EPISTLE IV.

INGENUOUS FLAXMAN! thy just foul delights
To fee opprefs'd Desert regain his rights.
Oft haft thou prais'd, as far as truth allow'd,
Rude talent ftruggling through misfortune's cloud!
With generous patience thou canst deign to trace
Through dim Tradition's fhade Etruria's race.
Ingenious nation! hapless in thy doom!

The slave and teacher of the upstart Rome!
Her fierce ambition from the page of Fame

Seem'd eager to erase thy softer name:

ΙΟ

But while fhe borrow'd, in thy plunder claḍ,
Thy train of augurs, ominoufly fad,
Dark Superftition's more defpotic weight
Prefs'd on her fancy, and aveng'd thy fate!
Obedient servant of a favage queen !

Thee she employ'd to deck her proudest scene.
Thy pliant artists, at the victor's nod,

For her new temple form'd the guardian god :
Her patrons, deftin'd to fuch wide command,
Arofe the offspring of a Tuscan hand.

Ye injur❜d votaries of Art, whose skill,
Emerg'd from darkness, and emerging still,

Shines through Oppreffion's ftorm, whofe envious sweep Had funk your language in her lawless deep!

Expert Etrurians, who, with rapid toil,

Form'd the fine vafe Oblivion's power to foil!

Your bards to base annihilation doom'd

History, who spurn'd the grave, herself entomb'd :
Friendly conjecture can alone fuggeft

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How Fortune on your coaft young Art caress'd.

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'Tis faid that Ægypt was your early guide; That Greece, more focial, all your skill supplied, The fond idolaters of Greece pretend :

But bounteous Nature was your leading friend;
She frankly gave you the prime fource of skill,
The fervid fpirit, and the lively will,
To call Invention from her coy recefs,

And bid just Form the young idea dress.

Let different Arts with gen'rous pride proclaim
Inventive Genius form'd Etruria's fame.
Mars as a gift from her his trumpet found,
And Honour's heart exulted in the found;
To her, e'en Athens, as the learn'd declare,
Might owe the mask dramatic Muses wear*.
But, O Etruria! whatfoe'er the price
Of thy ingenious toil and rare device,
Of all thy produce, I applaud thee most
For thy mild Lares, thy peculiar boast.

See NOTE I

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'Twas thine in Sculpture's facred scene to place Domeftic deities of focial grace,

Whose happy favour, on the heart impress'd,

Made home the paffion of the virtuous breast *.

O that fond Labour's hand, with Learning's aid,

Could rescue from Oblivion's envious fhade

Artists, defrauded of their deathless due,

Who once a glory round Etruria threw,
When, with her flag of tranfient fame unfurl'd,
She fhone the wonder of the western world!
Eclipfing Greece, ere rais'd to nobler life,

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Greece learnt to triumph o'er barbaric strife;

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Driving her Argonauts, her naval boast,

Foil'd in sharp conflict, from the Tyrrhene coast †.

But Defolation, in her cruel course,

Rush'd o'er Etruria with fuch ruthless force,
That, of her art-devoted fons, whose skill

With fculptur'd treasures could her cities fill

In fuch profuse and luminous display,

That Roman avarice mark'd them for her prey,

Mem'ry can hardly on her tablets give

More than a single Tyrrhene name to live.

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Mnefarchus, early as a sculptor known,
From nice incifion of the costly stone,
But more endear'd to every later age
As the bleft fire of that abftemious fage;
Who, born and nurtur'd on Etruria's fhore,
Refin❜d her spirit by his temp'rate lore,
And in Crotona gloried to display

His mild morality's benignant fway *.

Bleft were Etrurian art, if, fpar'd by Time,
Forth from the caverns of her ravag'd clime
She could present to Admiration's gaze

Each sculptur'd worthy of her profperous days,
Who won, by labours of a virtuous mind,

The benedictions of improv'd mankind.

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* See NOTE IV.

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