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, 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*; Of fly corruption, and barbaric gold, Effected what his steel could ne'er perform. 445 So the kings of Persia were called by the Grecks. And by their lifted orators, whose breath 450 Rouz'd them to civil war, or dafh'd them down 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 460 But by short views, and selfish paffions, broke, 465 Dire as when friends are rankled into foes, + 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 At last, when bleeding from a thousand wounds, 475 She felt her spirits fail; and in the dust Her latest heroes, NICIAS, CONON, lay, 480 485 1 Unless CORRUPTION first deject the pride, Ne'er yet by Force was Freedom overcome. ↑ PELOPIDAS and EPAMINONDAS. 490 495 500 + The battle of Cheronaa, in which PHILIP of Macedon utterly defeated the Greeks. A BERTY. [62] 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 |