Within their bowers a thousand demons bide,
A thousand snakes within their flow'rets hide.

A plaftic God informs the Poet's mind,
He makes the beauteous which he does not find,
Displays th' ideal paradife around,

And fmiles the barren heath to fairy ground;
His Midas' hands ennobled objects hold,
And feel and touch the meanest drofs to gold.
Ah fatal gift, what comfort canft thou bring?
Lefs to the Bard than to the Lydian king.
Attendant Fancy, from the wilds of air,
Convokes the fmiling families of Fair,
The beauteous elves that o'er creation rove,
Delightful children of almighty Love:
Prompt, at her call, the bright ideas throng,
And ruth profufely through the bloomy fong.
At Fancy's fide, the young ey'd Paffions stand,
Sweet blushing boys, in form, a cherub band;
The foul expands, to lodge the fmiling train,
Ah, little fearful of the future pain!
Beneath his wings each veils a barbed dart,
Till deep it quivers in the bleeding heart,
Then marks, with cruel pride, his guilty fkill,
And flutters round, in wantonness of ill.

Still thou would't write.-To tame thy youthful fire, Re all to life the martyrs of the lyre.

Lo, every face the lines of forrow bears,

And every wreath is wet with dropping tears;
Such deadly damps the verdant mead bedew,
It feems funereal as the Stygian yew.
Ask of the train, and they perhaps may tell,
Around the bard what rifing comforts dwell,
What ifles of bifs he finds in forrow's deep,
What golden vifions chear his fatal fleep.

There Ovid mourns, along the Pontic plain,
The lucklefs paffion, and th' unguarded train;
How frail and brief imperial friendships prove,
What giddy perils wait imperial love.

Once, the proud thing that met a Julia's fires,
Once the gay tutor of a young defires;
Now faint and womanifh, to tears 'refign'd,
The feeble numbers fpeak th' enervate mind.
His Julia's portrait all at random caft,

His Art of Love is torn, and scatter'd o'er the wafte.
There honest Juvenal, whofe manly page

Scourg'd the rank vices of fhameleis age:

Swoln

Swoln with the furfeit of luxurious wealth,
Proud Rome imbib'd the bitter draught of health;
And what his portion ?-read th' indignant ftrain:
"The lot of virtue is applaufe and pain.
"Ah, vain applause the pain thou can'ft not cure;
"Th' applaufe is tranfient, bat.the pains endure."
And het who fitted to the deep-ton'd lyre
Polluted Thebes, th' inceftuous fon and fire,
The father's curfe, the brother's deathless hate,
Th' eternal fiends that Cadmus' line await.—
Muft the proud Mufe, in regal crimson dy'd,
Crouch at a manager's infulting pride?
When Paris' nod profcrib'd the lofty fong,

Vain were the fceptred pall, and vain the buskin'd throng.
Oh fplended impotence of barren praise!
No golden apples crown the ftarving bays.

And hark, Laberius ||, from the guilty stage,
Mourns the fad remnant of dishonour'd age.
When Cæfar's cruelty, with base controul,
Would rend the feelings of a generous foul;
Imperial fpite devis'd the wounded task,
The knight degraded in the jefter's mafk;
But fhame recoiling mock'd th' infernal aim,
Flew from the bard, and fmote the tyrant's name.
Ambition bade young Petrarch's eyes explore
The deep recefles of the legal ftore;
Religion woo'd him to the hallow'd toil
Of facred volumes by the midnight oil;
From lurid cells he drew, with pious hand,
The precious reliques of the claffic band.

Probitas laudatur & alget.

Starius.

Paris, a famous actor.

§ Curritur ad vocem jucundam, & carmen ainicæ
Thebaidos, lætam fecit cum Statius urbem,
Promifirque diem, tantâ dulcedine captos
Afficit ile animos, tantâque libidine vulgi
Auditor; fed cum fregit fubfellia verfu,
Efurit, intactam Paridi nifi vendat Agaven.

JUVENAL.

Julius Cæfar, by a moft odious refinement in cruelty, defiring to outrage the feelings of an ingenuous mind, compe.led Laveries, a Roman knight, and a poer of fome eminence, to perform a part in a farce on the public ftage.His fpirited and pathetic lamentation on that occafion is ftill extant, and muft equally excite our esteem and compattion for the poet, and our deteftation and contempt for the tyrant.

¶ Petrarch was defigned for the ftudy of the law by his father, and applied himself, for a while, with great application to that profeffion. He afterwards went into the church, and was in great favour at the Pope's court. It is not generally known, that he was one of the great restorers of ancient literature, and made a very large collection of manufcripts of the claffics.

