In solemn silence, a majestick band,

Heroes, and gods, and Roman consuls stand,
Stern tyrants, whom their cruelties renown,
And emperors in Parian marble frown;

While the bright dames, to whom they humble su’d,

Still show the charms that their proud hearts subdu’d.

Fain wou'd I Raphael's godlike art rehearse,

And shew th' immortal labours in my verse,
Where from the mingled strength of shade and light
A new creation rises to my sight,

Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow,

So warm with life his blended colours glow.
From theme to theme with secret pleasure tost,
Amidst the soft variety I'm lost :

Here pleasing airs my ravisht soul confound
With circling notes and labyrinths of sound;
Here domes and temples rise in distant views,
And opening palaces invite my muse.

How has kind heav'n adorn'd the happy land,
And scatter'd blessings with a wasteful hand!
But what avail her unexhausted stores,
Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores,
With all the gifts that heav'n and earth impart,
The smiles of nature, and the charms of art,
While proud oppression in her vallies reigns,
And tyranny usurps her happy plains?

less acts of the old Romans being displayed-a line doubly obscure, and therefore doubly faulty. If the latter fault may be excused, the former cannot for when a plural noun is used, in what is called the genitive case, it requires to be preceded by its sign, the preposition of: above all, when the termination (as is generally the case of our plural nouns) is in s.

The

poor inhabitant beholds in vain1

The red'ning orange and the swelling grain:
Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:
Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curst,
And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.

Oh Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eas'd of her load subjection grows more light
And poverty looks chearful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day
Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores;
How has she oft exhausted all her stores,
How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine,
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies,
Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
Tho' o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine:

'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,

And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile

1 The poor inhabitant, &c. These three couplets are among the most vigorous lines Addison ever wrote. Si sic omnia-he would have stood as high in verse as he does in prose. It is almost too minute a criticism, perhaps, to say that 'red'ning' is not the proper epithet for the orange, even while it is growing.-G.

Others with towering piles may please the sight,'
And in their proud aspiring domes delight;

A nicer touch to the stretch'd canvass give,
Or teach their animated rocks to live:
'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate,
And hold in balance each contending state,
To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war,
And answer her afflicted neighbours' pray'r.
The Dane and Swede, rous'd up by fierce alarms,
Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms:
Soon as her fleets appear, their terrors cease,
And all the northern world lies hush'd in peace.
Th' ambitious Gaul beholds with secret dread
Her thunder aim'd at his aspiring head,
And fain her godlike sons wou'd disunite
By foreign gold, or by domestick spite;
But strives in vain to conquer or divide,
Whom Nassau's arms defend and counsels guide.

Fir'd with the name, which I so oft have found
The distant climes and different tongues resound,
I bridle in my struggling muse with pain,2

That longs to launch into a bolder strain.

1 Others with towering piles, &c. Virgil, whose magnificent description of Italy in the second Georgic, seems to have been running in Addison's head while he was writing several passages of this poem, is very successfully imitated in these lines. Compare the well-known verses of the sixth Æneid, v. 847: Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, &c.-G.

I bridle in my struggling muse, &c. Of this Johnson says, "To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why must she be bridled? because she longs to launch! an act which was never hindered by a bridle; and whither will she launch? into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a horse, in the second a boat; and the care of the poet is to keep his horse or his boat from singing." Blair takes nearly the same view. "It is surprising how the following inaccuracy should have escaped Mr. Addison in his letter from Italy-'I bridle, &c.' The muse, figured as a horse, may be

But I've already troubled you too long,
Nor dare attempt a more advent'rous song.
My humble verse' demands a softer theme,
A painted meadow, or a purling stream;
Unfit for heroes; whom immortal lays,

And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, shou'd praise.

bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one mobridled to hinder it from launching."-G.

ment;

1 My humble verse. Sed ne relictis, musa procax, jocis, &c. To one who travelled with the Latin poets for his guide books, it is more than probable that the closing stanza of the first ode of Horace's 2d book suggested this graceful close.-G.

VOL. I.-E

Esse aliquam in terris gentem quæ suâ impensâ, suo labore ac periculo bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinquæ vincinitatis hominibus, aut terris continenti junctis præstet. Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, potentissima sint. LIV. HIST. lib. 33.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

[THE best authorities very nearly agree in the following account of the origin of this poem:-"The victory at Blenheim" (1704), says Johnson, "spread triumph and confidence over the nation; and Lord Godolphin lamenting to Lord Halifax, that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. Halifax told him that there was no encouragement for genius; that worthless men were unprofitably enriched with public money, without any care to find or employ those whose appearance might do honor to their country. To this Godolphin replied, that such abuses should in time be rectified: and that if a man could be found, capable of the task then proposed, he should not want an ample recompense. Halifax then named Addison, but required that the treasurer should apply to him in his own person. Godolphin sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton; and Addison having undertaken the work, communicated it to the treasurer, while it was yet advanced no farther than the simile of the angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of Commissioner of Appeals."