and the consequence is, that light ephemeral trifles, or personal sallies, are thrust in between the more durable memorials of genius, disturbing their symmetry and effect. In the case of Dryden, however, such a chronological survey would be instructive; for, between the Annus Mirabilis' and the ‘Ode to St Cecilia' or the 'Fables,' through the plays and poems, how varied is the range in style and taste! It is like the progress of Spenser's Good Knight,' | through labyrinths of uncertainty, fantastic conceits, flowery vice, and unnatural splendour, to the sober daylight of truth, virtue, and reason. Dryden never attained to finished excellence in composition. His genius was debased by the false taste of the age, and his mind vitiated by its bad morals. He mangled the natural delicacy and simplicity of Shakspeare's Tempest;' and where even Chaucer is pure, Dryden is impure. This great high-priest of all the nine,' remarks Mr Campbell, was not a confessor to the finer secrets of the human breast. Had the subject of "Eloisa" fallen into his hands, he would have left but a coarse draught of her passion.' But if Dryden was deficient in the higher emotions of love and tenderness, their absence is partly atoned for in his late works, by wide surveys of nature and mankind, by elevated reasoning and declamation, and by the hearty individuality of his satire. The brave negligence' of his versification, and his long resounding line,' have an indescribable charm. His style is like his own Panther, of the spotted kind,' and its faults and virtues lie equally mixed; but it is beloved in spite of spots and blemishes, and pleases longer than the verse of Pope, which, like the milk-white hind, is 'immortal and unchanged.' The satirical portraits of Pope, excepting those of Addison and Lord Hervey, are feeble compared with those of Dryden, whom he acknowledged to be his master and instructor in versification. The bard of Twickenham is too subtile, polished, and refined. Dryden drew from the life, and hit off strong likenesses. Pope, like Sir Joshua Reynolds, refined in his colours, and many of his pictures are faint and vanishing delineations. Dryden, with his tried and homely materials, and bold pencil, was true to nature; his sketches are still fresh as a genuine Vandyke or Rembrandt. His language, like his thoughts, was truly English. He was sometimes Gallicised by the prevailing taste of the day; but he felt that this was a license to be sparingly used. If too many foreign words are poured in upon us,' said he, it looks as if they were designed not to assist the natives, but to conquer them.' His lines, like the Sibyl's prophecies, must be read in the order in which they lie. In better times, and with more careful culture, Dryden's genius would have avoided the vulgar descents which he seldom escaped, except in his most finished passages and his choicest lyrical odes. As it is, his muse was a fallen angel, cast down for manifold sins and impurities, yet radiant with light from heaven. The natural freedom and magnificence of his verse it would be vain to eulogise.
[Character of Shaftesbury.]
[From Absalom and Achitophel."] Of these the false Achitophel was first; A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place; In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide;* Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest! Punish a body which he could not please; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease! And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son; Got, while his soul did huddled notions try, And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy. In friendship false, implacable in hate; Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state: To compass this, the triple bond he broke, The pillars of the public safety shook, And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke: Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name. So easy still it proves, in factious times, With public zeal to cancel private crimes; How safe is treason, and how sacred ill Where none can sin against the people's will! Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own! Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin' With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean, Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress, Swift of despatch, and easy of access. Oh! had he been content to serve the crown Or had the rankness of the soil been freed With virtues only proper for the gown; From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed; David for him his tuneful harp had strung, But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand; And heaven had wanted one immortal song. And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land. Achitophel, grown weary to possess Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free, A lawful fame, and lazy happiness, And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
[Character of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.] [From the same.]
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land: In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; A man so various that he seem'd to be, Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was ev'rything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman! who could ev'ry hour employ With something new to wish, or to enjoy. Railing and praising were his usual themes; And both, to show his judgment, in extremes; So over-violent, or over-civil, That ev'ry man with him was God or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert:
*The proposition of Dryden, that great wit is allied to madness, will not bear the test of scrutiny. It has been successfully combated by Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. The greatest wits," says Lamb, will ever be found to be the sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad Shakspeare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here chiefly to be understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of all the faculties. Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess of any one of them.' Shaftesbury's restlessness was owing to his ambition and his vanity; to a want of judgment and principle,
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate; He laugh'd himself from court, then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief; For, spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel: Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left.
[Shaftesbury's Address to Monmouth.] [From the same.]
