Musick and joy inspire his gurgling throat,

Till the dome echoes with his rapturous note; 2735
Familiariz'd at length, the abode he loves,

Nor, freed again, would seek his native groves.
E'en the fierce falcon, and Jove's royal bird,
From their high cliffs by ruftick cunning lur'd,
Though in the blaze of ether once they soar'd,
And dauntless the sun's quenching eye explor'd,
Hood-wink'd, or gyv'd, forego their trackless flight,
To perch, and cow'r, in their proud master's sight:
Lions in bonds will crouch, the tiger fawn,

Tame as the fleecy nibbler of the lawn :

So second nature, habitude, we find,

Asserts like empire o'er the human mind.

2745

The wise too own'd, revolving each event, (Rome's manners chang'd,) which chang'd her go

vernment,'

“That sad experience taught them to expect 2750 "From fatal causes like, a like effect.

7 For a general revision of the Roman history and government, see note (F) at the end of this volume.

"What

"What for the publick weal, alas, was gain'd, "While some new tyrant in succession reign'd? "Good Cato, Tully, Brutus, liv'd no more;

"Their names, like wrecks, bestrew'd th' ill-omen'd

"fhore:

"No Palinurus waking, sure, would court

"A stormy sea, with certain death the port;

2755

Coop'd in a crazy bark, where nought was found "But faithless mariners, and planks unsound. "Bondage to shun, and civil war endure,

"Less dire the evil, than the desperate cure;

2760

"The hapless land to that sad refuge driv❜n, "Feels the last vengeful scourge of angry heaven. "Stern Marius drain'd the nobles' vital flood; "Proud Sylla waded through Plebeian blood; 2765 Pompey by arms maintain'd his dangerous sway, "Wav'd his bright blade, and trembling law gave

way;

All-conqu❜ring Julius, more audacious grown,

"Bade his grim veterans frown the senate down;

"The

2775

"The fell Triumvirs the same track explor'd, 2770 "While their fierce eagles o'er the rostrum soar'd: "Freedom, the stale pretence, for ever fail'd, "And freedom's deadliest foe, the sword, prevail'd. "Where such examples wanted power to strike, “The infant and the sage were wise alike.”Rome, by repeated scenes of horrour cloy'd, Sought gentler arts, to fill the mental void. The genial sky, a soft luxuriant soil, Kind to the poet's vein, and tiller's toil; Stupendous Alps, to raise the soaring thought, And hills and vales in gay confusion wrought; Seas, on whose margin busy towns were built, With towers ennobled, and by sunbeams gilt; Lakes, with these seas in vastness to compare, The foamy Benacus, and copious Lar ;9 And thou, mol'd Lucrine, where tall ships might brave

The harmless roaring of the Tuscan wave;

8

8

2779

2785

* An mare quod supra memorem ; quodque alluit infra? VIRG. Geor. ii. The Adriatick and the Tyrrhene or Tuscan sea.

• Anne lacus tantos? te Lari maxime, teque

Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino? VIRG. ut fupr.

7

Rivers,

Rivers, roll'd down with deep majestick tide,
While argent streams in gentler murmurs glide ;
Tumultuous Nar, and smooth Clitumnus' course,
Gay with the spurning steer, and snow-white horse;
Eridanus, whose floods like ocean rise,

To spout his lofty urn through half the skies;
Slumbers supine beneath umbrageous trees,

Alive with warbling birds, and fan'd by Maia's breeze;
No chilling fear, those slumbers to prolong, 2796
Of forky death from the coil'd serpent's tongue;
(From man's approach the noxious reptile glides,
And close in brakes his swelter'd venom hides;
Not here beheld, as where of monstrous birth
His spires amaze the sky, and hiss consumes the

earth:❜

2801

Such

'Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus

Victima, sæpe tuo purfusi flumine sacro,-. VIRG. Geor, ii. 146.

Qua formosa suo Clitumnus flumina luco

Integit, et niveos abluit unda boves. PROPERT. 1. ii. el. xix. 25.

* Nec rapit immensos orbes per humum, neque tanto

Squameus in spiram tractu se colligit anguis.

VIRG. Geor. ii. 153.

Such as on Bagrada's polluted banks

Fought for the stream, and thinn'd a consul's ranks ; With rams and warlike enginery oblig'd

To assail the Python, like a town besieg'd: 2805
Brazen his scales, as comets flam'd his eyes,

And huge like Ossa the unmeasur'd size :)
Nor dread of poison's vegetable-powers,
Fallacious hid in cups of dew-dropp'd flowers;

Virgil seems particularly to delight in painting the ferpent kind. In the Georgicks and Æneid he has many descriptions of them, all highly finished, and with considerable diversity.

3 A serpent of the enormous length of one hundred and twenty feet is said to have disputed the use of the river Bagrada in Africa with the whole Roman army under the command of the conful Regulus. The account is given, from Tubero, by Aulus Gellius:

"Tubero in historiis scriptum reliquit, bello primo Punico Attilium Regulum consulem in Africa, castris apud Bagradam flumen positis, prælium grande atque acre fecisse adversus unum serpentem illic stabulantem, inusitatæ immanitatis; eumque, magna totius exercitus conflictione, ballistis atque catapultis diu oppugnatum ejusque interfecti corium longum pedes centum ac viginti Romam misisse." Nocт. ATT. 1. vi. c. 3. This monstrous creature was at length killed by a huge stone cast from an engine, which broke the spine of his back. Pliny says, (Hist. Nat. viii. 14.) that his skin was to be seen at Rome, usque ad bellum Numantinum. A. U. C. 620.