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Fierce was the stand, ere Virtue, Valour, Arts,

And the Soul fir'd by ME (that often, stung

With thoughts of better times and old renown,
From hydra-tyrants try'd to clear the land)
Lay quite extinct in GREECE, their works effac'd

425

And grofs o'er all unfeeling bondage spread.

Sooner I mov'd my much-reluctant flight,

Pois'd on the doubtful wing: when GREECE with GREECE

Embroil'd in foul contention fought no more

For common glory, and for common weal:

430

But false to Freedom, fought to quell the Free;

Broke the firm band of Peace, and facred Love,

That lent the whole irrefragable force;

And, as around the partial trophy blufh'd,

Prepar'd the way for total overthrow.

435

Then to the Persian pow'r, whose pride they scorn'd, When XERXES pour'd his millions o'er the land,

Sparta, by turns, and Athens, vilely fu'd;

Su'd to be venal parricides, to spill

Their country's bravest blood, and on themselves 440

To turn their matchless mercenary arms.

Peaceful in Sufa, then, fat the Great King*;
And by the trick of treaties, the still waste

Of fly corruption, and barbaric gold,

Effected what his steel could ne'er perform.
Profufe he gave them the luxurious draught,
Inflaming all the land: unbalanc'd wide
Their tott'ring states; their wild assemblies rul'd,
As the winds turn at ev'ry blast the feas :

445

So the kings of Persia were called by the Grecks.

And by their lifted orators, whose breath
Still with a factious storm infested GREECE,

450

Rouz'd them to civil war, or dafh'd them down
To fordid peace-Peace † ! that, when Sparta shook,

Astonish'd ARTAXERXES on his throne,

Gave up, fair-fpread o'er Afia's funny shore,

455

Their kindred cities to perpetual chains.

What could fo base, so infamous a thought
In Spartan hearts inspire ? Jealous, they faw
Refpiring Athens.‡ rear again her walls;
And the pale fury fir'd them, once again
To crush this rival city to the dust.
For now no more the noble social foul
OF LIBERTY my Families combin'd;

460

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But by short views, and selfish paffions, broke,

465

Dire as when friends are rankled into foes,
They mix'd fevere, and wag'd eternal war :
Nor felt they, furious, their exhausted force;
Nor, with false glory, difcord, madness blind,
Saw how the black'ning storm from Thracia came.
Long years roll'd on, by many a battle stain'd ||, 470
The blush and boast of Fame! where courage art,
And military glory shone fupreme :

+ The peace made by ANTALCIDAS, the Lacedemonian admiral, with the Persians; by which the Lacedemonians abandoned all the Greeks established in the leffer Afia to the dominion of the king of Perfia.

I Athens had been dismantled by the Lacedemonians, at the end of the first Peloponnesian war, and was at this time restored by CoNON to its former splendor.

|| The Peloponnefian war.

But let detesting ages, from the scene
Of GREECE felf-mangled, turn the fick'ning eye.

At last, when bleeding from a thousand wounds, 475

She felt her spirits fail; and in the dust

Her latest heroes, NICIAS, CONON, lay,
AGESILAUS, and the THEBAN FRIENDS †:
The Macedonian vulture mark'd his time,
By the dire scent of Cheronea ‡ lur'd,
And, fierce-defcending, seiz'd his hapless prey.
Thus tame fubmitted to the victor's yoke
GREECE, once the gay, the turbulent, the bold;
For ev'ry grace, and muse, and science born;
With arts of War, of Government, elate;
To Tyrants dreadful, dreadful to the Beft;
Whom I MYSELF could scarcely rule: and thus
The Persian fetters, that inthrall'd the mind,
Were turn'd to formal and apparent chains.

480

485

1

Unless CORRUPTION first deject the pride,
And guardian vigour of the free-born foul,
All crude attempts of Violence are vain ;
For firm within, and while at heart untouch'd,

Ne'er yet by Force was Freedom overcome.
But foon as INDEPENDENCE stoops the head,
To Vice enflav'd, and Vice-created Wants;
Then to some foul corrupting Hand, whose waste
These heighten'd wants with fatal bounty feeds :
From man to man the flack'ning ruin runs,
Till the whole State unnerv'd in SLAV'ry finks.

↑ PELOPIDAS and EPAMINONDAS.

490

495

500

+ The battle of Cheronaa, in which PHILIP of Macedon utterly defeated the Greeks.

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BERTY.

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The CONTENTS of PART III.

S this Part contains a defcription of the establishment of LIBERTY in ROME, it begins with a view of the Grecian colonies fettled in the fouthern parts of Italy, which with Sicily conflituted the Great Greece of the Ancients. With these colonies the Spirit of LIBERTY, and of Republics, spreads over Italy; to Ver. 32. Transition to PYTHAGORAS and his philofophy, which he taught through thofe free ftates and cities; to Ver. 71. Amidst the many fmall Republics in Italy, ROME the destined feat of LiHer establishment there dated from the expulfion of the Tarquins. How differing from that in GREECE; to Ver. 88. Reference to a view of the ROMAN REPUBLIC given in the First Part of this Poem: to mark its Rise and Fall the peculiar purport of This. During its first ages, the greatest force of LIBERTY, and Virtue, exerted; to Ver. 103. The fource whence derived the Heroic Virtues of the ROMANS. Enumeration of these Virtues. Thence their security at home; their glory, fuccess, and empire, abroad; to Ver. 226. Bounds of the Roman empire geographically described; to Ver. 257. The states of GREECE restored to LIBERTY, by TITUS QUINTUS FLAMINIUS, the highest instance of public generofity and beneficence; to Ver. 328. The loss of LIBERTY in ROME. causes, progress, and completion in the death of BRUTUS; to Ver. 485. ROME under the emperors; to Ver. 513. From ROME the GODDESS of LiBERTY goes among the NORTHERN NATIONS; where. by infusing into them her Spirit and general principles, SHE lays the ground-work of her future establishments; fends them in vengeance on the Roman empire, now totally enflaved; and then, with Arts and Sciences in her train, quits earth during the dark ages; to Ver. 550. The ceieftial regions, to which LIBERTY retired, not proper to be opened to the view of mortals.

Its

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