Thro' his young woods how pleas'd Sabinus stray'd, Or sat delighted in the thickening shade, With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet, Or see the stretching branches long to meet ! His son's fine taste an opener vista loves, Foe to the Dryads of his father's groves; One boundless green or flourish'd carpet views, With all the mournful family of yews; The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made, Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away. Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around! No artful wildness to perplex the scene; And there a summer-house that knows no shade; But soft-by regular approach-not yet- thighs, Just at his study-door he'll bless your eyes. His study with what authors is it stor'd? In books, not authors, curious is my Lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round; These Aldus printed, those Du Suil has bound! Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good, For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood. For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look ; These shelves admit not any modern book. And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer: Light quirks of music, broken and unev'n, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heav'n. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all Paradise before your eye. To rest, the cushion and soft Dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite. But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; And complaisantly help'd to all I hate; I curse such lavish cost and little skill, Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his infants bread The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies His charitable vanity supplies. Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre; Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle? 'Tis use alone that sanctifies expence, And splendour borrows all her rays from sense. His father's acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase; Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil; Whose ample lawns are not asham'd to feed The milky heifer and deserving steed: Whose rising forests not for pride or show, But future buildings, future navies, grow; Let his plantations stretch from down to down, First shade a country, and then raise a town. You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before : Till kings call forth the' ideas of your mind, (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid harbours open, public ways extend, Bid temples worthier of the God ascend; Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main; Back to his bounds their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land: These honours Peace to happy Britain brings; These are imperial works, and worthy kings. H ARGUMENT. ŒEdipus king of Thebes having, by mistake, slain his father Laius, and married his mother Jocasta, put out his own eyes, and resigned his realm to his sons Eteocles and Polynices. Being neglected by them, he makes his prayer to the fury Tisiphone to sow debate betwixt the brothers. They agree at last to reign singly, each a year by turns, and the first lot is obtained by Eteocles. Jupiter, in a council of the gods, declares bis resolution of punishing the Thebans, and Argives also, by means of a marriage betwixt Polynices and one of the daughters of Adrastus king of Argos. Juno opposes, but to no effect; and Mercury is sent on a message to the shades, to the ghost of Laius, who is to appear to Eteocles, and provoke him to break the agreement. Polynices, in the mean time, departs from Thebes by night, is overtaken by a storm, and arrives at Argos; where he meets with Tydeus, who had filed from Calydon, having killed his brother. Adrastus entertains them, having received an oracle from Apollo that his daughters should be married to a boar and a lion, which he understands to be meant of these strangers, by whom the hides of those beasts were worn, and who arrived at the time when he kept an annual feast in honour of that god. The rise of this solemnity. He relates to his guests the loves of Phoebus and Psamathe, and the story of Choroebus: be inquires, and is made acquainted with their descent and quality. The sacrifice is renewed, and the book concludes with a hymn to Apollo. FRATERNAL rage the guilty Thebes alarms, Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree, And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea? What tho' the stars contract their heavenly space, |