And balanc'd steady, every tempest fung
Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand.
But when, with sudden and enormous change,
The First of Mankind funk into the Last,
As once in Virtue so in Vice extreme,
This univerfal Fabric yielded loose,
Before Ambition still, and thundering down,
At last, beneath its ruins crush'd a world.
A conquering people, to themfelves a prey,
Muft ever fall; when their victorious troops,
In blood and rapine favage grown, can find
No land to fack and pillage but their own.
By brutal MARIUS, and keen SYLLA, first
Effus'd the deluge dire of civil blood,
Unceafing woes began: and this, or that,
(Deep-drenching their revenge) nor virtue fpar'd,
Nor fex, nor age, nor quality, nor name;
Till ROME, into an human shambles turn'd,
Made defarts lovely.-Oh to well-earn'd chains
Devoted race! If no true ROMAN then,
NO SCAEVOLA there was, to raise for ME
A vengeful hand: was there no father, robb'd
Of blooming youth to prop his wither'd age?
No fon, a witness to his hoary fire
In duft and gore defil'd? No friend, forlorn?
No wretch, that doubtful trembled for himself?
None brave, or wild, to pierce a nonfter's heart,
Who, heaping horror round, no more deferv'd
The facred fhelter of the laws he spurn'd?
No. Sad o'er all profound dejection fat;
And nervelefs fear. The flave's afylum theirs:
Or flight, ill-judging, that the timid back
Turns weak to flaughter; or partaken guilt.
In vain from SYLLA's vanity I drew
An unexampled deed. The power refign'd,
And all unhop'd the commonwealth restor'd,
Amaz'd the public, and effac'd his crimes.
Thro' streets yet streaming from his murderous hand
Unarm'd he stray'd, unguarded, unaffail'd,
And on the bed of peace his afhes laid;
A grace, which I to his demiffion gave.
But with him dy'd not the defpotic soul.
Ambition faw that stooping ROME could bear
A MASTER, nor had virtue to be free.
Hence, for fucceeding years, my troubled reign
No certain peace, no spreading prospect knew.
Destruction gather'd round. Still the black foul,
Or of a CATILINE, or* RULLUS, fwell'd
With fell designs: and all the watchful art
Of CICERO demanded, all the force,
All the ftate-wielding magic of his tongue;
And all the thunder of my CATO's zeal.
With these I linger'd; till the flame anew
Burst out in blaze immense, and wrapt the world.
The shameful contest sprung; to whom mankind
Should yield the neck: to POMPEY, who conceal'd
A rage impatient of an equal name;
Or to the nobler CAESAR, on whose brow
O'er daring vice deluding virtue fmil'd,
And who no lefs a vain superior scorn'd.
Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rofe.
The venal WILL be bought, the bafe have lords.
To thefe vile wars I left ambitious flaves;
PUB. SERVILIUS RULLUs, tribune of the people, proposed an Agrarian Law, in appearance very advantageous for the people, but destructive of their liberty; and which was defeated by the eloquence of CICERO, in his fpeech against RULLUS.
And from Philippi's field, from where in duft
The laft of Romans, matchless BRUTUS! lay,
Spread to the north untam'd a rapid wing.
What tho' the first smooth CAESARS arts caress'd, Merit, and virtue, fimulating ME?
Severely tender! cruelly humane!
The chain to clinch, and make it softer fit
On the new-broken ftill ferocious state.
From the dark * Third, fucceeding, I beheld
Th' imperial monsters all.-A race on earth
Vindictive fent, the fcourge of human-kind!
Whose blind profufion drain❜d a bankrupt world;
Whose lust to forming Nature feems difgrace;
And whofe infernal rage bade every drop
Of antient blood, that yet retain'd my flame,
To that of PAETUS in the peaceful bath.
Or ROME's affrighted streets, inglorious flow.
But almost just the meanly-patient death,
That waits a tyrant's unpreventing stroke.
