ; Like British oak, Derides the stroke; His blooming honours far extend! XXIX. Beneath them lies, With lifted eyes, Fair Albion, like an amorous maid; While intereft wings Bold foreign Kings To fly, like eagles, to his fhade. XXX. At his proud foot The Sea pour'd out, Immortal nourishment fupplies; Thence wealth, and state, And power, and-Fate, Which Europe reads in George's eyes. ON ON LYRIC POETRY. H OW imperfect foever my own composition may be, yet am I willing to speak a word or two, of the nature of Lyric Poetry; to fhew that I have, at leaft, fome idea of perfection in that kind of poem in which I am engaged; and that I do not think myself poet enough entirely to rely on inspiration for my fuc cefs in it. To our having, or not having this idea of perfection in the poem we undertake, is chiefly owing the merit or demerit of our performances, as alfo the modesty or vanity of our opinions concerning them. And in fpeaking of it I fhall fhew how it unavoidably comes to pass, that bad Poets, that is, Poets in general, are efteemed, and really are, the most vain, the most irritable, and moft ridiculous fet of men upon earth.' But Poetry in its own nature is certainly VIRG. Non hos quæfitum munus in ufus." He that has an idea of perfection in the work he undertakes may fail in it; he that has not, must: and yet he will be vain. For every little degree of beauty, how fhort or improper foever, will be looked on fondly by him; because it is all pure gains, and more than he promised to himself; and because he has no teft, or standard in his judgement, with which to chaftife his opinion of it. VOL. 1. N Now Now this idea of perfection is, in Poetry, more refined than in other kinds of writing; and because more refined, therefore more difficult; and because more difficult, therefore more rarely attained; and the non-attainment of it is, as I have faid, the fource of our vanity. Hence the poetic clan are more obnoxious to vanity than others. And from vanity confequentially flows that great fenfibility of disrespect, that quick refentment, that tinder of the mind that kindles at every spark, and justly marks them out for the "genus irritabile" among mankind. And from this combustible temper, this serious anger for no very serious things, things looked on by most as foreign to the important points of life, as confequentially flows that inheritance of ridicule, which devolves on them, from generation to generation. As foon as they become authors, they become like Ben Jonfon's angry boy, and learn the art of quarrel. "-Concordes animæ-dum nocte prementur; "Heu! quantum inter fe bellum, fi lumina vitæ Attigerint, quantas acies, ftragemque ciebunt ! Qui Juvenes! quantas oftentant, afpice, vires. "Ne, Pueri! ne tanta animis affuefcite bella. "Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, "Syderio flagrans clypeo, & cœleftibus armis, "Projice tela manu, fanguis meus! "Nec te ullæ facies, non terruit ipfe Typhoeus "Arduus, arma tenens; non te Meffapus & Ufens, "Contemptorque Deûm Mezentius." VIRG. But |
