Her guardian gods renounc'd their patronage,
Nor would the fierce invading foe repel;
To my resentment, and Minerva's rage,
The guilty king and the whole people fell.

And now the long protracted wars are o'er,

The soft adult'rer shines no more;

No more does Hector's force the Trojans shield,

That drove whole armies back, and singly clear'd the field.

My vengeance sated, I at length resign

To Mars his offspring of the Trojan line:
Advanc'd to god-head let him rise,
And take his station in the skies;
There entertain his ravish'd sight
With scenes of glory, fields of light;
Quaff with the gods immortal wine,
And see adoring nations crowd his shrine:

The thin remains of Troy's afflicted host,
In distant realms may seats unenvy'd find,
And flourish on a foreign coast;

But far be Rome from Troy disjoined.

Remov'd by seas, from the disastrous shore,

May endless billows rise between, and storms unnumber'd

roar.

Still let the curst detested place,

Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race,

Be cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in

grass.

There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray;

Or, while the lonely shepherd sings;

Amidst the mighty ruins play,

And frisk upon the tombs of kings.

May tigers there, and all the savage kind, Sad solitary haunts, and silent deserts find;

In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces,
May th' unmolested lioness

Her brinded whelps securely lay,

Or, coucht, in dreadful slumbers waste the day.
While Troy in heaps of ruins lies,

Rome and the Roman capitol shall rise;

Th' illustrous exiles unconfin'd

Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind.

In vain the sea's intruding tide

Europe from Afric shall divide,

And part the sever'd world in two:

Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread,

And the long train of victories pursue

To Nile's yet undiscover'd head.

Riches the hardy soldier shall despise,

And look on gold with undesiring eyes,
Nor the disbowel'd earth explore

In search of the forbidden ore;

Those glitt'ring ills conceal'd within the mine,
Shall lie untouch'd, and innocently shine.
To the last bounds that nature sets,
The piercing colds and sultry heats,

The godlike race shall spread their arms;
Now fill the polar circle with alarms,

Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine;

Now sweat for conquest underneath the line.

This only law the victor shall restrain,

On these conditions shall he reign;

If none his guilty hand employ

To build again a second Troy,

If none the rash design pursue,

Nor tempt the vengeance of the gods anew.

A curse there cleaves to the devoted place,

That shall the new foundations rase:

Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire

To storm the rising town with fire,
And at their armies' head myself will show
What Juno, urged to all her rage, can do.

Thrice should Apollo's self the city raise,

And line it round with walls of brass,

Thrice should my fav'rite Greeks his works confound,
And hew the shining fabric to the ground;

Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return,
And their dead sons and slaughter'd husbands mourn.
But hold, my muse, forbear thy towering flight,
Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light:
In vain would thy presumptuous verse

Th' immortal rhetoric rehearse;

The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound,
Forget their majesty and lose their sound.

Rehearse. A word Mr. Addison is very fond of, because it afforded a rhyme for verse: but it disgraces an ode, and should, indeed, be banished from all poetry.

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES."

BOOK II.

THE STORY OF PHAETON.

THE sun's bright palace, on high columns rais'd,
With burnish'd gold and flaming jewels blaz'd;
The folding gates diffus'd a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refresh'd the sight;
Of polish'd ivory was the cov'ring wrought;
The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,
For in the portal was display'd on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
A waving sea th' inferior earth embrac'd,
And gods and goddesses the waters grac'd.
Ægeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving god)
With Doris here were carv'd, and all her train
Some loosely swimming in the figur'd main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Tho' various features did the Sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in every face.

Mr. Addison appears to have been much taken with the native graces of Ovid's poetry. The following translations are highly finished and even laboured (if I may so speak) into an ease, which resembles very much, and almost equals, that of his author.

VOL. I.- -3

On earth a different landskip courts the eyes,

Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise,
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O'er all, the heav'n's refulgent image shines;

On either gate were six engraven signs.

Here Phaeton, still gaining on th' ascent,
To his suspected father's palace went,
Till pressing forward through the bright abode,
He saw at distance the illustrious god:
He saw at distance, or the dazzling light
Had flash'd too strongly on his aching sight.
The god sits high, exalted on a throne
Of blazing gems, with purple garments on:
The hours, in order rang'd on either hand,
And days, and months, and years, and ages, stand.
Here Spring appears with flow'ry chaplets bound;
Here Summer in her wheaten garland crown'd;
Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear;
And hoary Winter shivers in the rear.

Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye, which looks on all, was fix'd on one.
He saw the boy's confusion in his face,

Surpris'd at all the wonders of the place;

And cries aloud, "What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so."

"Light of the world," the trembling youth replies, "Illustrious parent! since you don't despise The parent's name, some certain token give, That I may Clymenè's proud boast believe, Nor longer under false reproaches grieve."

The tender sire was touch'd with what he said, And flung the blaze of glories from his head,