O sacred freedom, which the powers bestow
To season blessings, and to soften woe;
Plant of our growth, and aim of all out caies,
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 subdu'd;
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 given the just success to Cato's sword:
O'er Cæsar's 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 trode 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 confest in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure heaven 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 then 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 attend:a 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 subdu'd.
Our scene precariously subsists too long
On French translation, and Italian song:
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,
Such plays alone should please a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.
■ Britons attend. Altered thus by the author, from "Britons arise," to humour, we are told, the timid delicacy of Mr. Addison, who was in pain least that fierce word "arise," should be misconstrued (see Mr. Warbur ton's edition of Pope, Imitations of Horace, ep. 1, b. 1.) One is apt, indeed, to think this caution excessive; but there was ground enough for it, as will be seen, if we reflect, that the poet himself had made Sempronius talk in this strain.-"Rise Romans, rise," (act ii. sc. 1;) a clear comment ( would have been said, in that furious time) on the line in question.
SCENE, a large Hall in the Governor's Palace of Utica
PORTIUS. The dawn is overcast, the morning low'rs,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th' important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome-Our father's death
Would fill up all the guilt of civil war,
And close the scene of blood. Already Cæsar
Has ravaged more than half the globe, and sees
Mankind grown thin by his destructive sword:
Should he go further, numbers would be wanting
To form new battles, and support his crimes.
Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make
Among your works!
While the present humour of idolizing Shakespear continues, no quarter will be given to this poem; though it be the master-piece of the author, and was the pride of the age in which it was written.-But a time will come, when, not as a tragedy, indeed, (for which the subject was unfit) but, as a work of art and taste, it will be supremely admired by all candid and judicious critics.
This opening of the drama is too solemn and declamatory. The au thor speaks,-not his "Persona dramatis." Horace has given a caution against this misconduct, in his ridicule of "Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum," which was addressed to the tragic, as well as, epic poet.
|