"A present deity!" they shout around; "A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound: With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, And seems to shake the spheres. 3. The praise of Bacchus,' then, the sweet musician sung, Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young! The jolly god in triumph comes! Sound the trumpet! beat the drums! He shows his honest face. Now give the hautboys breath!—he comes! he comes! Drinking joys did first ordain: Sweet the pleasure; Sweet is pleasure, after pain! 4. Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes! He sung Darius, great and good, Fallen fallen! fallen! fallen! Fallen from his great estate, 'BACCHUS, see p. 79, note 4 — DARIUS III., sometimes called CODOMANNUS, in whose defeat by ALEXANDER the Great the Persian empire was consummated, succeeded to the throne B. c. 336; and was killed And weltering in his blood! Deserted at his utmost need By those his former bounty fed, With not a friend to close his eyes. With downcast look the joyous victor sate, The various turns of fate below; 5. The mighty master smiled to see Fighting still, and still destroying: Take the good the gods provide thee. Who caused his care, And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, 6. Now strike the golden lyre again; A louder yet, and yet a louder strain; 'Lydian (lid' i an), pertaining to Lydia, a country of Asia Minor, or to its inhabitants: hence, soft; effeminate; noting a kind of soft, slow music, anciently in vogue. 7. 8. Break his bands of sleep asunder, And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder Has raised up his head, As awaked from the dead; See the furies arise! See the snakes that they rear, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And, unburied remain Inglorious on the plain. Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew. Behold how they toss their torches on high! How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods! The princes appland with a furious joy; And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy: To light him to his prey; And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. At last, divine Cecilia came, 'HELEN, a most beautiful woman of ancient Greece, whom PARIS, the son of PRIAM, king of Troy, stole from the arms of her husband, MENSLAUS, who, with the other Greek chiefs, resolved to avenge her ab-luction. Hence rose the Trojan war, which lasted ten years. --2 CECILIA, the patron saint of music, erroneously regarded as the inventress of the Inventress of the vocal frame: And added length to solemn sounds, With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before. Or both divide the crown: He raised a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down. DRYDEN. JOHN DRYDEN, one of the great masters of English verse, was born at Old winckle, in Northamptonshire, August, 1631. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge. He began his literary career by a set of heroic stanzas on the death of CROMWELL, which was a good precursor of his future excellence. The Restoration occurring when he was in his thirtieth year, excluded him for the time from government employment and patronage, and he at once devoted himself to literature for a profession. The stage now offered itself as the only means through which his pen could furnish a livelihood; and, in the course of twenty-five years, he wrote twenty-seven dramas, the most remarkable of which are his "Heroic Plays." From these rhymed dialogues arose that mastery of the English heroic couplet which he was the first to acquire, and in which no succeeding poet has nearly equaled him. The prefaces, dedications, and essays, with which he accompanied his dramas, exhibit him at once as the earliest writer of regular and elegant English prose, and as the first who aimed in our language at any thing like philosophical criticism. These prose fragments contain some of the most felicitous specimens of style which our tongue has ever produced. His engagement to write plays for the King's Theater gave him £300 a year: his circumstances were improved by his marriage, in 1665, with Lady ELIZABETH HOWARD, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire; and in 1670 he received, with a salary of £200 a year and the famous butt of wine, the joint oflices of historiographer-royal and poet laureate. "Absalom and Achitophel," the best of all his political satires, appeared in 1681 "The Medal" and " Mac Flecknoe," works of the same kind, followed soon after In 1685, DRYDEN was received into the Church of Rome, the first public fruit of which was the "Hind and Panther," a rich allegorical poem, in which the main arguments of the Roman Church are stated. The Revolution, taking place in his fifty-seventh year, deprived the poet of his courtly patrons and pensions, and forced him to spend the last twelve years of his life in hard toil. Some of his best works were produced in this period. In 1690 appeared his tragedy of" Don Sebastian," the best of his serious plays. In 1697 he threw off at a heat his "Alexander's Feast," one of the most animated of all lyrical poems; and his spirited translation of Virgil appeared the same year. Lastly, in the spring of 1700, were published his Fables," which prove that his warm imagination then burned as brightly as ever, and that his metrical skill increased organ, suffered martyrdom A. D. 220. She has been celebrated by several of the poets, and depicted on canvass by more than one of the great painters. RAPHAEL has presented her as the personification of heavenly devotion. the close of his life. These admirable poems shed a glory on the last days of the poet, who died on the 1st of May, 1700. For an extended description of DRYDEN'S poetical endowments, the reader is referred to the 63d Exercise, p. 228 160. THE STOLEN RIFLE. MACKENZIE öffered to cross the river and demand the rifle, if any one would accompany him. It was a hair-brained project, for these villages were noted for the ruffian' character of their inhabitants; yet two volunteers promptly stepped forward, Alfred Seton, the clerk, and Joe de la Pierre, the cook. The tri'ō soon reached the opposite side of the river. On landing, they freshly primed their rifles and pistols. A path winding for about a hundred yards among rocks and crags, led to the village. 2. No notice seemed to be taken of their approach. Not a solitary being-man, woman, or child-greeted them. The věry dogs, those noisy pests of an Indian town, kept silence. On entering the village a boy made his appearance, and pointed to a house of larger dimensions than the rest. They had to stoop to enter it as soon as they had passed the threshold, the nărrow passage behind them was filled by a sudden rush of Indians, who had before kept out of sight. 3. Mackenzie and his companions found themselves in a rude chamber of about twenty-five feet long, and twenty wide. A bright fire was blazing at one end, near which sat the chief, about sixty years old. A large number of Indians, wrapped in buffalo robes, were squatted in rows, three deep, forming a semicircle round three sides of the room. A single glance sufficed to show them the grim and dangerous assembly into which they had intruded, and that all retreat was cut off by the mass which blocked up the entrance. 4. The chief pointed to the vacant side of the room opposite to the door, and motioned for them to take their seats. They complied. A dead pause ensued. The grim warriors around sat like statues; each muffled in his robe, with his fierce eyes bent on the intruders. The latter felt they were in a perilous predicament. 5. "Keep your eyes on the chief while I am addressing him," 'Ruffian (ruf yan).- Indian (Ind'yan). |