Plant of our growth, and aim of all our cares,
The toil of ages, and the crown of wars:
If, taught by thee, the poet's wit has flow'd
In strains as precious as his hero's blood;
Preserve those strains, an everlasting chartn
To keep that blood and thy remembrance warm;
Be this thy guardian image still secure,
In vain shall force invade, or fraud allure;
Our great Palladium shall perform its part,
Fix'd and enshrin'd in every British heart.
HE mind to virtue is by verse fubdu'd;
And the true poet is a public good.
This Britain feels, while, by your lines inspir'd,
Her free-born sons to glorious thoughts are fir'd.
In Rome had you espous'd the vanquish'd cause,
Inflam'd her fenate and upheld her laws;
Your manly scenes had liberty restor'd,
And giv'n the just success to Cato's sword!
O'er Cæfar's arms your genius had prevail'd;
And the muse triumph'd, where the patriot fail'd.
By Mr. POPE.
Spoken by Mr. WIL KS.
the foul by tender ftrokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in confcious virtue bold,
Live d'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream thro' every age;
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deferves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous caufe,
Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with antient ardour rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure bead'n itself surveys;
A brave man ftruggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling flate!
While Cato gives his little fenate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?
Who bears bim groan, and wishes not to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Cæfar 'midst triumphal cars,
The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Shew'd Rome ber Cato's figure drawn in ftate,
As her dead father's revrend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day d'ercaft,
The triumph ceas'd, tears gush'd from ev'ry eye,
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's less than Cato's fword.
Britons, attend: Be worth like this approvd,
And shew you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honeft fcorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she fubdu'd:
Our scene precariously subsists too long
On French translation, and Italian fong.
Dare to have fense yourselves; affert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone should please a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not disdain'd to hear.
over-caft, the morning lours,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th' important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome-Our father's death
Would fill up all the guilt of civil war,
And close the scene of blood. Already Cæfar
Has ravag'd more than half the globe, and fees
Mankind grown thin by his destructive sword.
Should he go further, numbers would be wanting
To form new battles, and support his crimes.
Ye gods, what havock does ambition make
Among your works!
Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæfar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy;
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