In life's cool vale let my low fcene be laid;
Cover me, gods, with Tempe's thickest fhade.
Happy the man, I grant, thrice happy he,
Who can through grofs effects their causes fee:
Whofe courage from the deeps of knowledge fprings,
Nor vainly fears inevitable things;

But does his walk of virtue calmly go

Through all th' alarms of death and hell below [
Happy! but, next fuch conquerors, happy they,
Whofe humble life lies not in fortune's way.
They unconcern'd, from their fafe diftant feat
Behold the rods and fceptres of the great.
The quarrels of the mighty without fear,
And the defcent of foreign troops they hear.

[e] hell below] Hell, for the grave, in which fenfe the word is generally uled by the tranflators of the Old Teftament. He would fay, That death and the grave, inevitable things, as he calls them, have no terrors for the good man, for him,

"who does his walk of virtue go

fuch a man having nothing to fear from death, if it be a state of infenfibility, and much to hope, if it be the paflage only to a future existence. So fagely has our Chriftian poet corrected the libertinifin of his pagan, and epicurean original, who thought nothing of opPofing the walk of virtue, to his

-“ metus omnes, ftrepitumque Acherontis avari.”

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Nor

Nor can ev'n Rome their fteady courfe mifguide,
With all the luftre of her perifhing pride.
Them never yet did ftrife or avarice draw
Into the noify markets of the law,

The camps of gowned war; nor do they live
By rules or forms, that many madmen give.
Duty for nature's bounty they repay,

And her fole laws religiously obey.

Some with bold labour plough the faithless main,

Some rougher ftorms in princes courts fuftain.
Some fwell up their flight fails with popular fame,
Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name [ƒ].
Some their vain wealth to earth again commit;
With endless cares fome brooding o'er it sit.
Countrey and friends are by fome wretches fold,
To lie on Tyrian beds, and drink in gold;
No price too high for profit can be shown;
Not brothers blood, nor hazards of their own.
Around the world in fearch of it they roam,
It makes ev'n their antipodes their home;
Mean while, the prudent husbandman is found,
In mutual duties ftriving with his ground,

1

[f] Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name] Or, ravish'd with the whistling if a name—" Pope, Effay on Man, iv. 282.

And

And half the year he care of that does take,
That half the year grateful returns does make.
Each fertile month does fome new gifts prefent,
And with new work his industry content.

This, the young lamb, that, the foft fleece doth yield;

This, loads with hay, and that, with corn the field;
All forts of fruit crown the rich autumn's pride;
And on a fwelling hill's warm ftony fide,
The powerful princely purple of the vine,
Twice dy'd with the redoubled fun, does fhine.
In th' evening to a fair enfuing day,
With joy he fees his flocks and kids to play:
And loaded kine about his cottage ftand,
Inviting with known found the milker's hand;
And, when from wholesom labour he doth come,
With wishes to be there, and wish'd for home,
He meets at door the fofteft human bliffes,
His chafte wife's welcome, and dear children's kiffes.
When any rural holidays invite

His genius forth to innocent delight,

On earth's fair bed, beneath fome facred fhade,
Amidft his equal friends carelessly laid,

He fings thee, Bacchus, patron of the vine,
The beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine,

Not to the lofs of reafon, or of ftrength:.
To active games and manly fport, at length,
Their mirth afcends, and with fill'd veins they fee,
Who can, the beft at better trials be.

From fuch the old Hetrurian virtue rose;
Such was the life the prudent Sabins chose;

Such, Remus and the god, his brother, led;

From fuch firm footing Rome grew the world's head [g].

Such was the life that, ev'n till now, does raise
The honour of poor Saturn's golden days:
Before men, born of earth and buried there,
Let in the fea their mortal fate to fhare:
Before new ways of perifhing were fought,
Before unfkilful death on anvils wrought:
Before those beafts, which human life fuftain,
By men, unless to the gods ufe, were flain.

-world's head] After this line, in the original, is inferted the following

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Septemque una fibi muro circumdedit arces"omitted by the tranilator, either as not feeing the force and propriety of it, or as not conceiving how this addition to the world's head could be made to look confiderable in the eyes of the common reader.

HOR

HOR. Epod. Ode II.

HAPPY the man, whom bounteous gods allow With his own hands paternal grounds to plough! Like the first golden mortals happy, he, From business and the cares of money free! No human ftorms break off at land his fleep; No loud alarms of nature on the deep: From all the cheats of law he lives fecure, Nor does th' affronts of palaces endure; Sometimes, the beauteous marriageable vine He to the lufty bridegroom elin does join; Sometimes, he lops the barren trees around, And grafts new life into the fruitful wound;' Sometimes he sheers his flock, and fometimes he Stores up the golden treasures of the bee. He fees his lowing herds walk 'o'er the plain, Whilft neighbouring hills low back to them again; And when the season, rich as well as gay, All her autumnal bounty does difplay, How is he pleas'd th' increafing ufe to fee Of his well-trufted labours bend the tree! Of which large shares, on the glad facred days, He gives to friends, and to the gods repays.

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With