Unpetrified by self, so naked lay,

And sensible to truth, that o'er the rage
Of giddy faction, by oppression swell'd,
Prevail'd a simple fable, and at once
To peace recover'd the divided state.
But if their often-cheated hopes refus'd
The soothing touch; still, in the love of Rome,
The dread dictator found a sure resource.
Was she assaulted? was her glory stain'd?
One common quarrel wide-inflam'd the whole.
Foes in the forum, in the field were friends,
By social danger bound; each fond for each,
And for their dearest country all, to die.

See that which borders wild the western main,
Where storms at large resound, and tides immense:
From Caledonia's dim cerulean coast,
And moist Hibernia, to where Atlas, lodg'd
Amid the restless clouds, and leaning Heaven,
Hangs o'er the deep that borrows thence its name.
Mark that oppos'd, where first the springing Morn
Her roses sheds, and shakes around her dews:
From the dire deserts by the Caspian lav'd,
To where the Tigris and Euphrates, join'd,
Impetuous tear the Babylonian plain;
And blest Arabia aromatic breathes.
See that dividing far the watery north,
Parent of floods! from the majestic Rhine,
Drunk by Batavian meads, to where, seven-mouth'd,
In Euxine waves the flashing Danube roars;
To where the frozen Tanaïs scarcely stirs
The dead Meotic pool, or the long Rha,t
In the black Scythian sea his torrent throws.
Last, that beneath the burning zone behold:
See where it runs, from the deep-loaded plains
Of Mauritania to the Libyan sands,
Where Ammon lifts amid the torrid waste
A verdant isle, with shade and fountain fresh ;
And farther to the full Egyptian shore,
To where the Nile from Ethiopian clouds,
His never-drain'd ethereal urn, descends.
In this vast space what various tongues, and states!
What bounding rocks, and mountains, floods and
seas?

What purple tyrants quell'd, and nations freed!

"O'er Greece descended chief, with stealth divine,
The Roman bounty in a flood of day:
As at her Isthmian games, a fading pomp!
Her full-assembled youth innumerous swarm'd.
On a tribunal rais'd Flaminius sat;
A victor he, from the deep phalanx pierc'd
Of iron-coated Macedon, and back
The Grecian tyrant to his bounds repell'd.
In the high thoughtless gaiety of game,
While sport alone their unambitious hearts
Possess'd; the sudden trumpet, sounding hoarse,
Bade silence o'er the bright assembly reign.
Then thus a herald-To the states of Greece
The Roman people, unconfin'd, restore

*The ancient name of the Volga.
†The Caspian sea.

The king of Macedonia.

Their countries, cities, liberties, and laws:
Taxes remit, and garrisons withdraw.'
The crowd, astonish'd half, and half-inform'd,
Star'd dubious round; some question'd, some ex
claim'd,

(Like one who, dreaming, between hope and fear,
Is lost in anxious joy,) Be that again,

Be that again proclaim'd, distinct, and loud.'
Loud, and distinct, it was again proclaim'd;
And still as midnight in the rural shade,
When the gale slumbers, they the words devour'd.
Awhile severe amazement held them mute;
Then, bursting broad, the boundless shout to Heaven
From many a thousand hearts ecstatic sprung.
On every hand rebellow'd to their joy
The swelling sea, the rocks, and vocal hills:
Through all her turrets stately Corinth shook;
And, from the void above of shatter'd air,
The flitting bird fell breathless to the ground.
What piercing bliss! how keen a sense of fame,
Did then, Flaminius, reach thy inmost soul!
And with what deep-felt glory didst thou then
Escape the fondness of transported Greece!
Mix'd in a tempest of superior joy,
They left the sports; like Bacchanals they flew,
Each other straining in a strict embrace,
Nor strain'd a slave; and loud acclaims till night
Round the proconsul's tent repcated rung.
Then, crown'd with garlands, came the festive Hours,
And music, sparkling wine, and converse warm,
Their raptures wak'd anew. Ye gods! they
cried,

'Ye guardian gods of Greece! And are we free?
Was it not madness deem'd the very thought?
And is it true? How did we purchase chains?
At what a dire expense of kindred blood?
And are they now dissolv'd? And scarce one drop
For the fair first of blessings have we paid?
Courage, and conduct, in the doubtful field,
When rages wide the storm of mingling war,
Are rare indeed; but how to generous ends
To turn success and conquest, rarer still:
That the great gods and Romans only know.
Lives there on Earth, almost to Greece unknown,
A people so magnanimous, to quit
Their native soil, traverse the stormy deep,
And by their blood and treasure, spent for us,
Redeem our states, our liberties, and laws!
There does! there does! oh, savior Titus! Rome!'
Thus through the happy night they pour'd their
souls,

And in my last reflected beams rejoic'd.

