ents.

3

As this part contains a description of the establishment of

Liberty in Rome, it begins with a view of the Grecian colonies settled in the southern parts of Italy, which with Sicily constituted the Great Greece of the anci.

With these colonies the spirit of Liberty, and of republics, spreads over Italy; to ver. 32. Transition to Pythagoras and his philofophy, which he taught through those free states and cities; to ver. 71. Amidst the many small republics in Italy, Rome the destined seat of Liberty. Her establishment there dated from the expulsion of the Tarquins. How differing from that in Greece; to ver. 88. Reference to a view of the Roman republic given in the first part of this poem : to mark its rise and fall, the peculiar purport of this. During its first ages, the greatest force of Liberty and Virtue exerted; to ver. 103. The source whence derived the heroic virtues of the Ro

Enumeration of these virtues. Thence their security at home; their glory, fuccefs, and empire, abroad; to ver. 226. Bounds of the Roman empire, geographically described ; to ver. 257. The states of Greece restored to Liberty by Titus Quintus Flaminius, the highest instance of public generosity and beneficence; to ver. 328. The loss of Liberty in Rome. Its causes, progress, and completion in the death of Brutus; to ver. 485. Rome under the emperors ; to ver. 513. From Rome the Goddess of Liberty goes among the Northern Nations; where, by infusing into them her spirit and general principles, She lays the ground-work of her future establishments; sends them in vengeance on the Roman empire, now totally enslaved; and then, with arts and sciences in her train, quits earth during the dark ages ; to ver. 550. The celestial regions, to which Liberty retired, not proper to be opened to the view of mortals.

10

H

ERE melting mix'd with air th' ideal forms,

That painted still whate'er the Goddess fung.
Then I, impatient: “ From extinguish'd Greece,
“ To what new region stream'd the human day?”
She softly sighing, as when Zephyr leaves,
Resign'd to Boreas, the declining year,
Resum'd : Indignant, these last scenes I fed ;
And long ere then, Leucadia's cloudy cliff,
And the Ceraunian hills behind me thrown,
All Latium stood arouz'd. Ages before,
Great mother of republics! Greece had pour'd,
Swarm after swarm, her ardent youth around,
On Asia, Afric, Sicily, they stoop’d,
But chief on fair Hesperia's winding Thore;
Where, from Lacinium to Etrurian vales,

15
They roll'd increasing colonies along,
And lent materials for my Roman Reign.
With them my spirit spread; and numerous states
And citics rose, on Grecian models formid;
As its parental policy, and arts,
Each bad imbib’d. Besides, to each affign'd
A guardian genius, o'er the public weal,

Kept

25

Kept an unclosing eye; try'd to sustain,
Or more sublime, the soul infus’d by Me:
And strong the battle rose, with various wave,
Against the tyrant demons of the land.
Thus they their little wars and triumphs knew,
Their flows of fortune, and ręceding times,
But almost all below the proud regard
Of story vow'd to Rome, on deeds intent

30 That truth beyond the flight of fable bore,

Not so the Samian Sage; to him belongs The brightest witness of recording fame. For these free states his native ifle forsook, And a vain tyrant's transitory smile,

35 He fought Crotona's pure falubrious air, And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught; Wisdom that calm’d for listening years the mind, Nor ever heard amid the storm of zeal, His mental eye first launch'd into the deeps Of boundless æther ; where unnumber'd orbs, Myriads on myriads, through the pathlefs sky Unerring roll, and wind their steady way. There he the full consenting choir beheld; There first discern'd the secret band of love,

45 The kind attraction, that to central suns Binds circling earths, and world with world unites. Instructed thence, he great ideas form’d Of the whole-moving, all-informing God, The sun of beings ! beaming unconfin'd Light, life, and love, and ever-active power : Whom nought can image, and who best approves

The

40

58

The filent worship of the moral heart,
That joys in bounteous heaven, and spreads the joy.
Nor scorn'd the soaring fage to stoop to life, 55
And bound his reason to the sphere of man.
He gave the four yet reigning virtues name;
Inspir'd the study of the finer arts,
That civilize mankind, and laws devis'd
Where with enlighten'd justice mercy mix'd. 60
He ev'n, into his tender system, took
Whatever shares the brotherhood of life:
He taught that life's indiffoluble fame,
From brute to man, and man to brute again,
For ever shifting, runs th' eternal round;
Thence try'd against the blood-polluted meal,
And limbs yet quivering with some kindred soul,
To turn the human heart. Delightful truth!
Had he beheld the living chain ascend,
And not a circling form, but rifing whole.

Amid these finall republics one arose,
On yellow Tyber's bank, almighty Rome,
Fated for Me. A nobler fpirit warm’d
Her sons; and, rouz’d by tyrants, nobler still
It burn'd in Brutus; the proud Tarquins chac'd, 75
With all their crimes; bade radiant æras rise,
And the long honours of the consul-line.

Here, from the fairer, not the greater, plan
Of Greece I vary'd; whose unmixing states,
By the keen soul of emulation pierc’d,
Long wag'd alone the bloodlefs war of arts,
And their best empire gain’d. But to diffuse

70

80

O'er