PASTORAL IV.

OR,

Pollio.

The poet celebrates the birthday of Saloninus, the son of Pollio, born in the consulship of his father, after the taking of Saloæn, a city in Dalmatia. Many of the verses are translated from one of the Sibyls, who prophesied of our Saviour's birth.

Sicilian muse, begin a loftier strain !

Tho' lowly shrubs, and trees that shade the plain,
Delight not all; Sicilian muse, prepare

To make the vocal woods deserve a consul's care.
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finish'd course: Saturnian times
Roll round again; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb in radiant circles run.
The base degen'rate iron offspring ends;
A golden progeny from heaven descends.
O chaste Lucina! speed the mother's pains;
And haste the glorious birth! thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely boy, with his auspicious face,

Shall Pollio's consulship and triumph grace:
Majestic months set out (with him) to their appointed

race.

The father banish'd virtue shall restore;

And crimes shall threat the guilty world no more.

The son shall lead the life of gods, and be
By gods and heroes seen, and gods and heroes see.
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind,
And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring,
And fragrant herbs (the promises of spring,)
As her first off'rings to her infant king,

The goats with strutting dogs shall homeward speed,
And lowing herds secure from lions feed.

His cradle shall with rising flow'rs be crown'd:
The serpent's brood shall die: the sacred ground
Shall weeds and pots'nous plants refuse to bear:
Each common bush shall Syrian roses wear.
But when heroic verse his youth shall raise,
And form it to hereditary praise,

Unlabor'd harvests shall the fields adorn,

And cluster'd grapes shall blush on every thorn;
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep;
And thro' the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep,
Yet, of old fraud some footsteps shall remain:
The merchant still shall plough the deep for gain:
Great cities shall with walls be compass'd round;
And sharpen'd shares shall vex the fruitful ground;
Another Typhis shall new seas explore;

Another Argo land the chiefs upon th' Iberian shore;
Another Helen other wars create,

And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
But, when to ripen'd manhood he shall grow,
The greedy sailor shall the seas forego:
No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware;

For every soil shall every product bear.

The lab'ring hind his oxen shall disjoin:

No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning-hook the vine;

Nor wool shall in dissembled color shine
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple, and unborrow'd gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat;
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.
The Fates, when they this happy web have spun,
Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it smoothly run.
Mature in years, to ready honors move,

O, of celestial seed! O, foster-son of Jove!
See, lab'ring Nature calls thee to sustain

The nodding frame of heav'n, and earth, and main !
See to their base restor'd, earth, seas, and air;
And joyful ages, from behind, in crowding ranks appear.
To sing thy praise, would heav'n my breath prolong,
Infusing spirits worthy such a song,

Not Thracian Orpheus should transcend my lays,
Nor Linus crown'd with never fading bays;
Though each his heav'nly parent should inspire;
The muse instruct the voice, and Phoebus tune the lyre.
Should Pan contend in verse, and thou my theme,
Arcadian judges should their god condemn.

Begin, auspicious boy! to cast about

Thy infant eyes, and with a smile thy mother single

out.

Thy mother well deserves that short delight.

The nauseous qualms of ten long months and travail to requite.

Then smile! the frowning infant's doom is read:
No god shall crown the board, nor goddess bless the bed.

The writings of Horace, although not read as much by scholars in this country as those of Virgil, are marked with as much genius and a deeper knowledge

of the affairs of the world. He was educated in part at Athens, and imbibed all the sweets of that attic hive. He spent his days in literary ease, and associated with men in the first rank in Rome, from Augustus to the orators and poets around him.

"In the person of Horace there was nothing characteristic of the Roman. He was below the middle size, and extremely corpulent. Augustus compares him, in a letter, to the book which he sent him-a little thick volume. He was grey-haired at a very early age, and luxurious living by no means agreed with his constitution; yet he constantly associated with the greatest men in Rome, and frequented the table of his illustrious patrons as if he were in his own house. The emperor, whilst sitting at his meals with Virgil at his right hand and Horace at his left, often ridiculed the short breath of the former, and the watery eyes of the latter, by observing that 'he sat between tears and sighs.' In early life Horace seems to have been a disciple of Epicurus, and a professor of the doctrine of chance in the formation of things; but in Ode xxxiv. book i. we find him abjuring this system of philosophy, and embracing that of stoicism; mentioning as one great, though apparently unreasonable motive for recantation, that it thundered and lightened in a pure sky, which was a phænomenon not to be accounted for on natural principles, and, consequently, an irresistible argument in support of an over-ruling Providence.

"Horace has been, of all others, the poet for quotation, and the companion of the classical scholar. His Odes are indisputably the best models of that kind of composition in the Latin language; for when many others were extant, Quintilian pronounced him almost

the only one of the lyric poets worthy of being read.' It has been well observed of him, that he has given to a rough language the tender and delicate modulation of the eastern song. His odes are pathetic, heroic, and amatory. The seventeenth of the second book, written during the last illness of Mæcenas, is of the first kind; it possesses all that variety of sentiment and felicity of expression in which he is so eminently superior to his great Theban competitor. Of the heroic, one of the most celebrated is that to Fortune, (Ode xxxv. book i.) wherein he invokes her with the most insinuating grace, and recommends Augustus and the Romans to her care. The amatory odes of this inestimable poet evince the polished and delicate taste of which he was so eminently possessed; they contain the refinement and softness of Sappho, combined with the spirit and elegance of Anacreon. In his ode to Pyrrha, there is a mixture of sweetness and reproach, of praise and satire, uniformly pleasing in all languages; and which Scaliger calls the purest nectar. Horace can equally inflame the mind by his enthusiasm, and calm it by his philosophy. Where shall we see in an uninspired writer, better consolation for poverty, or stronger arguments for contentment, than are contained in his admirable ode to Dellius? And his hymn to the praise of the gods and of illustrious men, may claim the palm, when put in competition with the finest compositions of his Grecian predecessors.

"The satires and epistles of Horace are full of morality and good sense. In the first book of the satires it is his obvious endeavour to eradicate vice; and in the second, to dispel those prejudices which infest the human mind. The epistles are an appendix to the satires;