And lengthen simple justice into trade) How glorious were the day! that saw these broke,

And every man within the reach of right.

By wintry famine rous'd, from all the tract Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps, And wavy Apennine, and Pyrenees, Branch out stupendous into distant lands; Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave; Burning for blood; bony, and gaunt, and grim,|| Assembling wolves in raging troops descend; Aud, pouring o'er the country, bear along, Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy

snow.

All is their prize. They fasten on the steed, Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.

Nor can the bull his awful front defend.
Or shake the murdering savages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infaut from her breast.
The god-like face of man avails him nought.
Even beauty, force divine! at whose bright
glance

The generous lion stands in soften'd gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey.
But if appris'd of the severe attack,

The country be shut up; lur'd by the scent,
On church yards drear (inhuman to relate)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mix'd with foul shades, and frighted ghosts,
they howl.

Among those hilly regions, where embrac'd In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell; Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs, Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll. From steep to steep loud-thundering down they

come,

A wintry waste in dire commotion all; And herds, and flock, and travellers, and swains, [troops, And sometimes whole brigades of marching Or hamlets, sleeping in the dead of night, Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelm'd.

Now, all amid the rigours of the year, In the wild depth of Winter, while without The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat, Between the groaning forest and the shore Beat by the bouness multitudes of waves, A rural, shelter'd, solitary scene; Where ruddy fire, and beaming tapers join, To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,

Rous'd at th' inspiring thought, I throw aside The long liv'd volume; and, deep musing, hail

And hold high converse with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd,
As gods beneficent, who blest mankind
With arts,with arms, and kumauiz'd the world.

The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates, Who, firmly good in a corrupted state, Against the reign of tyrants firmly stood, Invincible! calm reason's holy law,

That voice of God within th' attentive mind,
Obeying, fearless, or in life, or death;
Great moral teacher! wisest of mankind!
Solon the next, who built his commonweal
On equity's wide base; by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts,
And of bold freedom, they unequall'd shone,
The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.
Lycurgus then, who bow'd beneath the force
Of strictest discipline, severely wise,
All buman passions. Following him, I see,
As at Thermopyle he glorious fell,

The firm devoted chief,* who prov'd by deeds
The hardest lesson which the other taught.
Then Aristides lifts his honest front;
Spotless of heart, to whom th` unflattering voice
Of freedom gave the noblest name of Just:
In pure majestic poverty rever'd;
Who, even his glory to his country's weal
Submitting, swell'd a haughty rival's † fame.
| Rear'd by his care, of softer ray appears
Cimon sweet soul'd; whose genius rising
strong,

Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend

Of every worth and every splendid art;
Modest, and simple, in the pomp of wealth.
Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late call'd to glory, in unequal times,
Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast,
Timoleon, happy temper! mild, and firm,
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the best, the Theban pair, ‡
Whose virtues, in heroic concord join`d,
Their country rais'd to freedom, empire, fame.
He too with whom Athenian honour sunk,
And left a mass of sordid lees behind,
Phocion the good; in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm;

But when, beneath his low illustrious roof, Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow,

Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.
And he, the last of old Lycurgus' sons,
The generous victim to that vaiu attempt,

* Leonidas.

Themistocles. Pelopidas and Epaminondas.

Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns ;
And Belvidera pours her soul in love.
Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear
Steals o'er the cheek: or else the comic musę
Holds to the world a picture of itself,
And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.
Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the

Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow
Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy
To swift destruction. On the rankled soul
The gaming fury falls; and in one gulf
Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink
Up springs the dance along the lighted dome,
Mix'd, and évolv'd, a thousand sprightly ways.
The glittering court effuses every pomp ;
The circle deepens : beam'd from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes,
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves:
While, a gay insect in his summer-shine,
The fop, light-Huttering, spreads his mealy
wings.
[stalks ;
Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of Hamlet

scenes

Of beauteous life; whate'er can deck markind, Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil* show'd.

O thou, whose wisdom, solid yet refin'd, Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill To touch the finer springs that move the world. Join'd to whate'er the graces can bestow, And all Apollo's animating fire, Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine At once the guardian, ornament, and joy, Of polish'd life: permit the rural muse, O Chesterfield, to grace with thee her song! Ere to the shades again she humbly flies, Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train (For every muse bas in thy train a place), To mark thy various full-accomplish'd mind: To mark that spirit, which with British scorn, Rejects the allurements of corrupted power; That elegant politeness, which excels, Even in the judgment of presumptuous France, The boasted manners of her shining court; That wit, the vivid energy of sense,

The truth of nature, which, with Attic point, And kind, well-temper'd satire, smoothly keen, Steals through the soul, and without pain cor

rects.

Th' obedient passions on thy voice attend ;
And even reluctant party feels a while
Thy gracious power: as through the varied
[strong,
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood.

maze

To thy lov'd haunt return, my happy muse, For now, behold. the joyous winter-days, Frosty, succeed; and through the blue serene, For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies; Killing infectious damps, and the spent air Storing afresh with elemental life.

Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds

* A character in the Conscious Lovers, written by Richard Steele.

Our strengthened bodies in its cold embrace, Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves,

In swifter sallies darting to the brain;
Where sits the soul intensé, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye
la ruin seen. The frost concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire: and luculent along

The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps,
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.

A livid tract, cold gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave;
And, by the frost refin'd, the whiter snow,
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks
His pining flock, or from the mountain top,
Pleas'd with the slippery surface, swift de-
scends.
[swains,
On blithsome frolics bent, the youthful
While every work of man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolv'd; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train! the raptur'd boy
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine
Brauch'd out in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care,
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,

Deriv'd, thou secret all-invading power,
Whom even th’illusive fluid cannot fly?
Is not thy potent energy, unseen,
Myriads of little salts, or hook'd, or shap'd
Like double wedges, and diffus'd immense
Through water, earth, and ether? Hence at eve,
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffus'd,
An icy gale, oft shifting o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolv'd by day,
Rustless no more; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm; till, seiz'd from shore to shore,
The whole imprison'd river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows: the distant water fall
Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls,
Through the still night, incessant, heavy,
strong,

And seizes nature fast. It freezes on ;
Till morn, late rising o'er the drooping world,
Lifts her pale eye un joyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night :
Prone from the dripping cave, and dumb cas-
cade,

Whose idle torrents only seem to roar,
The pendent icicle; the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues, and fancy'd figures rise;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,

Or from the forest falls the cluster'd snow,
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,
And dog impatient, bounding at the shot,
Worse thau the season, desolate the fields;
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feathered game.

But what is this? Our infant Winter sinks,
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye
Astonish'd shoot into the Frigid Zone;
Where, for relentless months, continual night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There, through the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of nature from escape,
Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow;
And heavy loaded groves; and solid floods,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast,
Their icy horrors to the frozen main;

And cheerless towns far-distant, never bless'd,w'd
Save when its annual course the caravan

Cc &