Thine the dread Moral Scene, thy chief delight!
Where idle Fancy durst not mix her voice,
When Reason spoke august; the fervent heart
Or plain'd, or ftorm'd; and in th' impaffion'd man,
Concealing art with art, the poet funk.
This potent school of manners, but when left
To loofe neglect, a land-corrupting plague,
Was not unworthy deem'd of public care,
And boundless cost, by thee; whose ev'ry fon,
Ev'n last mechanic, the true taste poffefs'd
Of what had flavour to the nourish'd foul.
THE sweet enforcer of the poet's strain,. Thine was the meaning Music of the heart. Not the vain trill, that, void of paffion, runs In giddy mazes, tickling idle ears;
But that deep-fearching voice, and artful hand,
To which respondent shakes the vary'd foul.
Thy fair ideas, thy delightful forms,
By Love imagin'd, by the Graces touch'd,
The boast of well-pleas'd Nature! SCULPTURE seiz'd,
And bade them ever smile in Parian stone.
Selecting Beauty's choice, and that again
Exalting, blending in a perfect whole,
Thy workmen left ev'n Nature's felf behind..
From those far diff'rent, whose prolific hand
Peoples a nation; they for years on years,
By the cool touches of judicious toil,
Their rapid genius curbing, pour'd it all'
Thro' the live features of one breathing fstone.
There, beaming full, it shone; expreffing Gods:
Jove's awful brow, Apollo's air divine,
The fierce atrocious frown of finew'd Mars,
Or the fly graces of the Cyprian Queen.
Minutely perfect all! Each dimple funk,
And ev'ry muscle swell'd, as nature taught.
In tresses, braided gay, the marble wav'd;
Flow'd in loofe robes, or thin transparent veils;
Sprung into motion; soften'd into flesh;
Was fir'd to Paffion, or refin'd to Soul.
Nor lefs thy PENCIL, with creative touch,
Shed mimic life, when all thy brightest dames,
Assembled, ZEUXIS in his HELEN mix'd.
And when APELLES, who peculiar knew
To give a grace that more than mortal fmil'd,
The Soul of Beauty! call'd the Queen of Love,
Fresh from the billows, blushing orient charms.
Ev'n fuch enchantment then thy pencil pour'd,
That cruel-thoughted War th' impatient torch
Dafh'd to the ground; and, rather than destroy
The patriot picture *, let the city scape.
First elder Sculpture taught her Sifter Art
Correct defign; where great ideas shone,
And in the secret trace expreffion spoke:
Taught her the graceful attitude; the turn,
And beauteous airs of head; the native act,
Or bold, or easy; and, cast free behind,
* When DEMETRIUS besieged Rhodes, and could have reduced the city, by setting fire to that quarter of it where stood the house of the celebrated PROTOGENES, he chose rather to raise the fiege, than hazard the burning of a famous picture called JASYLUS, the master-piece of that painter.
The swelling mantle's well-adjusted flow.
Then the bright Muse, their eldest Sister, came;
And bade her follow where the led the way:
Bade earth, and fea, and air, in colours rife;
And copious action on the canvas glow:
Gave her gay Fable; spread Invention's store;
Enlarg'd her View; taught Compofition high,
And just Arrangement, circling round one point,
That starts to fight, binds and commands the whole.
Caught from the heav'nly Muse a nobler aim,
And scorning the foft trade. of meer delight,
O'er all thy temples, porticos, and schools,
Heroic deeds she trac'd, and warm display'd.
Each moral beauty to the ravifh'd eye.
There, as th' imagin'd prefence of the God
Arous'd the mind, or vacant hours induc'd
Calm contemplation, or assembled youth
Burn'd in ambitious circle round the fage,
The living lesson stole into the heart,
With more prevailing force than dwells in words.
These rouse to glory; while, to rural life,
The fofter canvas oft repos'd the foul..
There gaily broke the fun-illumin'd cloud;
The less'ning profpect, and the mountain blue,
Vanish'd in air; the precipice frown'd, dire;
White, down the rock, the rushing torrent dash'd; 355
The fun fhone, trembling o'er the distant main;
The tempeft foam'd, immense; the driving storm
Sadden'd the skies, and, from the doubling gloom,
On the fcath'd oak the ragged lightning fell;
In closing shades, and where the current strays, 360
With Peace, and Love, and Innocence around,
Pip'd the lone shepherd to his feeding flock :
Round happy parents smil'd their younger selves;
And friends convers'd, by death divided long.
To public Virtue thus the smiling Arts,
Unblemish'd handmaids, serv'd; the Graces they
To dress this fairest Venus. Thus rever'd,
And plac'd beyond the reach of fordid care,
The high awarders of immortal fame,
Alone for glory thy great masters strove;
Courted by kings, and by contending states
Affum'd the boasted honour of their birth.
In ARCHITECTURE too thy rank supreme! That art where most magnificent appears The little builder man; by thee refin'd,
And, fmiling high, to full perfection brought.
Such thy fure rules, that Goths of ev'ry age,
Who scorn'd their aid, have only loaded earth
With labour'd heavy monuments of shame.
Not those gay domes that o'er thy fplendid shore 380
Shot, all proportion, up. First unadorn'd,
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose;
Th' Ionic then, with decent matron grace,
Her airy pillar heav'd; luxuriant last,
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.
The whole fo measur'd true, so lessen'd off
By fine proportion, that the marble pile,
Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste
Of rolling ages, light as fabrics look'd
That from the magic wand aërial rife.
These were the wonders that illumin'd GREECE,
Where are they now? (I cry'd,) fay, GODDESS, where? And what the land thy darling thus of old?
Sunk! she resum'd; deep in the kindred gloom 395 Of Superftition, and of Slav'ry, funk!
Ev'n, to fupply the needful arts of life,
Mechanic toil denies the hopeless hand.
Scarce any trace remaining, vestige grey,
Or nodding column on the defert shore,
To point where Corinth, or where Athens stood.
A faithless land of violence, and death!
Where commerce parleys, dubious, on the shore;
And his wild impulse curious search restrains,
Afraid to trust th' inhospitable clime.
Neglected nature fails; in fordid want
Sunk, and debas'd, their beauty beams no more.
The Sun himself seems, angry, to regard,
Of light unworthy, the degen'rate race ;
And fires them oft with peftilential rays :
While earth, blue poison steaming on the skies,
Indignant, shakes them from her troubled fides..
But as from man to man, Fate's first decree,
Impartial death the tide of riches rolls,
So states must die and LIBERTY go round.
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