As when the shepherd, on the mountain brow,
Sits piping to his flocks, and gamesome kids;
Meantime the Sun, beneath the green Earth sunk,
Slants upward o'er the scene a parting gleam :
Short is the glory that the mountain gilds,
Plays on the glittering flocks, and glads the swain
To western worlds irrevocable roll'd,
Rapid, the source of light recalls his ray."

Here interposing I :
:-"Oh, queen of men!
Beneath whose sceptre in essential rights
Equal they live; though plac'd, for common good,
Various, or in subjection, or command;
And that by common choice: alas! the scene,
With virtue, freedom, and with glory bright,

The Isthmian games were celebrated at Corinth.

Repress'd severe, for human aid too strong
The torrent turns, and overbears the whole.
"Thus luxury, dissension, a mix'd rage
Of boundless pleasure and of boundless wealth,
Want wishing change, and waste repairing war,
Rapine for ever lost to peaceful toil,
Guilt unaton'd, profuse of blood revenge,

These fierce contentions sprung; and, as increas'd Corruption all avow'd, and lawless force,
This hated inequality, more fierce

With fell designs; and all the watchful art
Of Cicero demanded, all the force,
All the state-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 Cæsar, on whose brow
O'er daring vice deluding virtue smil'd,
And who no less a vain superior scorn'd.

Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rose,
The venal WILL be bought, the base have lords.
To these wild wars I left ambitious slaves;
And from Philippi's field, from where in dust
The last of Romans, matchless Brutus! lay,
Spread to the north untam'd a rapid wing.

"What though the first smooth Cæsar's
caress'd,

And, piercing farthest Scythia, westward swept
Sarmatia,|| travers'd by a thousand streams.
A sullen land of lakes, and fens immense,
Of rocks, resounding torrents, gloomy heaths,
And cruel deserts black with sounding pine;
Where Nature frowns: though sometimes into
smiles

She softens; and immediate, at the touch
Of southern gales, throws from the sudden glebe
Luxuriant pasture, and a waste of flowers.
But, cold-comprest, when the whole loaded heaven
Descends in snow, lost in one white abrupt,
Lies undistinguish'd earth; and, seiz'd by frost,
Lakes, headlong streams, and floods, and oceans
sleep.

Yet there life glows; the furry millions there,
Deep-dig their dens beneath the sheltering snows:
And there a race of men prolific swarms,

arts To various pain, to little pleasure us'd;

Merit and virtue, simulating me?
Severely tender! cruelly humane!
The chain to clinch, and make it softer sit
On the new-broken still ferocious state.
From the dark third,* succeeding, I beheld
Th' imperial monsters all. A race on Earth
Vindictive, sent the scourge of human-kind!
Whose blind profusion drain'd a bankrupt world;
Whose lust to forming Nature seems disgrace ;
And whose infernal rage bade every drop
Of ancient blood, that yet retain'd my flame,
To that of Pætus,t in the peaceful bath,
Or Rome's affrighted streets, inglorious flow.
But almost just the meanly-patient death,
That waits a tyrant's unprevented 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 lost;
Trajan and he, with the mild sire and son,t
His son of virtue! eas'd awhile mankind;
And arts reviv'd beneath their gentle beam.
Then was their last effort: what sculpture rais'd
To Trajan's glory, following triumphs stole;
And mix'd with Gothic forms (the chisel's shame,)
On that triumphal arch, the forms of Greece.
"Meantime o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep
vales

Of gelid Hemus, I pursued my flight;

* Tiberius.

†Thrasea Pætus, put to death by Nero. Tacitus intro. duces the account he gives of his death thus: "After having inhumanly slaughtered so many illustrious men, ne (Nero) burned at last with a desire of cutting off virtue itself in the person of Thrasea," &c.

On whom, keen-parching beat Riphæan winds;
Hard like their soil, and like their climate fierce,
The nursery of nations!-These I rous'd,
Drove land on land, on people people pour'd;
Till from almost perpetual night they broke,
As if in search of day; and o'er the banks
Of yielding empire, only slave-sustain❜d,
Resistless rag'd, in vengeance urg'd by me.

Long in the barbarous heart the buried seeds
Of freedom lay, for many a wintry age;
And though my spirit work'd by slow 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 rising winter, ride
Autumnal winds, to warmer climates borne ;
So, arts and each good genius in my train,
I cut the closing gloom, and soar'd to Heaven
"In the bright regions there of purest day,
Far other scenes, and palaces, arise,
Adorn'd profise with cther arts divine.
All beauty here below, to them compar'd,
Would, like a rose before the mid-day Sun,
Shrink up its blossom; like a bubble, break
The passing poor magnificence of kings.
For there the King of Nature, in full blaze,
Calls every splendor forth; and there his court,
Amid ethereal powers, and virtues, holds :
Angel, archangel, tutelary gods,

Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds.
But sacred be the veil, that kindly clouds
A light too keen for mortals: wraps a view
Too softening fair, for those that here in dust
Must cheerful toil out their appointed years
A sense of higher life would only damp
The school-boy's task, and spoil his playful hours.
Nor could the child of reason, feeble man,
With vigor through this infant being drudge;
Did brighter worlds, their unimagin'd bliss

1 Antoninus Pius, and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, Disclosing, dazzle and dissolve his mind."
afterwards called Antoninus Philosophus.

