While horror fills the region vaft,
Rheumatic tortures Eurus brings,
Pregnant with agues flies the northern blaft,
And clouds drop quartans from their flagging wings.
Doft thou explore Sabrina's fountful fource,
Where huge Plinlimmon's hoary height afcends:
Then downward mark her vagrant course,
'Till mix'd with clouds the landscape ends?
Doft thou revere the hallow'd foil
Where Druids old fepulchred lie;
up cold Snowden's craggy fummits toil, And mufe on ancient favage liberty?
Ill fuit fuch walks with bleak autumnal air,
Say, can November yield the joys of May?
When Jove deforms the blafted year,
Can Wallia boast a chearful day?
The town expects thee.
Through every street of gay refort,
New chariots rattle with awak'ning found,
And crowd the levees, and besiege the court.
The patriot, kindling as his wars enfue,
Now fires his foul with liberty and fame,
Marshals his threat'ning tropes anew,
And gives his hoarded thunders aim.
Now feats their abfent lords deplore,
Neglected villas empty stand,
Capacious Gro'venor gathers all its store,
And mighty London fwallows up the land.
See fportive Vanity her flights begin,
See new-blown Folly's plenteous harvest rise,
See mimic beauties dye their fkin,
And harlots roll their venal eyes.
Fashions are fet, and fops return,
And young coquettes in arms appear;
Dreaming of conqueft, how their bofoms burn,
Trick'd in the new fantastry of the year.
Fly then away, nor fcorn to bear a part
In this gay scene of folly amply spread:
Follies well us'd refine the heart,
And pleasures clear the ftudious head;
By grateful interchange of mirth
The toils of study sweeter grow,
As varying seasons recommend the earth,
Nor does Apollo always bend his bow,
WHILE born to bring the Mufe's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays:
While nurs'd by you she fees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb:
Excufe her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What fecret transports in her bosom swell:
With conscious awe fhe hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespear's name.
Hard was the lot those injur'd ftrains endur'd,
Unown'd by Science, and by years obfcur❜d:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing fighs confefs'd
A fixt defpair in every tuneful breast.
Not with more grief th' afflicted fwains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When ling'ring frosts the ruin'd feats invade
Where Peace reforted, and the Graces play'd.
Each rifing art by juft gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves:
The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,
And grac'd with nobleft pomp her earliest stage.
Preferv'd through time, the speaking scenes impart
Each changeful wifh of Phædra's tortur'd heart:
Or paint the curse that mark'd the Theban's reign,
A bed incestuous, and a father flain.
With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,
Trace the fad tale, and own another's woe.
To Rome remov'd, with wit fecure to please,
The Comic fifters kept their native ease.
With jealous fear declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almoft excell'd!
But
every Mufe effay'd to raise in vain.
Some labour'd rival of her Tragic strain;
Ilyffus' laurels though transferr'd with toil,
Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew th' unfriendly foil. As arts expir'd, refiftlefs Dulnefs rofe;
Goths, priests, or Vandals, all were Learning's foes. 'Till Julius firft recall'd each exil'd maid,
And Cofmo own'd them in th' Etrurian fhade:
Then deeply skill'd in love's engaging theme,
The foft Provencial pass'd to Arno's stream:
With graceful ease the wanton lyre he strung,
Sweet flow'd the lays but love was all he fung.
The gay description could not fail to move;
For, led by nature, all are friends to love.
But heav'n, still various in its works, decreed
The perfect boaft of time should last fucceed.
The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tufcan fancy, and Athenian strength:
One greater Mufe Eliza's reign adorn,
And ev❜n a Shakespear to her fame be born!
Yet ah! fo bright her morning's opening ray,
In vain our Britain hop'd an equal day!
No fecond growth the western ifle could bear,
At once exhaufted with too rich a year.
Too nicely Johnfon knew the critic's part;
Nature in rim was almoft loft in art.
Julius II. the immediate predeceffor of Leo X.
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