Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not asham❜d to feed
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies, grow;
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.
You, too, proceed! make failing arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till kings call forth th' ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid harbours open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthier of the God ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dang'rous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main :
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers thro' the land:
These honours Peace to happy Britain brings;
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.
[Occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals.]
SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples, spread!
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders rais'd on nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods;
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey,
Statues of men scarce less alive than then!
Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage:
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety and Gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from flame,
Some bury'd marble half preserves a name;
That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.
Ambition sigh'd; she fonnd it vain to trust The faithless column and the crumbling bust;
Huge moles, whose shadows stretch'd from shore to
Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more:
Convinc'd she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a Coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judea weeps.
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll❜d,
And little Eagles wave their wings in gold.
The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one short view subjected to our eye,
Gods, emp'rors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore,
Th' inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes,
One a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
grasps
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd;
And Curio, restless by the fair-one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine:
Touch'd by thy hand again Rome's glories shine;
VOL. III.
Her gods and godlike heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush these studies thy regard engage;
These pleas'd the fathers of poetic rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
Oh! when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living Medals see her wars enroll'd,
And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold?
Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face,
There warriors frowning in historic brass;
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison:
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore another Pollio shine;
With aspect open shall erect his head,
And round the orb in lasting notes be read,
"Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
"In action faithful, and in honour clear ;
"Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
"Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
"Ennobled by himself, by all approv❜d,
“And prais'd unenvy'd by the Muse he lov'd.”
[Translated in the Year 1703.]
OEDIPUS, king of Thebes, having by mistake slain his father Laius, and married his mother Jocasta, put out his own eyes, and resigned his realm to his sons Eteocles and Polynices. Being neglected by them, he makes his prayer to the fury Tisiphone to sow debate betwixt the brothers. They agree at last to reign singly, each a year by turns, and the first lot is obtained by Eteocles. Jupiter, in a council of the gods, declares his resolution of punishing the Thebans, and Argives also, by means of marriage betwixt Polynices and one of the daughters of Adrastus, king of Argos. Juno opposes, but to no effect; and Mercury is sent on a message to the shades, to the ghost of Laius, who is to appear to Eteocles, and provoke him to break the agreement. Polynices, in the mean time, departs from Thebes by night, is overtaken by a storm, and arrives at Argos, where he meets with Tydeus who had fled from Calidon, having killed his
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