Ere its full voice the choral anthem flings
Thro' trophied tombs of heroes and of kings.

Haste to the tranquil shade of learned ease,

*

Tho' skilled alike to dazzle and to please;
Tho' each gay scene be searched with anxious eye,
Nor thy shut door be passed without a sigh.

If, when this roof shall know thy friend no more, Some, formed like thee, should once, like thee, explore; Invoke the lares of his loved retreat,

And his lone walks imprint with pilgrim feet;
Then be it said, (as, vain of better days,

Some grey domestic prompts the partial praise)
"Unknown he lived, unenvied, not unblest;
Reason his guide, and Happiness his guest.
In the clear mirror of his moral page,
We trace the manners of a purer age.
His soul, with thirst of genuine glory fraught,
Scorned the false lustre of licentious thought.
-One fair asylum from the world he knew,
One chosen seat, that charms with various view!

**Innocuas amo delicias doctamque quietem.

Who boasts of more (believe the serious strain)

Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas! in vain.

Thro' each he roves, the tenant of a day,

And, with the swallow, wings the year away!" p

NOTES.

Note a. Page 70, line 17.

Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance, pass COSMO of Medicis took most pleasure in his Apennine villa, because all that he commanded from its windows was exclusively his own. How unlike the wise Athenian, who, when he had a farm to sell, directed the cryer to proclaim, as its best recommendation, that it had a good neighbourhood. PLUT. in Vit. Themist.

NOTE b. P. 71, l. 7.

And, thro' the various year, the various day, Horace commends the house, longos quæ prospicit agros.' Distant views contain the greatest variety, both in themselves, and in their accidental variations.

NOTE C. P. 72, l. 13.

Small change of scene, small space his home requires,

Many a great man, in passing through the apartments of his palace, has made the melancholy reflection of the venerable Cosmo: " Questa è troppo gran casa à si poco famiglia." MACH. Ist. Fior. lib. vii. "Parva, sed apta mihi," was Ariosto's inscription over his door in Ferrara; and who can wish to say more? I confess," says Cowley, "I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast." Essay vi.

When Socrates was asked why he had built for himself so small a house, "Small as it is," he replied, "I wish I could fill it with friends." PHEDRUS, 1. iii. 9.

These indeed are all that a wise man would desire to assemble; "for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.'

NOTE d. P. 72, l. 16.

From every point a ray of genius flows!

By this means, when all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw myself into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, &c. ADDISON. It is remarkable that Antony, in his adversity, passed some time in a small but splendid retreat, which he called his Timonium, and from which might originate the idea of the Parisian Boudoir, that favourite apartment, ou l'on se retire pour être seul, mais ou l'on ne boude point.

STRABO, 1. xvii. PLUT. in Vit. Anton.
NOTE e. P. 73, 1. 12.

At GUIDO's call, &c.

Alluding to his celebrated fresco in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.

NOTE f. P. 73, l. 19.

And still the Few best loved and most revered

The dining-room is dedicated to Conviviality; or, as Cicero somewhere expresses it, "Communitati vitæ atque victûs." There we wish most for the society of our friends; and, perhaps, in their absence, most require their portraits.

The moral advantages of this furniture may

be illus

trated by the pretty story of an Athenian courtezan, "who, in the midst of a riotous banquet with her lovers, accidentally cast her eye on the portrait of a philosopher, that hung opposite to her seat: the happy character of temperance and virtue struck her with so lively an image of her own unworthiness, that she instantly quitted the room; and, retiring home, became ever after an example of temperance, as she had been before of debauchery.”

NOTE g. P. 74, 1. 4.

Read antient books, or woo inspiring dreams; The reader will here remember that passage of Horace, Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c. which was inscribed by Lord Chesterfield on the frieze of his library.

NOTE h. P. 74, 1. 5.

And, when a sage's bust arrests thee there,

Siquidem non solum ex auro argentove, aut certe ex ære in bibliothecis dicantur illi, quorum immortales animæ in iisdem locis ibi loquuntur: quinimo etiam quæ non sunt, finguntur, pariuntque desideria non traditi vultus, sicut in Homero evenit. Quo majus (ut equidem arbitror) nullum est felicitatis specimen, quam semper omnes scire cupere, qualis fuerit aliquis. PLIN. Nat. Hist.

Cicero speaks with pleasure of a little seat under Aristotle in the library of Atticus. "Literis sustentor et recreor; maloque in illa tua sedecula, quam habes sub imagine Aristotelis, sedere quàm in istorum sella curuli!" Ep. ad. Att. iv. 10. Nor should we forget that Dryden drew inspiration from the majestic face" of Shakspeare; and that a