And groves, unvisited by bard or sage.
Amid the towery ruins, huge, supreme,
Th' enormous amphitheatre behold,
Mountainous pile! o'er whose capacious womb
Pours the broad firmament its varied light;
While from the central floor the seats ascend
Round above round, slow-widening to the verge
A circuit vast and high; nor less had held
Imperial Rome, and her attendant realms,
When drunk with rule she will'd the fierce delight,
And op'd the gloomy caverns, whence out-rush'd
Before th' innumerable shouting crowd
The fiery, madded, tyrants of the wilds,
Lions and tigers, wolves and elephants,
And desperate men, more fell. Abhorr'd intent!
By frequent converse with familiar death,
To kindle brutal daring apt for war;

To lock the breast, and steel th' obdurate heart,
Amid the piercing cries of sore distress
Impenetrable. But away thine eye;
Behold your steepy cliff; the modern pile
Perchance may now delight, while that,* rever'd
In ancient days, the page alone declares,
Or narrow coin through dim cerulean rust.
The fane was Jove's, its spacious golden roof,
O'er thick-surrounding temples beaming wide,
Appear'd, as when above the morning hills
Half the round Sun ascends; and tower'd aloft,
Sustain'd by columns huge, innumerous
As cedars proud on Canaan's verdant heights
Darkening their idols, when Astarte lur'd
Too-prosperous Israel from his living strength.

And next regard yon venerable dome,
Which virtuous Latium, with erroneous aim,
Rais'd to her various deities, and nam'd
Pantheon; plain and round; of this our world
Majestic emblem; with peculiar grace
Before its ample orb, projected stands
The many-pillar'd portal: noblest work
Of human skill: here, curious architect,
If thou essay'st, ambitious, to surpass
Palladius, Angelus, or British Jones,
On these fair walls extend the certain scale,
And turn th' instructive compass: careful mark
How far in hidden art, the noble plain
Extends, and where the lovely forms commence
Of flowing sculpture: nor neglect to note
How range the taper columns, and what weight
Their leafy brows sustain: fair Corinth first
Boasted their order, which Callimachus
(Reclining studious on Asopus' banks
Beneath an urn of some lamented nymph)
Haply compos'd; the urn with foliage curl'd
Thinly conceal'd, the chapiter inform'd.

See the tall obelisks from Memphis old,
One stone enormous each, or Thebes convey'd ;
Like Albion's spires they rush into the skies.
And there the temple,† where the summon'd state
In deep of night conven'd: e'en yet methinks
The vehement orator in rent attire
Persuasion pours, Ambition sinks her crest;
And lo the villain, like a troubled sea,
That tosses up her mire! Ever disguis'd,
Shall Treason walk? Shall proud Oppression yoke
The neck of Virtue? Lo the wretch, abash'd,
Self-betray'd Catiline! O Liberty,

Parent of Happiness, celestial-born;
When the first man became a living soul,
His sacred genius thou;-be Britain's care;
With her, secure, prolong thy lov'd retreat;
Thence bless mankind; while yet among her sons
E'en yet there are, to shield thine equal laws,
Whose bosoms kindle at the sacred names
|Of Cecil, Raleigh, Walsingham, and Drake.
May others more delight in tuneful airs;
In masque and dance excel; to sculptur'd stone
Give with superior skill the living look;
More pompous piles erect, or pencil soft
With warmer touch the visionary board:
But thou, thy nobler Britons teach to rule;
To check the ravage of tyrannic sway;
To quell the proud; to spread the joys of peace,
And various blessings of ingenious trade.
Be these our arts; and ever may we guard,
Ever defend thee with undaunted heart!
Inestimable good! who giv'st us Truth,
Whose hand upleads to light, divinest Truth,
Array'd in every charm: whose hand benign
Teaches unwearied Toil to clothe the fields,
And on his various fruits inscribes the name
Of Property: O nobly hail'd of old
By thy majestic daughters, Judah fair,
And Tyrus and Sidonia, lovely nymphs,
And Libya bright, and all-enchanting Greece,
Whose numerous towns and isles, and peopled seas,
Rejoic'd around her lyre; th' heroic note
(Smit with sublime delight) Ausonia caught,
And plann'd imperial Rome. Thy hand benign
Rear'd up her towery battlements in strength;
Bent her wide bridges o'er the swelling stream
Of Tuscan Tiber; thine those solemn domes
Devoted to the voice of humbler prayer!
And thine those pilest undeck'd, capacious, vast,
In days of dearth where tender Charity
Dispens'd her timely succors to the poor.
Thine too those musically-falling founts,
To slake the clammy lip; adown they fall,
Musical ever; while from yon blue hills,
Dim in the clouds, the radiant aqueducts
Turn their innumerable arches o'er

The Capitol.

†The Temple of Concord, where the senate met on Catiline's conspiracy.