TITUS indeed gave one short evening gleam;
More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread
Of storm, and horror. The delight of men!
He, who the day when his o'erflowing hand
Had made no happy heart, concluded loft:
TRAJAN and HE, with the MILD SIRE, and SON, 505 His fon of virtue! eas'd a while mankind;
And Arts reviv'd beneath their gentle bean.
THRASEA PAETUS, put to death by Nero. TACITUS introduces the account he gives of his death thus.—“ After having inhumanly flaughter'd fo many illustrious men, he (Nero) burned at laft with a defire of cutting off virtue its "felf in the perfon of THRASE A," &c.
ANTONINUS Pius, and his adopted fon MARCUS AURELIUS, afterwards called ANTONINUS PHILOSOPHUS.
Then was their last effort: what Sculpture rais'd
TO TRAJAN'S glory, following triumph's stole;
And mix'd with Gothic forms, (the chiffel's fhame), 510
On that triumphal arch, the forms of GREECE.
Meantime o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep vales
Of gelid Haemus, I purfu'd my flight;
And, piercing fartheft Scythia, westward swept
* Sarmatia, travers'd by a thousand streams.
A fullen land of lakes, and fens immense,
Of rocks, refounding torrents, gloomy heaths,
And cruel defarts black with founding pine;
Where Nature frowns: tho' sometimes into fimiles
She softens; and immediate, at the touch
Of fouthern gales, throws from the fudden glebe...
Luxuriant pasture, and a waste of flowers.
But cold-compreft, when the whole loaded heaven.
Defcends in fnow, loft in one white abrupt
Lyes undistinguish'd earth; and, feiz'd by froft, 525
Lakes, headlong ftreams, and floods, and oceans fleep.
Yet there life glows; the furry millions there
Deep-dig their dens beneath the sheltering snows ;
And there a race of men prolific swarms,
To various pain, to little pleafure us'd
On whom, keen-parching, beat Riphaean winds;
Hard like their foil, and like their climate fierce ;
The nursery of nations !-These I rous'd,
Drove land on land, on people people pour'd;
Till from almoft perpetual night they broke,
As if in fearch of day; and o'er the banks
CONSTANTINE's arch, to build which, that of TRAJAN was destroyed, Sculpture having been then almost entirely loft..
*The ancient Sarmatia contained a vaft tract of country, sunning all along the north of Europe and Afta, A a 3
Of yielding empire, only flave-fuftain'd,
Refiftless rage'd, in vengeance urg'd by ME.
Long in the barbarous heart the bury'd feeds
Of Freedom lay, for many a wintry age;
And tho' my Spirit work'd by flow degrees,
Nought but its pride and fierceness yet appear'd.
Then was the night of time, that parted worlds.
I quitted earth the while. As when the tribes
Aerial, warn'd of rifing Winter, ride
Autumnal winds, to warmer climates borne;
So, Arts and each good Genius in my train,
I cut the clofing gloom, and foar'd to Heaven.
In the bright regions there of purest day,
Far other scenes, and palaces, arife,
Adorn'd profufe with other arts divine.
All beauty here below, to them compar'd,
Would, like a rofe before the mid-day fun,
Shrink up its bloffom; like a bubble break
The paffing poor magnificence of kings.
For there the KING OF NATURE, in full blaze,
Calls every fplendor forth; and there his court
Amid aetherial powers, and virtues, holds,
Angel, archangel, tutelary gods,
Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds.
But facred be the veil, that kindly clouds
A light too keen for mortals; wraps a view
Too foftening fair, for those that here in duft
Muft chearful toil out their appointed years.
A fenfe of higher life would only damp
The school-boy's tafk, and spoil his playful hours:
Nor could the child of reason, feeble man,
With vigor thro' this infant being drudge;
Did brighter worlds, their unimagin'd blifs
Disclosing, dazzle and diffove his mind.
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