To raife hid merit, fet th' alluring light Of virtue high to view; to nourish arts, 1165 Blefs human kind, and through the downward depth of future times to spread that better fun Which lights up British foul: for deeds like thefe, The dazzling fair career unbounded lies; 1170 While (ftill fuperior blifs!) the dark abrupt Is kindly barr'd, the precipice of ill. 1175 1180 The sheltering roof o'er all; while plenty flows, 1185 1190 NOTES Ver. 49. Ver. 52. Church power, or ecclefiaftical tyranny. Ver. 86. Ver. 91. Ver. 94. to their chief. Crufades. The corruptions of the church of Rome. Ver. 164. The Apollo of Belvidere. Ver. 175. The Venus of Medici. Ver. 185. The groupe of Laocoon and his two fons, deftroyed by two ferpents. Ver. 186. See Eneid ii. ver. 199-227. Ver. 208. It is reported of Michael Angelo Buonaroti, the most celebrated mafter of modern sculpture, that he wrought with a kind of inspiration, or enthusiaftical fury, which produced the effect here mentioned. Ver. 213, 214. Efteemed the two finest pieces of modern fculpture. Ver. 244. Ver. 266. The fchool of the Caracci. The river Arno runs through Florence. Ver. 269. The republics of Florence, Pifa, Lucca, and Sienna. They formerly have had very cruel wars together, but are now all peaceably fubject to the Great Duke Duke of Tuscany, except it be Lucca, which ftill maintains the form of a republic. Ver. 282. The Genoefe territory is reckoned very populous, but the towns and villages for the most part. lie hid among the Apennine rocks and mountains. Ver. 284. According to Dr. Burnet's fyftem of the deluge. Ver. 293. Venice was the moft flourishing city in Europe, with regard to trade, before the paffage to the Eaft Indies by the Cape of Good Hope and America were discovered. Ver. 294. Those who fled to fome marfhes in the Adriatic gulph, from the defolation fpread over Italy by an irruption of the Huns, first founded there this famous city, about the beginning of the fifth century. Ver. 319. The main ocean. Ibid. Great Britain. Ver. 325. The Swifs Cantons. Ver. 329. Geneva, fituated on the Lacus Lemanus, a small state, but noble example of the bleffings of civil and religious liberty. Ver. 347. The Swiss, after having been long absent from their native country, are feized with fuch a violent defire of seeing it again, as affects them with a kind of languishing indifpofition, called the Swifs fickness. Ver. 366. The Hans Towns. Ver. 372. The Swedes. Ver. 377. See note on verfe 678. Ver. 624. Great Britain was peopled by the Celtæ, or Gauls. Ver. 630. The Druids, among the ancient Gauls and Britons, had the care and direction of all religious matters. Ver. 645. The Roman empire. Ver. 647. Caledonia, inhabited by the Scots and Picts; whither a great many Britons, who would not fubmit to the Romans, retired. Ver. 652. The wall of Severus, built upon Adrian's rampart, which ran for eighty miles quite cross the country, from the mouth of the Tyne to Solway frith. Ver. 654. Irruptions of the Scots and Picts. Ver. 658. The Roman empire being miferably torn by the northern nations, Britain was for ever abandoned by the Romans in the year 426 or 427. Ver. 662. The Britons applying to Etius the Roman general for affiftance, thus expreffed their miserable condition." We know not which way to turn us. "The barbarians drive us to fea, and the fea forces us "back to the barbarians; between which we have only "the choice of two deaths, either to be swallowed up "by the waves, or butchered by the fword." Ver. 665. King of the Silures, famous for his great exploits, and accounted the beft general Great Britain had ever produced. The Silures were esteemed the braveft and most powerful of all the Britons: they inhabited Herefordshire, Radnorfhire, Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire, and Glamorganshire. Ver. 666. Queen of the Iceni: her story is well known. Ver. 678. It is certain, that an opinion was fixed and and general among them (the Goths) that death was but the entrance into another life; that all men who lived lazy and unactive lives, and died natural deaths, by sickness or by age, went into vast caves under ground, all dark and miry, full of noifome creatures ufual to fuch places, and there for ever grovelled in endless ftench and mifery. On the contrary, all who gave themfelves to warlike actions and enterprizes, to the conquest of their neighbours and the slaughter of their enemies, and died in battle, or of violent deaths upon bold adventures or refolutions, went immediately to the vaft hall or palace of Odin, their god of war, who eternally kept open house for all such guests, where they were entertained at infinite tables, in perpetual feafts and mirth, caroufing in bowls made of the skulls of their enemies they had flain; according to the number of whom, every one in these mansions of pleasure was the most honoured and beft entertained. Ver. 701. Sir William Temple's Effay on Heroic Virtue. The feven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxconfidered as being united into one common government, under a general in chief, or monarch, and by the means of an affembly general, or Wittenagemot. ons, Ver. 704. Egbert, king of Weffex, who, after having reduced all the other kingdoms of the heptarchy under his dominion, was the firft king of England, Ver. 709. A famous Danish ftandard was called reafan, or raven. The Danes imagined that, before a battle, the raven wrought upon this ftandard clapt its wings or hung down its head, in token of victory or defeat. Ver. |