IV. Of Agriculture. 139 Tranflation of Virgil, Georg. Lib. II. 159 A DISCOURSE, By way of VISION, CONCERNING The Government of OLIVER CROMWELL [a] I T was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector. And though I bore but little affection, either to the memory of him, or to the trouble and folly of all public pageantry, yet I was forced by the importunity of my company to go along with them, and be a fpectator of that folemnity, [a] This is the best of our author's profe-works. The fubject, which he had much at heart, raised his genius. There is fomething very noble, and almost poetical, in the plan of this Vifion; and a warm vein of eloquence runs quite through it. VOL. II. B the the expectation of which had been fo great, that it was faid to have brought fome very curious perfons (and no doubt fingular virtuofos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more coft beftowed than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deferve. There was a mighty train of black affiftants, among which, too, divers princes in the perfons of their ambaffadors (being infinitely afflicted for the lofs of their brother) were pleased to attend; the hearfe was magnificent, the idol crowned, and (not to mention all other ceremonies which are practifed at royal interments, and therefore by no means could be omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as it uses to do, no fmall part of the fpectacle itself. But yet, I know not how, the whole was fo managed, that, methought, it fomewhat reprefented the life of him for whom it was made; much noife, much tumult, much expence, much magnificence, much vain glory; |