The same ambition's unremitting care,
Temperance in peace, and fortitude in war;
To let no people but themselves be free,

And guard, like life, their own lov'd liberty;*
O equal Heaven!thy common grace

As if, the as

could bless but one proud Race. For all design'd, tendoncade

To bring all duties to one centre home,—
Unbounded fondness for their parent Rome.
Each wild excefs which nature shrinks to hear,
Assum'd too oft a patriot character;?

95

100

tional insults of the most unfeeling barbarity. A queen led in chains was a favourite embellishment in these ostentatious processions. The consideration of their insolence and inhumanity while a republick, abates much of our commiseration for the calamities they endured under the despotism of the emperors. They but suffered under them what they had before inflicted upon the rest of mankind. <<< I know not (says Dr. Johnson) why any but a school-boy in his declamation should whine over the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind." Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Il fuit plus que la mort la honte d'être esclave.

C'est gloire de passer pour un cœur abattu,
Quand la brutalité fait la haute vertu.

CINNA, par Corneille.

HORACE, par Corneille.
Disguis'd

Disguis'd beneath that all-atoning name,

Revenge was justice, and oppression fame.
Within its precincts every virtue lies,
And swells to vice beyond its boundaries.

So, in a Christian state the worst of men,

Had been at Rome the worthiest citizen.

105

Remus, who mock'd his brother's new-trac'd town,
His ruffian fury to the dust struck down;
Cemented thus with parricidal blood,

Behold the first rude walls of humble mud; 110
Thus, in the infant settlement was given
Earnest of violence, 'gainst man and heaven.
At length, the towering fabrick pierc'd the skies,
And with the grandeur, see the guilt arise;
Her bold aggression stretch'd to every clime, 115
And each new conquest was an added crime. '

The

'It is hardly necessary perhaps to point out to the reader the exact similarity between the conduct, language, and policy, of the Roman commonwealth, and the audacious ambition and hypocrisy of the present French republick. The former indeed had established her superiority

better

120

The waste she caus'd, the woes which never ceas'd,
With specious names she varnish'd and increas'd;
Rome's ruthless sword, and her fallacious tongue,
Inflicts the ruin, and imputes the wrong;
While plunder'd nations, supplicant in vain,
Bore every evil, and heard Rome complain.
Sententious, yet ne'er innocently great,

The dread and scourge of every harmless state,
When her long triumphs her own Cæsars clos'd,
And on her neck their iron yoke impos'd, 126

better than France has yet done, before she presumed to offer what she miscalled liberty to foreign malcontents, or a new form of government to nations not desirous of her interference.-There will probably be ere long another resemblance: the tyranny of atheistical clubs will terminate in the dominion of a military despot; the harrassed people flying from the oppression of a mob of task-masters to the iron shelter of some uncontroulable usurper. Kingdoms now go to war with France on the same principle that individuals endeavour to destroy highwaymen and house-breakers; not from the hope of acquiring any thing, but to prevent the mischief which such villains meditate. That desperate people have already avowed hostilities against all religion, principle, morality, and order, indeed against human nature at large; and virtue, no less than good policy, must put arms into the hands of all civilized nations to oppose them.

Alone she mourn'd her once unrivall'd weal,

Nor claim'd the pity she could never feel.
What were the virtues of the Roman school?
Deep systems to oppress, destroy, and rule; 130
Ambition, pride, and tyranny, combin'd,

To raise themselves, and plunder all mankind.'

NUMA

POMPILIUS.

No objects Numa to the muse supplies,

134

But temples, priests, and pious mysteries.
He check❜d Bellona's rage; and dove-ey'd peace
Saw superstition rise, and slaughter cease.

This is no morose character of the Romans considered as a people. Sallust says, "Mihi multa agitanti, constabat, paucorum civium egregiam virtutem cuncta patravisse." It is true of such men as Cincinnatus, Camillus, Fabricius, the Decii, the Scipios, and some others. The victories of Pompey too added territories and glory to Rome. Marius, Sylla, and Cæsar, conquered for themselves, and brought inexpressible miseries upon their country. Let the reader consult Montesquieu's admirable volume, particularly the sixth chapter: he will there see the Roman policy in its true colours; a system, profound, invariable, and completely iniquitous.

For sacred ends, was sacred truth forgot,
And hence the fiction of the Egerian grot ;3
That Numa's holy visions might persuade,

139

To the meek king descends the inspiring maid: * None, to believe or to obey, repine,

When human wisdom speaks by aid divine.

Credulity, an easy yielding soil,

Brought up new plants of faith with slender toil ;
A tale once told, the weak enquir'd no more, 145
But fools believ'd what craft impos'd before.
The pagan creed, with motley legends full,
Amus'd the enlighten'd, and amaz'd the dull;
A monstrous fable clumsily devis'd,

149

Procession, pageants, pomp, and noise disguis'd; While sound and show the pleas'd attention kept, The senses only wak'd, and reason slept.

3 -simulat sibi cum dea Egeria congressus nocturnos esse.

Liv. 1.i. c. xix.

+ Omnium primum, rem ad multitudinem imperitam, et illis seculis rudem, efficacissimam, deorum metum injiciendum ratus est.