Auspicious prince, at whose nativity Some royal planet rul'd the southern sky, Thy longing country's darling and desire, Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire; Their second Moses, whose extended wand Divides the seas, and shows the promis'd land; Whose dawning day in every distant age Has exercis'd the sacred prophet's rage: The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream! Thee, saviour, thee, the nation's vows confess, And, never satisfied with seeing, bless : Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim, And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name : How long wilt thou the general joy detain, Starve and defraud the people of thy reign; Content ingloriously to pass thy days, Like one of Virtue's fools, that feed on praise; Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright, Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight; Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be Or gather'd ripe, or rot upon the tree : Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late, Some lucky revolution of their fate;
Whose motions, if we watch and guide with skill (For human good depends on human will), Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent, And from the first impression takes the bent; But if unseiz'd, she glides away like wind, And leaves repenting folly far behind.
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize, And spreads her locks before you as she flies! Had thus old David, from whose loins you spring, Not dared, when fortune call'd him to be king, At Gath an exile he might still remain, And heaven's anointing oil had been in vain. Let his successful youth your hopes engage, But shun th' example of declining age; Behold him setting in his western skies, The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise. He is not now as when on Jordan's sand, The joyful people throng'd to see him land, Covering the beach, and blackening all the strand!
[The design of this poem is the sublime of personal satire. The leading idea is to represent the solemn inauguration of one inferior poet as the successor of another in the monarchy of nonsense. The title involves this idea with a happy reference to the nation of the resigning sovereign-Mac, in Celtic, being son.]
All human things are subject to decay; And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoel found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long; In prose and verse was own'd, without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute. This aged prince, now flourishing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with bus'ness, did at length debate To settle the succession of the state;
1 Richard Flecknoe, an Irish Roman Catholic priest, and a well-known hackneyed poetaster of the day.
And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit To reign, and wage immortal war with Wit, Cried, 'Tis resolved; for Nature pleads, that he Should only rule who most resembles me. Shadwell, alone, my perfect image bears, Mature in dulness from his tender years: Shadwell, alone, of all my sons, was he, Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence; But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through, and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray; His rising fogs prevail upon the day. Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye, And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty: Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain, And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign. Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, Thou last great prophet of Tautology! Ev'n I, a dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way; And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came To teach the nations in thy greater name. My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung, When to King John of Portugal I sung, Was but the prelude to that glorious day, When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, With well-tim'd oars, before the royal barge, Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge; And, big with hymn, commander of a host, The like was ne'er in Epsom-blankets toss'd. Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. At thy well-sharpen'd thumb, from shore to shore, The trebles squeak for fear, the bases roar: About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast that floats along. Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, Thou wield'st thy papers in thy thrashing hand. St Andre's feet2 ne'er kept more equal time; Not e'en the feet of thine own Psyche's rhyme 3 Though they in number as in sense excel; So just, so like Tautology they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton4 forswore The lute and sword, which he in triumph bore, And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.
Here stopp'd the good old sire, and wept for joy, In silent raptures of the hopeful boy. All arguments, but most his plays, persuade, That for anointed dulness he was made.
Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind (The fair Augusta, much to fears inclin'd) An ancient fabric, raised t' inform the sight, There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight, A watch-tower once; but now, so fate ordains, Of all the pile an empty name remains : Near these a nursery erects its head, Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;
Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry, Where infant punks their tender voices try, And little Maximins the gods defy.
Great Fletcher never treads in busking here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear; But gentle Simkin just reception finds Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds;
Pure clinches the suburban muse affords, And Panton waging harmless war with words. Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well-known, Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne: For ancient Dekker prophesied, long since, That in this pile should reign a mighty prince, Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense; To whom true dulness should some Psyches owe; But worlds of misers from his pen should flow; Humorists and hypocrites it should produce; Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.2 Now empress Fame had publish'd the renown Of Shadwell's coronation through the town. Rous'd by report of Fame, the nations meet, From near Bun Hill, and distant Watling Street; No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay: Bilk'd stationers for yeomen stood prepar'd, And Herringman3 was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on a throne of his own labours rear'd. At his right hand our young Ascanius sat, Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state; His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace, And lambent dulness play'd around his face. As Hannibal did to the altars come, Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome, So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, That he, till death, true dulness would maintain; And, in his father's right, and realm's defence, Ne'er to have peace with Wit, nor truce with Sense. The king himself the sacred unction made, As king by office, and as priest by trade. In his sinister hand, instead of ball, He placed a mighty mug of potent ale; 'Love's Kingdom' to his right he did convey At once his sceptre and his rule of sway;
Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young, And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung: His temples last with poppies were o'erspread, That, nodding, seem'd to consecrate his head. Just at the point of time, if fame not lie, On his left hand twelve rev'rend owls did fly. So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook, Presage of sway from twice six vultures took. Th' admiring throng loud acclamations make, And omens of his future empire take. The fire then shook the honours of his head, And from his brows damps of oblivion shed Full on the filial dulness: long he stood, Repelling from his breast the raging god; At length burst out in this prophetic mood: 'Heav'n bless my son, from Ireland let him reign, To far Barbadoes on the western main; Of his dominion may no end be known, And greater than his father's be his throne; Beyond Love's Kingdom let him stretch his pen !' He paus'd; and all the people cried, Amen. Then thus continued he: My son, advance Still in new impudence, new ignorance. Success let others teach; learn thou, from me, Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry. Let Virtuosos in five years be writ; Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage, Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling,5 charm the pit, And, in their folly, show the writer's wit. Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence, And justify their author's want of sense.
