improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once, from dirt to oppulence; from the lowest ob scurity to the highest honours. Have not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats, vieing with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? And how have their fortunes and their power increased, but as the coinmonwealth has been ruined and impoverished ?

To what are we to impute these disorders? And to what cause assign the decay of a state, so powerful and flourishing in past times? The reason is plain.-The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people; punishments and rewards were properties of the people; all honours, dignities and preferments, were disposed by the voice and favour of the people; but the magistrate now has usurped the right of the people, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient and natural lord. You, miserable people! (the mean while without money, without friends) from being the ruler, are become the servant; from being the master, the dependent; happy that these governours, into whose hands you have thus resigned your own power, are SO good and so gracious as to continue your poor allowance to see plays.

Believe me, Athenians, if recovering from this lethargy, you would assume the ancient freedom and spirit of your fathers; if you would be your own soldiers and your own commanders, confiding no longer your affairs in foreign or mercenary hands; if you would charge yourselves with your own defence, employing abroad, for the public, what you waste in unprofitable pleasures at home; the world might, once more, behold you making a figure worthy of Athenians. "You would have us then (you say) do service in our armies, in our own persons; and for so doing, you would have the pensions we receive, in time of peace, accepted as pay in time of war. Is it thus we are to understand you?"-Yes, Athenians, 'tis my plain meaning, I would make it a standing rule, that no person, great or little, should be the better for the public money, who should grudge to employ it for the public service. we in peace? The public is charged with your subsistence. Are we in war, or under a necessity at this time, to enter into a war? Let your gratitude oblige you to accept, as pay, in defence of your benefactors, what you receive, in

Are

peace, as mere bounty. Thus, without any innovation; without altering or abolishing any thing, but pernicious novelties, introduced for the encouragement of sloth and idleness; by converting only, for the future, the same funds, for the use of the serviceable, which are spent, at present, upon the unprofitable; you may be well served in your armies; your troops regularly paid; justice duly administered; the public revenues reformed and increased; and every member of the commonwealth rendered useful to his country, according to his age and ability, without any further burthen to the state.

This, O men of Athens, is what my duty prompted me to represent to you upon this occasion. May the Gods inspire you, to determine upon such measures, as may be expedient for the particular and general good of our country!

-

XII-Jupiter to the inferiour Deities, forbidding them to take any part in the Contention between the Greeks and Trojans. HOMER.

AURORA, now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn;
When Jove conven'd the senate of the skies,
Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise.
The sire of gods his awful silence broke;
The heavens, attentive, trembled as he spoke :-
"Celestial states! Immortal gods! Give ear:
Hear our decree; and rev'rence what ye hear:
'The fix'd decree, which not all heaven can move:
Thou fate fulfil it: and ye powers, approve.
What god shall enter yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance or but wills to yield;
Back to the skies, with shame he shall be driven,
Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven:
Or, from our sacred hill, with fury thrown,
Deep in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan;
With burning chains fix'd to the brazen floors,
And lock'd by hell's inexorable doors:
As far beneath th' infernal centre hurl'd,
As from that centre to th' etherial world.
Let each, submissive, dread those dire abodes,
Nor tempt the vengeance of the god of gods.
League all your forces, then, ye powers above;

Your strength unite against the might of Jove.
Let down our golden everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth & main
Strive all of mortal and immortal birth,
To drag, by this, the thund'rer down to earth.
Ye strive in vain. If I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean and the land.
I fix the chain to great Olympus' height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight.
For such I reign unbounded and above:
And such are men, and gods, compar'd to Jove."

XIII-Eneas to Queen Dido, giving an Account of th Sack of Troy.-Virgil.

ALL were attentive to the godlike man,

When, from his lofty couch, he thus began :—
Great Queen! What you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate;
An empire from its old foundations rent,
And every woe the Trojans underwent ;
A pop'lous city made a desert place;
All that I saw and part of which I was,
Not e'en the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.

'Twas now the dead of night, when sleep repairs
Our bodies worn with toils, our mind with cares,
When Hector's ghost before my sight appears:
Shrouded in blood he stood, and bath'd in tears:
Such as when, by the fierce Pelides slain,
Thessalian coursers dragg'd him o'er the plain.
Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust
Through the pierc'd limbs; his body black with dust.
Unlike that Hector, who, return'd from toils
Of war, triumphant, in Eacian spoils ;
Or, him who made the fainting Greeks retire,
Hurling amidst their fleets the Phrygian fire.
His hair and beard were clotted stiff with gore :
The ghastly wounds he for his country bore,
Now stream'd afresh.

I wept to see the visionary man;
And, whilst my trance continued, thus began ;

"O light of Trojans, and support of Troy, Thy father's champion, and thy country's joy! O, long expected by thy friends! From whence Art thou so late return'd to our defence? Alas! what wounds are these? What new disgrace Deforms the manly honours of thy face?

•

The spectre groaning from his inmost breast, This warning, in these mournful words express'd. "Haste, goddess born! Escape by timely flight, The flames and horrours of this fatal night, Thy foes already have possess'd our wall; Troy nods from high, and totters to her fall. Enough is paid to Priam's royal name, Enough to country, and to deathless fame. If by a mortal arm my father's throne Could have been sav'd-this arm the feat had done. Troy now commends to thee her future state, And gives her gods companions of her fate; Under their umbrage hope for happier walls, And follow where thy various fortune calls." He said, and brought from forth the sacred choir, The gods and relics of th' immortal fire.

Now peals of shouts came thund'ring from afar, Cries, threats, and loud lament, and mingled war. The noise approaches, though our palace stood Aloof from streets, embosom'd close with wood; Louder and louder still I hear th' alarms Of human cries distinct, and clashing arms. Fear broke my slumbers.

I mount the terrace; thence the town survey,
And listen what the swelling sounds convey.
Then Hector's faith was manifestly clear'd;
And Grecian fraud in open light appear'd.
The palace of Deipholus ascends

In smokey flames, and catches on his friends.
Ucalegon burns next; the seas are bright
With splendours not their own, and shine with spark-
ling light.

New clamours and new clangours now arise,
The trumpets' voice, with agonizing cries.
With phrenzy seiz'd, I run to meet th' alarms,
Resolv'd on death, resolv'd to die in arms.

But first to gather friends, with whom t' oppose,
If fortune favour'd and repel the foes,
By courage rous'd, by love of country fir'd,
With sense of honour and revenge inspir'd.

Pantheus, Apollo's priest, a sacred name,
Had scap'd the Grecian swords and pass'd the flame:
With relics loaded, to my doors he fled,
And by the hand his tender grandson led.

"What hope, O Pantheus? Whither can we run?
Where make a stand? Or, What can yet be done!
Scarce had I spoke, when Pantheus, with a groan,
"Troy is no more! Her glories now are gone.
The fatal day, th' appointed hour is come,
When wrathful Jove's irrevocable doom
Transfers the Trojan state to Grecian hands:
Our city's wrapt in flames; the foe commands.
To several posts their parties they divide;

Some block the narrow streets; some scour the wide.
The bold they kill; th' unwary they surprise;
Who fights meets death, and death finds him who flies."

XIV.-Moloch the fallen Angel, to the infernal powers, inciting them to renew the War.-MILTON.

Of wiles

MY sentence is for open war.
More unexpert, I boast not; then let those
Contrive who need or when they need, not now.
For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,
Heav'ns fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny, who reigns
By our delay? No; let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fery, all at once,
O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms,
Against the tort'rer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder; and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horrour shot with equal rage
Among his angels-and his throne itself,
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,