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Be mine the blessings of a peaceful reign.
No more my sons shall dye with British blood
Red Iber's sands, or Ister's foaming flood:
Safe on my shore each unmolested swain

Shall tend the flocks, or reap the bearded grain;
The shady empire shall retain no trace
Of war or blood, but in the sylvan chase;

370

The trumpet sleep, while cheerful horns are blown,

And arms employ'd on birds and beasts alone.
Behold! th' ascending Villas on my side

375

Project long shadows o'er the crystal tide.
Behold! Augusta's glitt'ring spires increase,

And Temples rise1, the beauteous works of Peace.
see, I see, where two fair cities bend
Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend2!
There mighty Nations shall inquire their doom,
The World's great Oracle in times to come;

380

There Kings shall sue, and suppliant States be seen
Once more to bend before a BRITISH QUEEN.

Thy trees, fair Windsor! now shall leave their woods,

385

And half thy forests rush into thy floods,

Bear Britain's thunder, and her Cross display,

To the bright regions of the rising day;

Tempt icy seas, where scarce the waters roll,

Where clearer flames glow round the frozen Pole:
Or under southern skies exalt their sails,

390

Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales !

For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,
The coral redden, and the ruby glow,

The pearly shell its lucid globe infold,

395

And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold.

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames3 shall flow for all mankind,

Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
And seas but join the regions they divide;
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,

400

And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
Then ships of uncouth form shall stem the tide,
And feather'd people crowd my wealthy side,
And naked youths and painted chiefs admire
Our speech, our colour, and our strange attire!

405

O stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore,

Till Conquest cease, and Slav'ry be no more;
Till the freed Indians in their native groves

Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves,

410

Peru once more a race of kings behold,
And other Mexico's be roof'd with gold.
Exil'd by thee from earth to deepest hell,

In brazen bonds shall barbarous Discord dwell;

1 And temples rise,] The fifty new churches. P. 2 [Designs for a new palace of Whitehall had been commenced by Inigo Jones.]

3 Unbounded Thames, etc.] A wish that London may be made a free port. P.

Gigantic Pride, pale Terror, gloomy Care,
And mad Ambition, shall attend her there:
There purple Vengeance bath'd in gore retires,
Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires:
There hateful Envy her own snakes shall feel,,
And Persecution mourn her broken wheel:
There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,
And gasping Furies thirst for blood in vain.
Here cease thy flight, nor with unhallow'd lays
Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days:
The thoughts of gods let Granville's verse recite,
And bring the scenes of op'ning fate to light.
My humble Muse, in unambitious strains,
Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains,
Where Peace descending bids her olives spring,
And scatters blessings from her dovelike wing.
Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days,
Pleas'd in the silent shade with empty praise;
Enough for me, that to the list'ning swains
First in these fields I sung the sylvan strains.

415

420

425

430

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 6. 'neget quis carmina Gallo?' Virg. Warburton.

Ver. 65. The fields were ravish'd from th' industrious swains, From men their cities, and from Gods their fanes:]

Translated from,

'Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis,' an old monkish writer, I forget who. P.

Ver. 89. 'Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.' Virg. Warburton.

Ver. 134. 'Præcipites alta vitam sub nube relinquunt.' Virg. Warburton.

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'Sol erat a tergo: vidi præcedere longam
Ante pedes umbram: nisi si timor illa videbat.
Sed certe sonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens

Ver. 151. Th' impatient courser, etc.] Trans- Crinales vittas afflabat anhelitus oris.' lated from Statius,

'Stare adeo miserum est, pereunt vestigia mille Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.'

These lines Mr Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says they would cost him an hour, if he had the leisure to translate them, there is so much of beauty in the original; which was the reason, I suppose, why Mr P. tried his strength with them. Warburton.

Most of the circumstances in this tale are taken from Ovid. Warton.

Ver. 249, 50. 'Servare modum finemque tenere.
Naturamque sequi.'
Luc.
Ver. 259. 'O qui me gelidis, etc.'

Ver. 421.

Virg. Warburton.

'Quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax
Referre sermones Deorum et

Magna modis tenuare parvis.'

