ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC; AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY. I. "TWAS at the royal feast, for Perfia won By Philip's warlike fon : Aloft in awful state The godlike hero fate On his imperial throne: 5 His valiant peers were plac'd around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: (So fhould defert in arms be crown'd.) The lovely Thais, by his fide, Sate like a blooming Eastern bride In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 10 None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deferves the fair. 15 CHORUS. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deferves the fair. II. Timotheus, plac'd on high With flying fingers touch'd the lyre: 20 And heavenly joys infpire. The fong began from Jove, Who left his blifsful feats above, When he to fair Olympia prefs'd: 25 30 And while he fought her fnowy breast: Then, round her flender waist he curl'd, And stamp'd an image of himself, a sovereign of the world. Ver. 20. Dr. Burney has given a learned, full, and enter taining account of Timotheus, the mufician, in his first volume of his Hiftory of Mufic, p. 405. Mr. Jackfon, whofe tafte and feeling on the fubject of mufic must be allowed to be just and exquifite, cenfures Dryden for extending the powers of mufic over the paffions, and affirms that pleafure only can be excited. Dr. J. WARTON, The liftening crowd admire the lofty found, A prefent deity, the vaulted roofs rebound: The monarch hears, And seems to shake the spheres. CHORUS. With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Affumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres. III. 35 40 45 The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician fung, Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young: The jolly god in triumph comes; Sound the trumpets; beat the drums; 50 He fhews his honeft face: Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes. Bacchus, ever fair and young, 55 Bacchus' bleffings are a treasure, Sweet the pleasure, Sweet is pleasure after pain. CHORUS. Bacchus' bleffings are a treasure, Sweet the pleasure, Sweet is pleasure after pain. IV. Sooth'd with the found the king grew Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he flew the flain. Ver. 56. Bacchus' bleffings are a treasure, Rich the treafure, Sweet the pleasure, Sweet is pleafure after pain.] "I know not how, but martial men are given to love; I think it is, but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly afk to be paid with pleafure." Bacon. JOHN WARTON. Ver. 66. Suidas, tom. ii. p. 713, mentions the Orthian style in mufic, in which Timotheus is faid to have played to Alexander; and one Antigenides inflamed this prince still more by ftriking into what were called Harmatian measures. See Plutarch de Fortunâ Alexand. II. Orat. and Suidas in the word apparsios, a strain ufually played in the theatres when Hector was dragged at the chariot wheels, ip' aquaros. Q. Curtius, lib. v. 67, gives a minute defcription of the burning the palace at Perfepolis, when Alexander was attended by Thuis. But it does not The mafter faw the madness rife ; Soft pity to infuse: He fung Darius great and good, By too fevere a fate, Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, 70 75 Fallen from his high estate, And weltring in his blood; appear in the accurate Arrian, lib. iii. cap. 18. that Thais had any fhare in this tranfaction. Arrian, but more fo Aristobulus, endeavoured to exculpate Alexander from the charge of frequent ebriety; but from a fragment of Menander, preferved in the curious repofitory of anecdotes, Athenæus, lib. x. p. 434, noλax, he plainly mentions the drunkennefs of Alexander as proverbial. Dr. J. WARTON. Ver. 73. The mention of this pathetic air reminds me of a ftory of the celebrated Lully, who having been one day accused of never fetting any thing to mufic, but the languid verfes of Quinault, was immediately animated with the reproach, and, as it were, feized with a kind of enthusiasm; he ran inftantly to his harpfichord, and striking a few chords, fung in recitative these four lines in the Iphigenia of Racine, which are full of the ftrongest imagery, and are therefore much more difficult to exprefs in mufic, than verfes of more fentiment: Un prêtre environné d'une foule cruelle, Dans fon cœur palpitant confultera les dieux. One of the company has often declared, that they all thought themselves prefent at this dreadful fpectacle, and that the notes, with which Lully accompanied thefe words, erected the hair of their heads with horror, Dr. J. WARTON. |