* Characters in Shadwell's dramas. 3 A dramatic publisher. 4'Love's Kingdom' is the name of a pastoral drama by Richard Flecknoe.
♪ Characters in Sir George Etherege's Man of Mode,' and
Let 'em be all by thy own model made Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid; That they to future ages may be known, Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own. Nay, let thy men of wit, too, be the same, All full of thee, and diff'ring but in name. But let no alien Sedley interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.! And, when false flowers of rhet'ric thou wouldst cull, Trust nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine :
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy northern dedications fill. Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in nature or in art? Where did his wit on learning fix a brand, And rail at arts he did not understand? Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain? When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, As thou whole Etherege dost transfuse to thine! But so transfus'd as oil and waters flow; His always floats above, thine sinks below. This is thy province, this thy wondrous way, New humours to invent for each new play: This is that boasted bias of thy mind, By which one way to dulness 'tis inclin'd; Which makes thy writings lean on one side still, And, in all changes, that way bends thy will. Nor let thy mountain-belly make pretence Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense. A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ; But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit. Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep; Thy tragic muse gives smiles; thy comic, sleep. With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write, Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart, though venom lies, It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies. Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen lambics, but mild Anagram. Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways. Or, if thou wouldst thy diff'rent talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.'
He said: but his last words were scarcely heard; For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd And down they sent the yet declaiming bard. Sinking, he left his drugget robe behind, Borne upwards by a subterranean wind. The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion of his father's art.
A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd, Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd; Without, unspotted; innocent, within; She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin: Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds, And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly, And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.
1 Sir Charles Sedley was understood to have assisted Shadwell in his play of Epsom Wells.'
2 Two of the characters in Shadwell's Virtuoso,' who play a trick on Sir Formal Trifle by means of a trap-door. The con clusion of Dryden's satire, as well as the general design of the poem, was closely copied by Pope in his Dunciad.
The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind, And fairest creature of the spotted kind; Oh, could her in-born stains be wash'd away, She were too good to be a beast of prey! How can I praise, or blame, and not offend, Or how divide the frailty from the friend? Her faults and virtues lie so mix'd, that she Nor wholly stands condemn'd nor wholly free; Then like her injur'd lion, let me speak; He cannot bend her, and he would not break. Unkind already, and estrang'd in part, The wolf begins to share her wandering heart: Though unpolluted yet with actual ill, She half commits who sins but in her will. If, as our dreaming Platonists report, There could be spirits of a middle sort,
Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell, Who just dropt half way down, nor lower fell; So pois'd, so gently, she descends from high, It seems a soft dismission from the sky.
[The Swallow.]
[From the same.]
The swallow, privileg'd above the rest Of all the birds as man's familiar guest, Pursues the sun in summer, brisk and bold, But wisely shuns the persecuting cold; Is well to chancels and to chimneys known, Though 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone. From hence she has been held of heavenly line, Endued with particles of soul divine: This merry chorister had long possess'd Her summer seat, and feather'd well her nest, Till frowning skies began to change their cheer, And time turn'd up the wrong side of the year; The shedding trees began the ground to strow With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow: Such auguries of winter thence she drew, Which by instinct or prophecy she knew; When prudence warn'd her to remove betimes, And seek a better heaven and warmer climes. Her sons were summon'd on a steeple's height, And, call'd in common council, vote a flight. The day was nam'd, the next that should be fair; All to the general rendezvous repair;
They try their fluttering wings, and trust themselves
Who but the swallow now triumphs alone? The canopy of heaven is all her own: Her youthful offspring to their haunts repair, And glide along in glades, and skim in air, And dip for insects in the purling springs, And stoop on rivers, to refresh their wings.
Ode to the Memory of Mrs Anne Killigrew. Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest; Whose palms, new pluck'd from paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green above the rest: Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race, Or, in procession fix'd and regular, Mov'st with the heaven-majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss: Whatever happy region is thy place, Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since heaven's eternal year is thine. Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse;
But such as thine own voice did practice here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given; To make thyself a welcome inmate there: While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.