Hor. Warburton.

ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY,

MDCCVIII.

AND OTHER PIECES FOR MUSIC.

ODE FOR MUSIC ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

[This famous Ode, written by Pope in the year 1708 at Steele's desire, in praise of an art of the principles of which he was ignorant, while to its effects he was insensible,' has been naturally compared by successive generations of critics to Dryden's masterpiece on the same subject. A superiority which few will be disposed to deny has been generally claimed for Alexander's Feast; but it may be questioned whether in this class of poetry either the choice of historical instead of mythological illustrations, or the unity of the action represented, is to be regarded as an absolute merit. A more tenable objection to Pope's Ode is the circumstance that in his endeavour to vary expressively the versification, he has in Stanza IV. and in the second part of Stanza V. permitted himself the use of metres which mar the dignity of the poem. This Ode was set to music as an exercise for his degree of doct. mus. by Maurice Greene, and performed at the Public Commencement at Cambridge, on July 6th, 1730. The text of the Ode as sung on this occasion contains in the first four stanzas many variations introduced by Pope; and the following stanza is inserted as the third of the Ode:

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How martial music ev'ry bosom warms! So when the first bold vessel dar'd the seas, High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain,

While Argo saw her kindred trees Descend from Pelion to the main. Transported demi-gods stood round1, And men grew heroes at the sound, Enflam'd with glory's charms: Each chief his sev'nfold shield display'd, And half unsheath'd the shining blade: And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound, To arms, to arms, to arms!

IV.

44

But when thro' all th' infernal bounds,
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds, 50
Love, strong as Death, the Poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear'd,

1 Few images in any poet, ancient or modern, are more striking than that in Apollonius, where he says, that when the Argo was sailing near the coast where the Centaur Chiron dwelt, he came down to the very margin of the sea, bringing his wife with the young Achilles in her arms, that he might shew the child to his father Peleus, who was on his voyage with the other Argonauts.

Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans,

But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And cries of tortur'd ghosts!
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire,

60

65

See, shady forms advance! Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still 2, Ixion rests upon his wheel,

And the pale spectres dance! And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round The Furies sink upon their iron beds,

their heads.

V.

By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow

O'er th' Elysian flow'rs; By those happy souls who dwell In yellow meads of Asphodel,

70

75

80

Or Amaranthine bow'rs; By the hero's armed shades, Glitt'ring thro' the gloomy glades, By the youths that died for love, Restore, restore Eurydice to life: Wand'ring in the myrtle grove, Oh take the husband, or return the wife! He sung, and hell consented To hear the Poet's prayer: Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair. Thus song could prevail O'er death, and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! Tho' fate had fast bound her 90 With Styx nine times round her3, Yet music and love were victorious.

Apollon. Rhod. v. 553. Warton.

85

2 This line is taken from an ode of Cobb. Warton.

3 [Warton justly observes that these numbers are of so burlesque, so low, and ridiculous a kind, and have so much the air of a vulgar drinking song, that one is amazed and concerned to find them in a serious ode.]

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[Julius Cæsar, after undergoing a previous process of emasculation, was converted by the Duke of Buckinghamshire into two five act tragedies, entitled respectively Julius Cæsar and Marcus Brutus, each being supplied with a Prologue and choruses between the acts. They were published in 1722. Pope's choruses occur after the Ist and the IInd Act of Brutus respectively. The best excuse for Buckinghamshire's attempt lies in what is really a fault in Shakspere's work-its duality of heroes; but the manner in which he executed this task speaks ill for the judgment of one who himself avers that the hope of mending Shakspere is 'such a jest would make a stoic smile.' The concluding lines of his Casar may be quoted as a specimen of his additions:

'Ambition, when unbounded, brings a curse,

But an assassinate deserves a worse.

As to John Sheffield Duke of Buckinghamshire see note to Essay on Crit. v. 724.]

1 Altered from Shakespear by the Duke of Buckingham, at whose desire these two Chorus's were composed to supply as many wanting in

his play. They were set many years afterwards by the famous Bononcini, and performed at Buckingham-house. P.

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