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By turns the chief and bard their fouls inflame,
And every little bofom beats for fame.

Thus fhall they learn (as future times will fee)
From him to conquer, or to write from thee.

In every hand we fee the glorious song,
And Homer is the theme of every tongue.
Parties in state poetic schemes employ,

And Whig and Tory fide with Greece and Troy;
Neglect their feuds; and feem more zealous grown
To push thofe countries interests than their own.
Our busieft politicians have forgot

How Somers counsel'd, and how Marlborough fought;
But o'er their fettling coffee gravely tell,

What Neftor spoke, and how brave Hector fell.
Our fofteft beaux and coxcombs you infpire,
With Glaucus' courage, and Achilles' fire.
Now they refent affronts which once they bore,
And draw thofe fwords that ne'er were drawn before:
Nay, ev'n our belles, inform'd how Homer writ,

Learn thence to criticize on modern wit.

Let the mad criticks to their fide engage

The envy, pride, and dulness of the age:
In vain they curse, in vain they pine and mourn,
Back on themselves their arrows will retura;
Whoe'er would thy establish'd fame deface,
Are but immortaliz'd to their disgrace.
Live, and enjoy their spight, and share that fate,
Which would, if Homer liv'd, on Homer wait.

And lo! his fecond labour claims thy care,

Ulyffes' toils fucceed Achilles' war.

Hafte

Hafte to the work; the ladies long to fee
The pious frauds of chafte Penelope.

Helen they long have seen, whofe guilty charms
For ten whole years engag'd the world in arms.
Then, as thy fame shall see a length of days,
Some future Bard fhall thus record thy praise :
"In those bleft times when fmiling heaven and fate
"Had rais'd Britannia to her happiest state,
"When wide around, the faw the world submit,
"And own her fons fupreme in arts and wit;
"Then Pope and Dryden brought in triumph home,
“The pride of Greece, and ornament of Rome;
"To the great task each bold translator came,
"With Virgil's judgment, and with Homer's flame;
"Here the pleas'd Mantuan fwan was taught to foar,.
"Where scarce the Roman eagles tower'd before:
"And Greece no more was Homer's native earth,
"Though her feven rival cities claim'd his birth;
"On her feven cities he look'd down with scorn,
"And own'd with pride he was in Britain born."

Part of the FIRST ÆNE ID of VIRGIL tranflated.

A

RMS and the man I fing, the first who driven

By fate from Troy, the fugitive of heaven,

On land and fea by toils and tempefts toft,
Came to the Latian and Lavinian coaft;
Forc'd by the Gods inceffant wars to wage,
And urg'd by Juno's unrelenting rage;

Ere he could raife his town, and fix the Gods
He brought from Troy in Italy's abodes;
Hence our fam'd Latian line, and fenates come,
Hence rofe the lofty walls and towers of Rome.
Say, Muse, what causes could so far incense
Celestial powers, and what the dire offence
That mov'd heaven's awful emprefs to impofe,
On fuch a pious prince, fuch endless woes?
By fuch a round of toils fo long distrest :
Can rage
fo fierce inflame an heavenly breaft?
Against th' Italian coaft, of ancient fame
A city ftood, and Carthage was the name:
A Tyrian colony; from Tyber far,

Rich, brave, and practis'd in the arts of war:
Which Juno far above all realms, above
Her own dear Samos, honour'd with her love:
Here ftood her chariot, here her armour lay,
Here the defign'd, would destiny give way,
Ev'n then the seat of universal sway.

But of a race she heard, that should destroy
The Tyrian towers, a race deriv'd from Troy;
Who proud in arms, triumphant by their swords,
Should rife in time, the world's victorious lords;
Ordain'd by fate her Libya to fubdue,
And on her ruin'd empire raife a new.
This fear'd the goddefs; and in mind the bore
The late long war her fury rais'd before
For Greece at Troy; nor was her wrath refign'd,
But every cause hung heavy on her mind.

T

}

Her

Her injur❜d form, and Paris' judgment roll
Deep in her breaft, and kindle all her foul:
Th' immortal honours of the ravish'd boy;
And, laft, the whole detefted race of Troy.
With all these motives fir'd, from Latium far
She drove the relicks of the Grecian war;

Fate urg'd their courfe; and long they wander'd o'er
The boundless ocean, toft from shore to fhore:
So vaft the work to build fo vaft a frame,
And raife the glories of the Roman name.

Scarce from Sicilia's fhores the fhouting train
Spread their broad fails, and plow'd the foamy main;
When haughty Juno thus her rage expreft;
Th' eternal wound still rankling in her breast.
Then must I ftop? are all my labours vain ?
And muft this Trojan prince in Latium reign ?
The Fates, I find, may baffle Juno's aims ;
And why could Pallas, with avenging flames,
Burn a whole navy of the Grecian fhips,
And plunge the scatter'd Argives in the deeps?
She, for the crime of Ajax, from above

Launch'd through the clouds the fiery bolts of Jove; Difperft his fleet, and as her tempeft flew,

Expos'd the ocean's inmoft deeps to view.

Then, while transfix'd the blasted wretch expires,
Flames from his breaft, and fires fucceeding fires,
Snatch'd in a whirlwind, with a fudden fhock
She hurl'd him headlong on a pointed rock.
But I, who move fupreme in heaven's abodes,
Jove's fifter-wife, and emprefs of the Gods,

With this one nation must a war maintain
So many years; and wage that war in vain.
And now what fuppliants will invoke my name,
Adore my power, or bid my altars flame?

Thus fir'd with rage the furious Goddess flies
To dark Æolia from the diftant skies;
The native region of the ftorms fhe finds,
Where in huge gloomy caves their tyrant binds
The bluftering tempefts, and reluctant winds;
Whose rage imperial Æolus reftrains,

With rocky dungeons, and with heaps of chains:
While they, within the fpacious hollow pent,
Roar round the cave, and ftruggle for a vent.
From his high throne, their fury to asswage,
He waves his fceptre, and controls their rage:
Or, down the void their rapid whirls had driven
Earth, air, and ocean, and the heights of heaven.
But Jove, the mighty ruin to prevent,

In gloomy caves the airy captives pent,

O'er their wild rage the ponderous rocks he spread,
And hurl'd huge heaps of mountains on their head;
And gave a king commiffion'd to restrain,

And curb the tempest, or to loose the rein.

}

Whom thus the queen addrefs'd; Since mighty Jove The king of men, and fire of Gods above,

Has given thee, Æolus, the power to raise
Storms at thy fovereign will, or fmooth the feas;
A race, I long have labour'd to destroy,

Waft to Hefperia the remains of Troy.
T 2

Ev'n

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