But gently soothing, of benign address,

And still more bless'd, as most employ'd to bless. Bold daring crimes avenging law pursues,

Leaving man's foibles to the sportive muse ;

2515

And deep they feel, who sin 'gainst reason's rule, The pains and penalties of ridicule :

But injudicious satire in a storm,

Drives to despair the wretch it should reform;
With brazen front he stalks, abash'd no more,
And braves the shame he tried to shun before.
The black misdeeds of execrable men,

Let cords or axes punish, not the pen:
When fetters clank, and dungeons yawn in vain,

2525

Adieu the physick of the iambick strain!
What novice now would waste his muse and time,
To tame a modern Frenchman by a rhyme?
Can the soft lute, or silver-sounding lyre,

Arrest the roaring of the tiger's ire?

9 The pains and penalties of idleness. POPE.

Ev'n

2530

Ev'n full-tongu'd Juvenal's imperial rage
Would fly the nation, and abjure the age.
Be true to virtue, bards, in all you write,
But never strive, to wash an Ethiop white;
Observe the buds of folly as they grow,
And sage, like Horace, nip them ere they blow.
When crown'd with roses in Anacreon's bower,
The Paphian queen and Bacchus own the hour.'
What surly cynick can the feast reprove,

Or dare profane the joys of wine and love?
But if in Pindar's tone he pours along,

2534

2540

The flood he paints rolls thund'ring through his

song;'

The Theban's genius all his soul inspires,

And lifts above the example he admires.

'O Venus, regina Cnidi, Paphique,-. HOR. 1. i. ode xxx.

1 Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres

Quem super notas aluere ripas,

Fervet, immensusque ruit profundo

Pindarus ore. HOR. 1. iv. ode ii.

Let

Let youthful poets own the critick's skill," And climb with him the steep Parnassian hill, 2545 Where crags, and thorns, and bitter springs abound,* With scarce one flowery spot of pregnant ground; So worn and harrow'd by the ancients' toil, The tardy modern hardly gleans the soil; But finds, too late, the imagin'd fragrant store 2550 Borne off by bees, who suck'd its sweets before: Yet guiding Flaccus still his hope may raise; The path he knows, and points it to true praise. Pleas'd with what heaven will grant or disallow, Eternal sunshine gilds his cheerful brow; In idle murmurs no vain hour he'll waste, But clasps the present joy, nor mourns the past." Bless'd moralist! whose winning manners gain'd The ease of freedom, where a despot reign'd; 2559

2555

'HOR. de Arte Poetica.

4 Quod superest arvi, tamen id natura sua vi Sentibus obducat,-. LUCR. 1. v. 207.

scarpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. HOR. 1. i. ode xi.

7

Wise

Wise sensualist! who scorn'd superfluous wealth," And found true luxury in peace and health.

O VID.

A. U. C. 711-771.

'Midst many a nameless son of vulgar earth, Sulmo could boast she gave her Ovid birth.

Together

Nollem onus, haud unquam solitus, portare molestum.
HOR. Sat. 1. i. s. vi.

It is singular enough that Ovid should have collected such a number of fabulous transformations and impossibilities, and have given them to his countrymen with such an air of gravity and devotion, without having himself the least faith in any of them; for a man of sense who examined them so much as he must have done, was of all men the least likely to believe them. His Metamorphoses may be considered as the great magazine and repository of pagan fiction and mythology.

He is supposed to have been greatly addicted to gallantry, and a very distinguished favourite among the Roman ladies, to whom he recommended himself more by his learning, talents, and poetry, than by the gracefulness of his figure, and his other personal accomplishments. He had besides reduced the mystery of female seduction to a system. There are few women of any natural delicacy of sentiment, however little they may happen to be indebted for the improvement of their minds to education, who can be insensible to the distinction which literature gives to the other sex. Nothing is less uncommon, than to find a woman's principles seduced by her understanding.

The

OVID.