The spacious desert, brightening in the Sun,
Proud and more proud in their august approach:
High o'er irriguous vales and woods and towns,
Glide the soft whispering waters in the wind,
And here united pour their silver streams
Among the figur'd rocks, in murmuring falls,
Musical ever. These thy beauteous works:
And what beside felicity could tell
Of human benefit: more late the rest;
At various times their turrets chanc'd to rise,
When impious Tyranny vouchsaf'd to smile.

Behold by Tiber's flood, where modern Rome§
Couches beneath the ruins: there of old
With arms and trophies gleam'd the field of Mars
There to their daily sports the noble youth
Rush'd emulous; to fling the pointed lance;
To vault the steed; or with the kindling wheel
In dusty whirlwinds sweep the trembling goal;
Or, wrestling, cope with adverse swelling breasts,
Strong grappling arms, close heads, and distant feet;
Or clash the lifted gauntlets: there they form'd
Their ardent virtues: in the bossy piles,

The public granaries.

§ Modern Rome stands chiefly on the old Campus

Martius.

The proud triumphal arches; all their wars,
Their conquests, honors, in the sculptures live.
And see from every gate those ancient roads,
With tombs high verg'd, the solemn paths of Fame:
Deserve they not regard? O'er whose broad flints
Such crowds have roll'd, so many storms of war;
So many pomps; so many wondering realms :
Yet still through mountains pierc'd, o'er valleys rais'd,
In even state, to distant seas around,

The baths of Caracalla, a vast ruin. § Nero's.

They stretch their pavements. Lo, the fane of When age descends with sorrow to the grave,
Peace,*
"Tis sweetly-soothing sympathy to pain,
A gently-wakening call to health and ease.
How musical! when all-devouring Time,
Here sitting on his throne of ruins hoar,
While winds and tempests sweep his various lyre
How sweet thy diapason, Melancholy!

Cool evening comes; the setting Sun displays
His visible great round between yon towers,
As through two shady cliffs; away, my Muse,
Though yet the prospect pleases, ever new
In vast variety, and yet delight

Where Cæsars, heroes, peasants, hermits, lie,
Blended in dust together; where the slave
Rests from his labors; where th' insulting proud
Resigns his power; the miser drops his hoard;
Where human folly sleeps.-There is a mood,
(I sing not to the vacant and the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy,

That wings the soul, and points her to the skies;
When tribulation clothes the child of man,

Built by that prince, who to the trust of power
Was honest, the delight of human-kind.
Three nodding aisles remain; the rest a heap
Of sand and weeds; her shrines, her radiant roofs,
And columns proud, that from her spacious floor,
As from a shining sea, majestic rose

A hundred foot aloft, like stately beech
Around the brim of Dion's glassy lake,
Charming the mimic painter: on the walls
Hung Salem's sacred spoils; the golden board,
And golden trumpets, now conceal'd, entomb'd
By the sunk roof.-O'er which in distant view
Th' Etruscan mountains swell, with ruins crown'd
Of ancient towns; and blue Soracte spires,
Wrapping his sides in tempests. Eastward hence,
Nigh where the Cestian pyramid + divides
C
The mouldering wall, beyond yon fabric huge,
Whose dust the solemn antiquarian turns,
And thence, in broken sculptures cast abroad,
Like Sibyl's leaves, collects the builder's name
Rejoic'd, and the green medals frequent found
Doom Caracalla to perpetual fame :

The many-figur'd sculptures of the path
Half beauteous, half effac'd; the traveller
Such antique marbles to his native land
Oft hence conveys; and every realm and state
With Rome's august remains, heroes and gods,
Deck their long galleries and winding groves;
Yet miss we not th' innumerable thefts,
Yet still profuse of graces teems the waste.

Suffice it now th' Esquilian mount to reach
With weary wing, and seek the sacred rests
Of Maro's humble tenement; a low
Plain wall remains; a little sun-gilt heap,

The stately pines, that spread their branches wide Grotesque and wild; the gourd and olive brown
In the dun ruins of its ample halls,t
Appear but tufts; as may whate'er is high
Sink in comparison, minute and vile.

