'Thine are those heart-felt joys that sweeten life, 'The son, the friend, the daughter, and the wife.”

Content with such approof, when genial Spring Bids the shrill blackbird whistle in the vale, Home may he hasten with a prosperous gale, And Health protect him with her fost❜ring wing; So shall Britannia to the wind and sea

Entrust no more her fav'rite ORRERY.

ΤΟ Α

GENTLEMAN

UPON HIS

TRAVELS THROUGH ITALY.

BY THE REV. JOSEPH WARTON, D.D.

WHILE I with fond officious care, For You my chorded shell prepare, And not unmindful frame an humble lay,

Where shall this verse my CYNTHIO find, What scene of art now charms your mind, Say, on what sacred spot of Roman ground you stray

Perhaps You cull each valley's bloom,
To strew o'er Virgil's laurell'd tomb,
Whence oft at midnight echoing voices sound;
For at that hour of silence, there

The shades of ancient Eards repair,
To join in choral song his hallow'd urn around.

Or wander in the cooling shade

Of Sabine bow'rs, where Horace stray'd,

And oft repeat in eager thought elate,

(As round in classic search you trace
With curious eye the pleasing place,)

'That fount he lov'd, and there beneath that hill he sate.'

How longs my raptur'd breast with you Great Raphael's magic strokes to view, To whose blest hand each charm the Graces gave! Whence each fair form with beauty glows,

Like that of Venus, when she rose

Naked in blushing charms from Ocean's hoary wave.

As oft by roving fancy led

To smooth Clitumnus' banks you tread, What awful thoughts his fabled waters raise! While the low-thoughted swain, whose flock Grazes around, from some steep rock

With vulgar disregard his mazy course surveys.

Now thro' the ruin'd domes my Muse
Your steps with eager flight pursues,
That their cleft piles on Tyber's plains present,
Among whose hollow-winding cells

Forlorn and wild Rome's Genius dwells,
His golden sceptre broke, and purple mantle rent.

Oft to those mossy mouldering walls, Those caverns dark, and silent halls, Let me repair by midnight's paly fires;.

There muse on Empire's fallen state,

And frail Ambition's hapless fate,

While more than mortal thoughts the solemn scene inspires.

What lust of power from the cold North
Could tempt those Vandal-robbers forth,
Fair Italy, thy vine-clad vales to waste!

Whose hands profane, with hostile blade,
Thy story'd temples dar'd invade,
And all thy Parian seats of Attic art defac'd.

They, weeping Art in fetters bound, And gor'd her breast with many a wound, And veil'd her charms in clouds of thickest night; Sad Poesy, much-injur'd maid,

They drove to some dim convent's shade, And quench'd in gloomy mist her lamp's resplendent light.

There long she wept, to darkness doom'd,
'Till Cosmo's hand her light relum'd,

That once again in lofty Tasso shone;

Since has sweet Spenser caught her fire,

She breath'd once more in Milton's lyre, And warm'd the soul divine of Shakspere, Fancy's son.

Nor she, mild queen, will cease to smile

On her Britannia's much-lov'd isle,

Where these her best, her favourite three were born,

While Theron warbles Graecian strains,

Or polish'd Dodington remains,

The drooping train of Arts to cherish and adorn.