If by traduction came thy mind, Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood: So wert thou born into a tuneful strain, An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was form'd at first with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore : Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind. Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind
O gracious God! how far have we Profan'd thy heav'nly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debas'd to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age, (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) T' increase the steaming dures of the stage! What can we say t' excuse our second fall? Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all; Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil'd, Unmix'd with foreign filth, and undefil'd; Her wit was more than man; her innocence a child.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, The judging God shall close the book of fate; And there the last assizes keep
For those who wake, and those who sleep; The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are cover'd with the lightest ground; And straight, with in-born vigour, on the wing, There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shall go, Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing. As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learnt below.
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd, The next in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she join'd the other two.
To my Honoured Kinsman, John Dryden, Esq. of Ches terton, in the County of Huntingdon. How bless'd is he who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife! Who, studying peace, and shunning civil rage, Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age!
All who deserve his love he makes his own, And to be lov'd himself needs only to be known. Just, good, and wise, contending neighbours come, From your award, to wait their final doom, And, foes before, return in friendship home. Without their cost you terminate the cause, And save th' expense of long litigious laws; Where suits are travers'd, and so little won, That he who conquers is but least undone. Such are not your decrees; but, so design'd, The sanction leaves a lasting peace behind, Like your own soul serene, a pattern of your mind. Promoting concord, and composing strife, Lord of yourself, uncumber'd with a wife; No porter guards the passage of your door, To admit the wealthy and exclude the poor; For God, who gave the riches, gave the heart, To sanctify the whole by giving part.
Heaven, who foresaw the will, the means has wrought, And to the second son a blessing brought: The first begotten had his father's share, But you, like Jacob, are Rebecca's heir.
So may your stores and fruitful fields increase, And ever be you bless'd who live to bless. As Ceres sow'd where'er her chariot flew; As heaven in deserts rain'd the bread of dew; So free to many, to relations most, You feed with manna your own Israel host.
With crowds attended of your ancient race, You seek the champaign sports or sylvan chase: With well-breath'd beagles you surround the wood, E'en then industrious of the common good; And often have you brought the wily fox To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks; Chas'd e'en amid the folds, and made to bleed, Like felons where they did the murderous deed. This fiery game your active youth maintain'd, Not yet by years extinguish'd, though restrain'd; You season still with sports your serious hours; For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours. The hare in pastures or in plains is found, Emblem of human life, who runs the round, And, after all his wandering ways are done, His circle fills, and ends where he begun, Just as the setting meets the rising sun. A patriot both the king and country serves, Prerogative and privilege preserves; Of each our laws the certain limit show; One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow: Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand, The barriers of the state on either hand
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land. When both are full they feed our bless'd abode, Like those that water'd once the Paradise of God. Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share; In peace the people; and the prince in war: Consuls of moderate power in calms were made; When the Gauls came, one sole Dictator sway'd. Patriots in peace assert the people's right, With noble stubbornness resisting might; No lawless mandates from the court receive, Nor lend by force, but in a body give. Such was your generous grandsire, free to grant, In parliaments that weigh'd their prince's want; But so tenacious of the common cause,
As not to lend the king against the laws; And in a loathsome dungeon doom'd to lie, In bonds retain'd his birthright liberty,
And sham'd oppression till it set him free. O, true descendant of a patriot line!
Who, while thou shar'st their lustre, lend'st them
Nor think the kindred muses thy disgrace; A poet is not born in every race: Two of a house few ages can afford, One to perform, another to record. Praiseworthy actions are by thee embrac❜d, And 'tis my praise to make thy praises last: For even when death dissolves our human frame, The soul returns to heaven, from whence it came; Earth keeps the body; verse preserves the fame.
"Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won, By Philip's warlike son: Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were plac'd around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound; So should desert in arms be crown'd. The lovely Thaïs by his side Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride, In flower of youth and beauty's pride. Happy, happy, happy pair; None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Timotheus, plac'd on high
Amid the tuneful quire,
With flying fingers touch'd the lyre: The trembling notes ascend the sky, And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove, Who left his blissful seats above, Such is the power of mighty Love! A dragon's fiery form belied the god: Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press'd; And while he sought her snowy breast, Then round her slender waist he curl'd, And stamp'd an image of himself, a sov'reign of the world.
The list ning crowd admire the lofty sound; A present deity, they shout around;
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound: With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung, Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young: The jolly god in triumph comes; Sound the trumpets, beat the drums; Flush'd with a purple grace
He shows his honest face.
Now, give the hautboys breath; he comes! he comes! Bacchus, ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain: Bacchus blessings are a treasure; Drinking is the soldier's pleasure: Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Sooth'd 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 master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; And, while he heav'n and earth defied, Chang'd his hand, and check'd his pride. He chose a mournful muse, Soft pity to infuse:
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