There filver rivers through enamel'd meadows glide,

And golden trees enrich their fide;
Th' illuftrious leaves no dropping autumn fear,
And jewels for their fruit they bear,

Which by the bleft are gathered

For bracelets to the arm, and garlands to the head.
Here all the Heroes, and their Poets, live;
Wife Rhadamanthus did the fentence give,
Who for his juftice was thought fit
With fovereign Saturn on the bench to fit.
Peleus here, and Cadmus, reign;
Here great Achilles, wrathful now no more,
Since his bleft mother (who before

Had try'd it on his body' in vain)

Dipt now his foul in Stygian lake,

Which did from thence a divine hardness take,

That does from paffion and from vice invulnerable make.

To Theron, Muse! bring back thy wandering song,
Whom those bright troops expect impatiently;
And may they do fo long!

How, noble archer! do thy wanton arrows fly
At all the game that does but cross thine eye;
Shoot, and fpare not, for I fee

Thy founding quiver can ne'er emptied be:
Let Art ufe method and good-husbandry,
Art lives on Nature's alms, is weak and poor;
Nature herself has unexhausted store,

Wallows

Wallows in wealth, and runs a turning maze,
That no vulgar eye can trace.

Art, instead of mounting high,

About her humble food does hovering fly;

Like the ignoble crow, rapine and noife does love;
Whilft Nature, like the facred bird of Jove,
Now bears loud thunder; and anon with filent joy
The beauteous Phrygian boy

Defeats the ftrong, o'ertakes the flying prey,
And fometimes basks in th' open flames of day;
And fometimes too he fhrowds

His foaring wings among the clouds.

Leave, wanton Mufe! thy roving flight;
To thy loud ftring the well-fletcht arrow put;
Let Agrigentum be the Butt,

And Theron be the White.

And, left the name of verfe should give
Malicious men pretext to misbelieve,
By the Caftalian waters fwear
(A facred oath no poets dare

To take in vain,

No more than Gods do that of Styx prophane),
Swear, in no city e'er before,
A better man, or greater-foul'd, was born;
Swear, that Theron fure has fworn

No man near him fhould be poor;

Swear, that none e'er had fuch a graceful art
Fortune's free gifts as freely to impart,

With an unenvious hand, and an unbounded heart.

But

But in this thankless world the givers
Are envied ev'n by the receivers :
'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion,
Rather to hide, than pay, the obligation :
Nay, 'tis much worse than fo;
It now an artifice does grow,
Wrongs and outrages to do,

Left men should think we owe.

Such monsters, Theron! has thy virtue found:
But all the malice they profess,

Thy fecure honour cannot wound;
For thy vaft bounties are so numberless,
That them or to conceal, or else to tell,

Is equally impoffible!

THE

THE FIRST NEMEAAN ODE OF PINDA R.

Chromius, the fon of Agefidamus, a young gentleman of Sicily, is celebrated for having won the prize of the chariot-race in the Nemean games (a folemnity inftituted first to celebrate the funeral of Opheltes, as is at large defcribed by Statius; and afterwards continued every third year, with an extraordinary conflux of all Greece, and with incredible honour to the conquerors in all the exercises there practifed) upon which occafion the poet begins with the commendation of his country, which I take to have been Ortygia (an island belonging to Sicily, and a part of Syracufe, being joined to it by a bridge) though the title of the Ode call him Ætnæan Chromius, perhaps because he was made governor of that town by Hieron. From thence he falls into the praise of Chromius's perfon, which he draws from his great endowments of mind and body, and most especially from his hofpitality, and the worthy ufe of his riches. He likens his beginning to that of Hercules ; and, according to his ufual manner of being transported with any good hint that meets him in his way, paffing into a digreffion of Hercules, and his flaying the two ferpents in his cradle, concludes the Ode with that history. Eauteous Ortygia! the firft breathing-place

Fair Delos' fifter, the child-bed
Of bright Latona, where the bred

3

Th' ori,

Th' original new-moon!

Who faw'ft her tender forehead ere the horns were

grown!

Who, like a gentle scion newly started out,

From Syracufa's fide doft sprout!

Thee first my song does greet,
With numbers smooth and fleet
As thine own horfes' airy feet,
When they young Chromius' chariot drew,
And o'er the Nemean race triumphant flew.
Jove will approve my fong and me;
Jove is concern'd in Nemea, and in thee.

With Jove my fong; this happy man,
Young Chromius, too, with Jove began;
From hence came his fuccefs,

Nor ought he therefore like it lefs,
Since the best fame is that of happiness;
For whom should we esteem above
The men whom Gods do love ?
'Tis them alone the Muse too does approve.
Lo! how it makes this victory shine
O'er all the fruitful ifle of Proferpine!
The torches which the mother brought
When the ravifh'd maid she fought,
Appear'd not half fo bright,

But caft a weaker light,

Through earth, and air, and seas, and up to th' heavenly

vault.

T