The broad Republic tore. By Virtue built

415

It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er fheltered earth
An ample roof: by Virtue, too, fuftain'd,
And balanc'd steady, every tempest sung
Innoxious by, or bade it firmer ftand:

But when, with sudden and enormous change, 420
The first of mankind funk into the laft,
As once in virtue, fo in vice extreme,
This univerfal fabric yielded loofe

Before Ambition ftill; and thundering down,
At last, beneath its ruins crush'd a world.
A conquering people, to themselves a prey,
Muft ever fall, when their victorious troops,
In blood and rapine favage grown, can find
No land to fack and pillage but their own.

By brutal Marius and keen Sylla first
Effus'd the deluge dire of civil blood,
Unceafing woes began, and this or that

425

430

(Deep drenching their revenge), nor virtue spar'd, Nor fex nor age, nor quality nor name;

Till Rome, into an human fhambles turn'd,

435

Made deferts lovely.-Oh! to well-earn'd chains
Devoted race!-If no true Roman then,

No Scævola there was, to raise for Me

A vengeful hand; was there no father, robb'd
Of blooming youth to prop his withered age? 440
No fon a witness to his hoary fire

In duft and gore defil'd? No friend, forlorn?

i

No wretch that doubtful trembled for himself?
None brave, or wild, to pierce a monster's heart,
Who, heaping horror round, no more deferv'd 445
The facred shelter of the laws he spurn'd?

No: fad o'er all profound Dejection fate,
And nerveless Fear. The flave's asylum theirs,
Or flight, ill-judging, that the timid back
Turns weak to flaughter, or partaken guilt.
In vain from Sylla's vanity I drew

450

An unexampled deed. The power refign'd,
And all unhop'd the Commonwealth restor'd,
Amaz'd the public, and effac'd his crimes.
Thro' ftreets yet freaming from his murderous hand
Unarm'd he ftray'd, unguarded, unaffail'd,

And on the bed of peace his ashes laid;
A grace which I to his demiffion gave.

But with him died not the defpotic soul.

456

Ambition faw that stooping Rome could bear 460
A Mafter, nor had virtue to be free.

Hence for fucceeding years My troubled reign
No certain peace, no spreading prospect, knew.
Destruction gathered round. Still the black foul
Or of a Catiline or Rullus *, fwell'd

With fell defigns, and all the watchful art

Of Cicero demanded, all the force,

465

Pub. Servilius Rullus, Tribune of the people, propofed an Agrarian law, in appearance very advantageous for the people, but deftructive of their liberty, and which was defeated by the eloquence of Cicero, in his fpeech against Rullus.

470

All the ftate-wielding magic of his tongue,
And all the thunder of My Cato's zeal.
With these I lingered, till the flame anew
Burft out in blaze immenfe, and wrapt the world.
The shameful conteft fprung to whom mankind
Should yield the neck: to Pompey, who conceal'd
A rage impatient of an equal name,

Or to the nobler Cæfar, on whose brow
O'er daring Vice deluding Virtue fmil'd,
And who no lefs a vain fuperior fcorn'd.
Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rofe.
The venal will be bought, the bafe have lords.
To these vile wars I left ambitious flaves,
And from Philippi's field, from where in duft
The laft of Romans, matchlefs Brutus! lay,
Spread to the North, untam'd, a rapid wing.
What tho' the first smooth Cæfars arts carefs'd

475

480

Merit, and virtue, fimulating Me?

485

Severely tender! cruelly humane !

The chain to clench, and make it fofter fit

On the new-broken ftill ferocious ftate,

490

From the dark Third *, fucceeding, I beheld
Th' imperial monsters all.-A race on earth
Vindictive fent, the fcourge of human-kind!
Whose blind profufion drain❜d a bankrupt world;
Whose luft to forming Nature feems disgrace,
And whose infernal rage bade every drop

Of ancient blood that yet retain'd my flame, 495

Tiberius.

To that of Pætus* in the peaceful bath,

O'er Rome's affrighted streets inglorious flow.
But almost just the meanly-patient death
That waits a tyrant's unprevented stroke.
Titus, indeed, gave one short evening gleam, 500
More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread
Of storm and horror. The delight of men!
He who the day when his o'erflowing hand
Had made no happy heart, concluded loft:
Trajan and he, with the mild Sire and Son t, 505
His fon of virtue! eas'd a while mankind,
And Arts reviv'd beneath their gentle beam.
Then was their laft effort: what Sculpture rais'd
To Trajan's glory, following triumphs stole,
And mixt with Gothic forms (the chiffel's fhame),
On that triumphal arch ‡, the forms of Greece. 511
Mean time o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep vales
Of gelid Hamus, I purfu'd my flight,
And, piercing fartheft Scythia, westward swept
Sarmatia, travers'd by a thousand streams:
A fullen land of lakes, and fens immenfe,

515

* Thrafea Pætus, put to death by Nero.-Tacitus introduces the account he gives of his death thus:-" After having inhumanely flaughtered fo many illuftrious men, he (Nero) burned t 46 at laft with a defire of cutting off Virtue itself in the perfon "of Thrafea," &c.

+ Antoninus Pius, and his adopted fon, Marcus At relius, afterwards called Antoninus Philofophus.

Conftantine's arch, to build which that of Trajan was destroyed, fculpture having been then almoft entirely loft.

The ancient Sarmatia contained a vast tract of country, runwing all along the north of Europe and Afia.

Volume II.

G

Of rocks, refounding torrents, gloomy heaths, And cruel deferts, black with founding pine, Where Nature frowns; tho' fometimes into smiles She foftens, and immediate, at the touch

539

520 Of fouthern gales, throws from the sudden glebe Luxuriant pafture and a waste of flowers. But, cold-compreft, when the whole loaded heaven Defcends in fnow, loft in one white abrupt Lies undiftinguifh'd earth; and, feiz'd by frost, 525 Lakes, headlong fireams, and floods,and oceans, fleep. Yet there life glows; the furry millions there Deep-dig their dens beneath the fheltering fnows; And there a race of men prolific fwarms, To various pain, to little pleasure, us'd; On whom, keen parching, beat Riphæan winds, Hard like their soil, and like their climate fierce, The nursery of nations !-These I rous'd, Drove land on land, on people people pour'd, Till from almoft perpetual night they broke, As if in search of day, and o'er the banks Of yielding Empire, only flave-fuftain'd, Refiftless rag'd, in vengeance, urg'd by Me. Long in the barbarous heart the bury'd feeds Of Freedom lay for many a wintry age, And tho' My fpirit work'd by flow degrees, Nought but its pride and fierceness yet appear'd: Then was the night of time that parted worlds. I quitted earth the while. As when the tribes

535

.540