§ Constantine's arch, to build which, that of Trajan was destroyed, sculpture having been then almost entire ly lost.

The Ancient Sarmatia contained a vast tract of country running all along the north of Europe, and

Asia

62

BRITAIN:

BEING THE FOURTH PART OF

LIBERTY,

A POEM.

The Contents of Part IV.

Exalted rise, with other honors crown'd;
And, where my Spirit wakes the finer powers,
Athenian laurels still afresh shall bloom.

"Oblivious ages pass'd; while Earth, forsook
By her best genii, lay to demons foul,
And unchain'd furies, an abandon'd prey.
Contention led the van; first small of size,
But soon dilating to the skies she towers:
Then, wide as air, the livid fury spread,
And high her head above the stormy clouds,
She blaz'd in omens, swell'd the groaning winds
From land to land the maddening trumpet blew,
With wild surmises, battlings, sounds of war:
And pour'd her venom through the heart of man.
Shook to the Pole, the north obey'd her call.
War against human-kind: Rapine, that led
Forth rush'd the bloody power of Gothic war,
Millions of raging robbers in his train:

Is reason, honor, law: the foe of arts
By monsters follow'd, hideous to behold,
That some-That claim'd their place. Outrageous mix'd with

these

Another species of tyrannic rule,*

Difference betwixt the ancients and moderns slightly touched upon. Description of the dark ages. The goddess of Liberty, who during these is supposed to have left Earth, returns, attended with Arts and Science. She first descends on Italy. Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture fix at Rome, to revive their several arts by the great Unlistening, barbarous Force, to whom the sword models of antiquity there, which many barbarous invasions had not been able to destroy. The revival of these arts marked out. times arts may flourish for a while under despotic governments, though never the natural and genuine production of them. Learning begins to dawn. Unknown before, whose cancerous shackles seiz'd The Muse and Science attend Liberty, who in Th' envenom'd soul: a wilder fury, she her progress towards Great Britain raises several Ev'n o'er her elder sistert tyranniz'd; free states and cities. These enumerated. Author's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the British Dire was her train, and loud; the sable band, Or, if perchance agreed, inflam'd her rage. seas and coasts rise in the vision, which painted Thundering-Submit, ye laity! ye profane! whatever the goddess of Liberty said. She resumes her narration. The Genius of the deep Allow the common claim, and half be theirs; Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours; let kings appears, and, addressing Liberty, associates Great Britain into his dominion. Liberty received and congratulated by Britannia, and the native Genii or Virtues of the island. These described. Ani

mated by the presence of Liberty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence contrasted with the works and delusions of opposing demons. Concludes with an abstract of the English history, marking the several advances of Liberty, down to her complete establishment at the Revolution.

STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I, amaz'd:

If not, behold! the sacred lightning flies:'
Scholastic Discord, with an hundred tongues,
For science uttering jangling words obscure,
of peremptory feature, Cleric Pride,
Where frighted Reason never yet could dwell:
Whose reddening cheek no contradiction bears;
And Holy Slander, his associate firm,
On whom the lying spirit still descends :
Mother of tortures! Persecuting Zeal,
High-flashing in her hand the ready torch,
Or poniard bath'd in unbelieving blood;
Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure,
Assuming a celestial seraph's name,
While she, beneath the blasphemous pretence
Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the source of love!
Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds
Than all the rest combin'd. Led on by her,
And wild of head to work her fell designs,
Came idiot Superstition; round with ears
Innumerous strow'd, ten thousand monkish forms
With legends plied them, and with tenets, meant
To charm or scare the simple into slaves,
And poison reason; gross, she swallows all,
the Broad o'er the whole her universal night,
The most absurd believing ever most.

Ah, goddess, what a change! Is earth the same?
Of the same kind the ruthless race she feeds?
And does the same fair Sun and ether spread
Round this vile spot their all-enlivening soul?
Lo! beauty fails; lost in unlovely forms
Of little pomp, magnificence no more
Exalts the mind, and bids the public smile:
While to rapacious interest glory leaves
Mankind, and every grace of life is gone."

To this the power, whose vital radiance calls
From the brute mass of man an order'd world:
Wait till the morning shines, and from

depth

Of Gothic darkness springs another day.
True genius droops; the tender ancient taste
Of beauty, then fresh-blooming in her prime,
But faintly trembles through the callous soul,
And grandeur, or of morals, or of life,
Sinks into safe pursuits, and creeping cares.
Evin cautious Virtue seems to stoop her flight,
And aged life to deem the generous deeds
Of youth romantic. Yet in cooler thought
Well-reason'd, in researches piercing deep
Through Nature's works, in profitable arts,
And all that calm experience can disclose,
(Slow guide, but sure,) behold the world anew