When, lavish of his boiling blood, to prove
The cure of flavish life, and flighted 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 fo greatly scorns;
But when he strikes (to crown his generous part)
That honeft, ftaunch, impracticable heart;
No tears, no fobs, purfue his panting breath;
The dying Roman shames the pomp of death.
O facred freedom! which the powers bestow
To season bleffings, 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 ftrains as precious as his hero's blood;
Preferve those strains, an everlasting charm
To keep that blood and thy remembrance warm:
Be this thy guardian image ftill fecure,
In vain fhall force invade, or fraud allure;
Our great Palladium fhall perform its part,
Fix'd and enshrin'd in every British heart.
LONG had the Tragic Mufe forgot to weep,
By modern Operas quite lull'd asleep:
No matter what the lines, the voice was clear;
Thus fenfe was facrific'd to please the ear.
At last, One Wit ftood up in our defence,
And dar'd (O impudence!) to publish-sense.
Soon then as next the juft tragedian fpoke,
The ladies figh'd again, the beaux awoke.
Thofe heads that us'd moft indolent to move
To fing-fong, ballad, and fonata love,
Began their buried senses to explore,
And found they now had paffions as before:
The power of nature in their bofoms felt,
In spite of prejudice compell'd to melt.
When Cato's firm, all hope of fuccour past,
Holding his stubborn virtue to the last,
I view, with joy and conscious transport fir'd,
The foul of Rome in one great man retir'd:
In him, as if she by confinement gain'd,
Her powers and energy are higher ftrain'd
Than when in crowds of fenators she reign'd!
Cato well fcorn'd the life that Cæfar gave,
When fear and weakness only bid him save:
But when a virtue like his own revives
The hero's conftancy-with joy he lives.
Obferve the juftness of the poet's thoughts,
Whose smalleft excellence is want of faults:
Without affected pomp and noise he warms;
Without the gaudy dress of beauty charms.
Love, the old fubject of the buskin'd Muse,
Returns, but fuch as Roman virgins use.
A virtuous love, chaftis'd by pureft thought,
Not from the fancy, but from nature wrought.
Britons, with leffen'd wonder, now behold Your former wits, and all your bards of old; Jonfon out-vy'd in his own way confess; And own that Shakespeare's felf now pleases lefs. While Phoebus binds the laurel on his brow, Rife up, ye Muses; and, ye Poets, bow: Superior worth with admiration greet, And place him nearest to his Phoebus' feat.
MR. ADDISON's TRAGEDY OF THAT NAME,
His ancient Rome by party-factions rent,
Long fince the generous Cato did lament;
Himself united with his country's cause,
Bravely refus'd to live, 'midft dying laws.
Pleas'd with returning liberty to come,
With joy the hero rifes from his tomb;
And in Britannia finds a fecond Rome.
Till by repeated rage, and civil fires,
Th' unhappy patriot again expires;
Weeps o'er her fate, and to the gods retires.
TO MR. ADDISON, ON HIS CATO.
(FROM STEELE'S COLLECTION.)
́s Britain rescued from th' Italian chain,
And the dear fong neglected for thy strain? Are ev'n the Fair reclaim'd? and dare they fit Intent on Virtue, and be pleas'd with Wit? What Mufe, but thine, could thus redeem our taste, With show deluded, and with found debas'd ?
Hard was the task, and worthy of your rage,
You seem the great Alcides of the age:
How gloriously you rife in our defence!
Your caufe is Liberty; your armour, Sense;
The brood of tuneful monfters you control,
Which fink the genius, and degrade the foul:
Those foes to verse you chace with manly arts,
And kindle Roman fires in British hearts.
Oh! fix, as well as raise, that noble flame :
Confirm your glory, and prevent our shame.
The routed Opera may return again,
Seduce our hearts, and o'er our fpirits reign:
Ev'n Cato is a doubtful match for all,
And Right, oppreft with odds, again may fall;
Let our juft fears your fecond aid implore,
Repeat the ftroke, this Hydra fprings no more.
VERSES SENT TO A LADY, WITH THE TRAGEDY OF CATO.
(FROM STEELE'S COLLECTION.)
N vain, O heavenly maid, do I perufe
Th' inftructive labours of the Tragic Mufe,
If Cato's virtue cannot cure my foul,
And all the jarring paffions there control
In vain--but ah! what arguments can prove
Sufficient to refift the force of Love?
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