Beneath a heap of Gothic rubbish hurl'd,
And mingled fragments of a wasted world
(When, like an earthquake, the barbarians' hate
Broke the coloffus of the Roman state),
For ages funk, the Mufe of Tiber lay,
But Petrarch's hand reveal'd her to the day.
Unworthy paffion came, with base controul,
And fhrunk the finews of the mighty foul;
It curs'd his life, it dwindled all his fame,
It funk the fcholar's in the lover's name.

What art fhall footh, what counsel shall controul,
Th' eternal ftorm of Taffo's madding foul?
He fhone, unrivall'd for the fword and pen,
And curs'd he fhone, beyond the lot of men,
Love, fear, refentment, jealousy, difdain,
In wild fucceffion goad the tortur'd brain.
Might heavenly harpings footh th' infernal band,
Nor borrow'd lyre he needs, nor David's hand.
Such ftrains are thine:-perturbed noble mind,
Where fhalt thou reft?—or where a harbour find?
Thy days in exile or in prifon paft,

In madness muft thou feek repofe at last.

See the bold Mufe exulting Tagus bore,
A wretched exile on a diftant flore.

Hark, the fwart eaft unwonted ftrains shall boast,
And chords angelic footh the burning coaft.
From pain to pain thy wand'ring steps were led,
And fhames and forrows crowded on thy head;
Wounds, want, and chains, thy foul by turns effay,
And, worst and laft, a petty tyrant's fway:
Such was thy lot, Camoens; and fortune's hate
Had mark'd thy numbers for a' filent fate;
But thy ftrong hand her envious rage defy'd,
And fnatch'd thy glory from the oblivious tide;
High o'er his head th' immortal tome he bore,

And ftem'd the faucy main, and proudly gain'd the fhore.—

Illuftrious poet, what returns of praise,

What beams of comfort chear thy clofing days?

An hofpital receives th' indignant bard,

And beggars' alms the facred fong reward.

Alas, how little can the vulgar eyes
Revere the poet, through the mean disguise
Of abject want, and own th' ætherial йame!
And hail the nurfeling of eternal fame!

Thus, at fome mafque, unhonour'd and unknown,
A prince is shrouded in the palmer's gown.

HAT conftitutes a state?

WHAT

Not high-rais'd battlement of labour'd mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud with fpires and turrets crown'd;
Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,

Where, laughing at the ftorm, rich navies ride;
Not ftarr'd and fpangled courts,

Where low-brow'd bafenefs wafts perfume to pride.
No:-MEN, high-minded MEN,

With pow'rs as far above dull brutes endued
In foreft, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:

These constitute a state,

And fov'reign LAW, that fate's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits Emprefs, crowning good, repreffing ill;
Smit by her facred frown

The fiend Discretion like a vapour finks,

And e'en th' all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
Such was this heav'n-lov'd ifle,

Than Lefbos fairer and the Cretan fhore!

No more fhall Freedom fmile?

Shall Britons languish, and be MEN no more?
Since all muft life refign,

Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave,

'Tis folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the filent grave.

ABERGAVENNY,

March 31, 1781.

A

3

T

a

HONORIA, or the Day of ALL SOULS, a Poem, By Mr. JERNINGHAM.

The Scene of the following little Poem is fuppofed to be in the great Church of St. Ambrole at Milan the fecond of November, on which Day the moft folemn O ce is performed for the Repofe of the Dead.

Y The awful fummons of affliction bear:

E hallow'd bells, whofe voices thro' the air

Ye flowly-waving banners of the dead,
That o'er yon altar your dark horrors fpread:
Ye curtain'd lamps whofe mitigated ray
Cafts round the fane a pale reluctant day:
Ye walls, ye fhrines, by melancholy dreft,
Well do ye fuit the fashion of my breast!
Have I not loft what language can't unfold,
The form of valour caft in Beauty's mould!
Th' intrepid youth the path of battle tried,
And foremost in the hour of peril died.
Nor was I prefent to bewail his fate,
With pity's lenient voice to soothe his state,
To watch his looks, to read while Death ftood by,
The laft expreffion of his parting eye.

But other duties, other cares impend,

Cares that beyond the mournful grave extend:
Now, now I view conven'd the pious train,
Whose bofom forrows at another's pain,

While recollection pleafingly fevere
Wakes for the awful dead the filent tear,
And pictures (as to each her sway extends)
The facred forms of lovers, parents, friends.
Now Charity a fiery feraph ftands
Befide yon altar with uplifted hands.

Yet, can this high folemnity of grief
Yield to the youth I love the with'd relief?
These rites of death-Ah! what can they avail?
Honorius died beyond the hallow'd pale.
Plung'd in the gulph of fear-diftrefsful ftate!
My anxious mind dares not enquire his fate.
Yet why defpond? cou'd one flight error roll
A flood of poifon o'er the healthful foul?
Had not thy virtues full fufficing pow'r
To clear thee in the dread recording hour?
Did they before the judge abash'd remain?
Did they, weak advocates, all plead in vain ?