Weave the light roof: the gourd and olive fan
Their amorous foliage, mingling with the vine,
Who drops her purple clusters through the green

These, and unnumber'd, yet their brows uplift, Here let me lie, with pleasing fancy sooth'd:
Rent of their graces; as Britannia's oaks
On Merlin's mount, or Snowdon's rugged sides,
Stand in the clouds, their branches scatter'd round,
After the tempest; Mausoleums, Cirques,
Naumachios, Forums; Trajan's column tall,
From whose low base the sculptures wind aloft,
And lead through various toils, up the rough steep,
Its hero to the skies: and his dark towerý
Whose execrable hand the city fir'd,
And while the dreadful conflagration blaz'd,

Here flow'd his fountain; here his laurels grew;
Here oft the meek good man, the lofty bard
Fram'd the celestial song, or social walk'd
With Horace and the ruler of the world:
Happy Augustus! who, so well inspir'd,
Couldst throw thy pomps and royalties aside,
Attentive to the wise, the great of soul,
And dignify thy mind. Thrice-glorious days,
Auspicious to the Muses! then rever'd,
Then hallow'd was the fount, or secret shade,

Play'd to the flames; and Phœbus' letter'd dome ; Or open mountain, or whatever scene

war,

The poet chose, to tune th' ennobling rhyme
Melodious; e'en the rugged sons
E'en the rude hinds rever'd the poet's name :
But now-another age, alas! is ours-
Yet will the Muse a little longer soar,

And the rough relics of Carina's street,
Where now the shepherd to his nibbling sheep
Sits piping with his oaten reed; as erst
There pip'd the shepherd to his nibbling sheep,
When th' humble roof Anchises' son explor'd
Of good Evander, wealth-despising king,
Amid the thickets: so revolves the scene;
So Time ordains, who rolls the things of pride
From dust again to dust. Behold that heap
Of mouldering urns (their ashes blown away,
Dust of the mighty) the same story tell;
And at its base, from whence the serpent glides
Down the green desert street, yon hoary monk
Laments the same, the vision as he views,
The solitary, silent, solemn scene,

Unless the clouds of care weigh down her wing
Since Nature's stores are shut with cruel hand,
And each aggrieves his brother; since in vain
The thirsty pilgrim at the fountain asks

Th' o'erflowing wave-Enough-the plaint disdain

See'st thou yon fane ?* e'en now incessant time
Sweeps her low mouldering marbles to the dust;
And Phoebus' temple, nodding with its woods,
Threatens huge ruin o'er the small rotund.
'Twas there beneath a fig-tree's umbrage broad,
Th' astonish'd swains with reverend awe beheld
Thee, O Quirinus, and thy brother-twin,

* Begun by Vespasian, and finished by Titus.
†The tomb of Cestius, partly within and partly with- Pressing the teat within a monster's grasp

out the walls.

The Palatin library.

*The temple of Romulus and Remus, under Mount Palatin.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE, a popular and agreeable poet, was born at Hales-Owen, Shropshire, in 1714. His father was an uneducated gentleman farmer, who cultivated an estate of his own, called the Leasowes. William, after passing through other instruction, was removed to that of a clergyman at Solihull, from whom he acquired a fund of classical literature, together with a taste for the best English writers. In 1732 he was entered of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he formed one of a set of young men who met in the evenings at one another's chambers, and read English works in polite literature. He also began to exercise his poetical talent upon some light topics; but coming to the possession of his paternal property, with some augmentation, he following, perhaps too satirical, account. "Poot indulged himself in rural retirement, and forgetting man! he was always wishing for money, for fame, his calls to college residence, he took up his abode and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy at a house of his own, and commenced gentleman. consisted in living against his will in retirement, In 1737 he printed anonymously a small volume of and in a place which his taste had adorned, but juvenile poems, which was little noticed. His first which he only enjoyed when people of note came to visit to London, in 1740, introduced him to the ac-see and commend it."

the life which he invariably pursued, and which consisted in improving the picturesque beauties of the Leasowes, exercising his pen in casual effusions of verse and prose, and cultivating such society as lay within his reach. The fame of the Leasowes was widely spread by an elaborate description of Dodsley's, which drew multitudes of visitors to the place; and the house being originally only a farm, became inadequate to his grounds, and required enlargement. Hence he lay continually under the pressure of narrow circumstances, which preyed upon his spirits, and rendered him by no means a happy inhabitant of the little Eden he had created. Gray, from the perusal of his letters, deduces the

quaintance of Dodsley, who printed his "Judgment Shenstone died of a fever in February, 1763, in of Hercules," dedicated to his Hagley neighbor, Mr. his fiftieth year, and was interred in the church(afterwards Lord) Lyttleton. It was followed by a yard of Hales-Owen. Monuments to his memory work written before it, "The School-mistress," a were erected by several persons who loved the man, piece in Spenser's style and stanza, the heroine of and esteemed his poetry. Of the latter, the general which was a village dame, supposed to have given opinion is now nearly uniform. It is regarded as him his first instruction. The vein of benevolence commonly correct, elegant, melodious, and tender and good sense, and the touches of the pathetic, by in sentiment, and often pleasing and natural in dewhich this performance is characterized, render it scription, but verging to the languid and feeble. extremely pleasing, and perhaps place it at the head His prose writings, published in a separate volume, of his compositions. display good sense and cultivated taste, and sometimes contain new and acute observations on mankind.

After amusing himself with a few rambles to places of public resort, Shenstone now sat down to