How in the moon such change of shapes is fou
The moon, the changing world's eternal bound
What shakes the folid earth, what strong disease
Dares trouble the firm centre's antient eafe ;
What makes the fea retreat, and what advance
"Varieties too regular for chance [b].”
What drives the chariot on of winter's light,
And stops the lazy waggon of the night.
But, if my dull and frozen blood deny
To fend forth fpirits, that raife a foul fo high;
In the next place, let woods and rivers be
My quiet, though inglorious, deftiny.

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

But does his walk of virtue calmly go
Through all th' alarms of death and hell below

[b] Varieties too regular for chance.] Judici added, to correct the atheistic principles of his nal.

[c] bell below] Hell, for the grave, in w fenfe the word is generally used by the tranflato the Old Teftament. He would fay, That death the grave, inevitable things, as he calls them, no terrors for the good man, for him,

66

who does his walk of virtue go-" fuch a man having nothing to fear from death, if a state of infenfibility, and much to hope, if it be paffage only to a future exiftence. So fagely has Christian poet corrected the libertinifin of his

pa

and epicurean original who thought nothing of

Happy! but, next fuch conquerors, happy they,
Whofe humble life lies not in fortune's way.
They unconcern'd, from their fafe distant seat,
Behold the rods and fceptres of the great.
The quarrels of the mighty without fear,
And the descent of foreign troops they hear.
Nor can ev'n Rome their steady courfe mifguide,
With all the luftre of her perishing pride.
Them never yet did strife 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 sustain. Some fwell up their flight fails with poplar fame, Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name [d]. Some their vain wealth to earth again commit ; With endless cares fome brooding o'er it fit. 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 search 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,
And half the year he care of that does take,
That half the year grateful returns does make.

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"

[d] Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name] Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a namePope, Effay on Man, iv. 282.

Each

Each fertile month does fome new gifts presen
And with new work his industry content.

This, the young lamb, that, the foft fleece doth
This, loads with hay, and that, with corn the
All forts of fruit crown the rich Autumn's prid
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 ensuing day,

With joy he fees his flocks and kids to play:
And loaded kine about his cottage stand,
Inviting with known found the milker's hand;
And, when from wholesome labour he doth com
With wishes to be there, and wish'd for home,

He meets at door the foftest human bliffes,

His chafte wife's welcome, and dear children's ki 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 chofe;

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

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

Su

[e] world's head] After this line, in the orig nal, is inferted the following

Septemque una fibi muro circumdedit arces"

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 share :
Before new ways of perishing were fought,
Before unfkilful death on anvils wrought:
Before those beafts, which human life sustain,
By men, unless to the gods ufe, were slain.

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 storms 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 elm 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,

omitted by the tranflator, 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.

How

How is he pleas'd th' encreasing use to see
Of his well-trufted labours bend the tree!
Of which large shares, on the glad facred day
He gives to friends, and to the gods repays.
With how much joy does he, beneath fome 1
By aged trees reverend embraces made,
His careless head on the fresh green recline,
His head uncharg'd with fear or with design.
By him a river conftantly complains,

The birds above rejoice with various strains,
And in the folemn fcene their orgies keep,
Like dreams, mix'd with the gravity of sleep;
Sleep, which does always there for entrance wa
And nought within against it shuts the gate.

Nor does the roughest season of the sky,
Or fullen Jove, all sports to him deny.
He runs the mazes of the nimble hare,
His well-mouth'd dogs glad concert rends the a
Or with game bolder, and rewarded more,
He drives into a toil the foaming bore;
Here flies the hawk t' affault, and there the net
To intercept the travailing fowl, is fet:
And all his malice, all his craft, is fhown
In innocent wars [f], on beafts and birds alone.
This is the life from all misfortunes free,
From thee, the great one, tyrant, love, from the
And, if a chafte and clean, though homely, wife
Be added to the bleffings of this life,
Such as the antient fun-burnt Sabins were,
Such as Apulia, frugal ftill, does bear,

[f] innocent wars] Innocent, he means, in parison with wars on his own kind.