O nobleft, happiest age;

When Ariftides rul'd, and Cimon fought; When all the generous fruits of Homer's page Exulting Pindar aw to full perfection brought. O Pindar, oft fhalt thou be hail'd of me; Not that Apollo fed thee from his fhrine; Not that thy lips drank fweetnefs from the bee; Nor yet that, ftudious of thy notes divine, Pan danc'd their measure with the fylvanthrong: But that thy long Was proud to unfold What thy bale rulers trembled to behold; Amid corrupted Thebes was proud to tell The deeds of Athens and the Perfian fhame: Hence on thy head their impious vengeance

fell.

But thou, O faithful to thy fame,
The Mufe's law didft rightly know;
That who would animate his lays,
And other minds to virtue raife,
Muft feel his own with all her ipirit glow.
III. I.

Are there, approv'd of latter times,
Whofe verfe adorn'd a tyrant's crimes?
Who faw majeftic Rome betray'd,
And lent the imperial ruffian aid?
Alas! not one polluted Bard,

No, not the ftrains that Mincius heard,
Or Tibur's hills reply'd,

Dare to the Mufe's ear afpire;

Save that, inftructed by the Grecian lyre,

With freedom's ancient notes their fhameful talk

But do you thus my favourite hopes fulfil? Is France at laft the standard of your skill? Alas for you! that fo betray a mind Of art unconscious, and to beauty blind. Say; does her language your ambition raise, Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrafe, Which fetters eloquence to scantieft bounds, And maims the cadence of poetic founds? Say; does your humble admiration chuse The gentle prattle of her Comic Mufe, While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear, Charg'd to fay nought but what the king may hear? Or rather melt your fympathizing hearts Won by her tragic fcene's romantic arts, Where old and young declaim on foft defire, And heroes never, but for love, expire?

No. Though the charms of novelty, a while, Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless fmile, Yet not for you defign'd iudulgent fate The modes or manners of the Bourbon ftate. And ill your minds my partial judgment reads, And many an augury my hope mifleads, If the fair maids of yonder blooming train To their light courtship would an audience deign, Or those chafte matrons a Parifian wife Chufe for the model of domeftic life; Or if one youth of all that generous band, The ftrength and fplendor of their native land, Would yield his portion of his country's fame, And quit old freedom's patrimonial claim, With lying fmiles Oppreffion's pomp to fee, And judge of glory by a king's decree.

O bleft at home with juftly-envied laws, O long the chiefs of Europe's general caufe, Whom Heaven hath chofen at each dangerous

hour

To check the inroads of barbaric power,
The rights of trampled nations to rectaim,
And guard the focial world from bonds and fhame;
Oh let not luxury's fantaftic charms
Thus give the lye to your heroic arms:
Nor for the ornaments of life embrace
Dishoneft leffons from that vaunting race,
Whom Fate's dread laws (for, in eternal Fate,
Defpotic Rule was heir to Freedom's hate)
Whom, in each warlike, each commercial part,
In civil counsel, and in pleasing art.
The Judge of earth predeftin'd for your foes,
And made it fame and virtue to oppole,

O DE II.

TO SLE E P..
1.

THOU filent power, whofe welcome fway

Charms every anxious thought away; In whofe divine oblivion drown'd, Sore pain and weary toil grow mild, Love is with kinder looks begail'd, And grief forgets her fondly-cherish'd wound; O whither haft thou flown, indulgent god? God of kind fhadows and of healing dews, Whom doft thou touch with thy Lethaan rod? Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffule ?

Nor yet thofe awful forms prefent, For chiefs and heroes only meant: The figur'd brafs, the choral feng, The rescued people's glad applause,

The liftening fenate, and the laws Fix'd by the counfels of Timeleon's tongue, Are fcenes too grand for Fortune's private ways; And though they fhine in youth's ingenuous view,

The fober gainful arts of modern days
To fuch, romantic thought, have bid a long adieu.
V.

I afk not, god of dreams, thy care
To banish Love's prefentments fair :
Nor rofy cheek, nor radiant eye.
Can arm him with fuch ftrong command

That the young forcerer's fatal hand Shall round my foul his pleafing fetters tie. Nor yet the courtier's hope, the giving fmile. (A lighter phantom, and a baler chain) Did e'er in lumber my proud lyre beguile To lend the pomp of thrones her ill-according ftrain.