So may'st thou still, secur'd by distant wars,
Ne'er stain thy crystal with domestic jars:
As Cæsar's reign, to Britain ever dear,
Shall join with thee to bless the coming year.

On thy shady margin,
Care its load discharging,

Is lull'd to gentle rest:
Britain thus disarming,
Nor no more alarming,

Shall sleep on Cæsar's breast.

Sweet to distress is balmy sleep,

To sleep auspicious dreams,

Thy meadows, Thames, to feeding sheep,
To thirst, thy silver streams:
More sweet than all, the praise
Of Cæsar's golden days:

Cæsar's praise is sweeter;
Britain's pleasure greater;
Still may Cæsar's reign excel;
Sweet the praise of reigning well.

CHORUS.

Gentle Janus, ever wait,

As now, on Britain's kindest fate;
Crown all our vows, and all thy gifts bestow;
Till Time no more renews his date,

And Thames forgets to flow.

THE STORY OF GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA.

FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, BOOK XIII.

HERE ceas'd the nymph; the fair assembly broke;
The sea-green Nereids to the waves betook:
While Scylla, fearful of the wide-spread main,
Swift to the safer shore returns again.
There o'er the sandy margin, unarray'd,
With printless footsteps flies the bounding maid;
Or in some winding creek's secure retreat
She bathes her weary limbs, and shuns the noon-
day's heat.

Her Glaucus saw, as o'er the deep he rode,
New to the seas, and late receiv'd a god.

He saw, and languish'd for the virgin's love,
With many an artful blandishment he strove
Her flight to hinder, and her fears remove.
The more he sues, the more he wings his flight,
And nimbly gains a neighbouring mountain's
height,

Steep shelving to the margin of the flood,

A neighbouring mountain bare and woodless stood;
Here, by the place secur'd, her steps she stay'd,
And, trembling still, her lover's form survey'd.
His shape, his hue, her troubled sense appall,
And dropping locks that o'er his shoulders fall;
She sees his face divine and manly brow
End iu a fish's wreathy tail below:

She sees, and doubts within her anxious mind,
Whether he comes of god or monster kind.
This Glaucus soon perceiv'd; and, "Oh! forbear"
His hand supporting on a rock lay near) [fear.
Forbear," he cry'd, "fond maid, this needless
Nor fish am I, nor monster of the main,
But equal with the watery gods I reign;
Nor Proteus nor Palamon me excel,

Nor he whose breath inspires the sounding shell.

VOL. IX.

My birth, 'tis true, I owe to mortal race,
And I myself but late a mortal was:
E'en then in seas, and seas alone, I joy'd;
The seas my hours, and all my cares, employ'd.
In meshes now the twinkling prey I drew,
Now skilfully the slender line I threw,
And silent sat the moving float to view.
Not far from shore, there lies a verdant mead,
With herbage half, and half with water spread:
There, nor the horned heifers browsing stray,
Nor shaggy kids nor wanton lambkins play;
There, nor the sounding bees their nectar cull,
Nor rural swains their genial chaplets pull;
Nor flocks, nor herds, nor mowers, haunt the place,
To crop the flowers, or cut the bushy grass:
Thither, sure first of living race came I,
And sat by chance, my dropping nets to dry.
My scaly prize, in order all display'd,
By number on the green-sword there I lay'd,
My captives, whom or in my nets I took,
Or hung unwary on my wily hook.
Strange to behold! yet what avails a lie?
I saw them bite the grass, as I sat by;
Then sudden darting o'er the verdant plain,
They spread their fins, as in their native main:
I paus'd, with wonder struck, while all my prey
Left their new master, and regain'd the sea.
Amaz'd, within my secret self I sought,
What god, what herb, the miracle had wrought:
'But sure no herbs have power like this,' I cry'd;
And straight I pluck'd some neighbouring herbs,
and try'd.

Scarce had I bit, and prov'd the wondrous taste,
When strong convulsions shook my troubled breast;
I felt my heart grow fond of something strange,
| And my whole nature labouring with a change.
Restless I grew, and every place forsook,
And still upon the seas I bent my look.
'Farewell, for ever! farewell, land!' I said;
And plung'd amidst the waves my sinking head.
The gentle powers, who that low empire keep,
Receiv'd me as a brother of the deep;
To Tethys, and to Ocean old, they pray,
To purge my mortal earthy parts away.
The watery parents to their suit agreed,
And thrice nine times a secret charm they read,
Then with lustrations purify my limbs,
And bid me bathe beneath a hundred streams:
A hundred streams from various fountains run,
And on my head at once come rushing down.
Thus far each passage I remember well,
And faithfully thus far the tale 1 tell;
But then oblivion dark on all my senses fell.
Again at length my thought reviving came,
When I no longer found myself the same;
Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow,
And these large honours on my spreading brow,
My long-descending locks the billows sweep,
And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep;
My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue,
And every part divinely chang'd, I view.
But what avail these useless honours now?
What joys can immortality bestow?
What, though our Nereids all my form approve?
What boots it, while fair Scylla scorns my love?"
Thus far the god; and more he would have said;
When from his presence flew the ruthless maid.
Stung with repulse, in such disdainful sort,
He seeks Titanian Circe's horrid court,

II

THE

POEMS

OF

JOSEPH ADDISON.

THE

LIFE OF JOSEPH ADDISON.

BY DR. JOHNSON.

JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May 1672, at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosebury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. After the usual domestic education, which from the character of his father may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosebury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.

Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father, being made dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biographers have given no account, and I know it only from a story of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr. Pigot his uncle.

The practice of barring-out was a savage licence, practised in many schools at the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bid their master defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield; and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison.