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 firains as precious as his Hero's blood;
Preferve thofe ftrains, an everlasting charm
To keep that blood, and thy remembrance warm.
Be this thy guardian image fill secure,
In vain fhall force invade, or fraud allure;
Our great Palladium fall perform its part,
Fix'd and infrin'd in every British beart.
HE mind to virtue is by verfe fubdu'd;
And the true Poet is a public good.
This Britain feels, while, by your lines infpir'd,
Her free-born fons to glorious thoughts are fir'd.
In Rome had you efpous'd the vanquish'd cause,
Inflam'd her fenate, and upheld her laws;
Your many Scenes bad liberty reflor'd;
And giv'n the juft fuccefs to Cato's fword:
O'er Cæfar's arms your Genius had prevail'd;
And the Mufe triumph'd, where the Patriot fail'd.
By Mr. POPE.
Spoken by Mr. WILKS.
O wake 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 Mufe firft trod the flage,
Commanding tears to fream thro' every age 3
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they swept.
Our auther buns by vulgar fprings 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 fall flow from a more generous caufe,
Such tears as Patriots fbed for dying laws :
He bids your breafts with ancient ardor rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and God-like Cato was :
No common object to your fight difplays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself furveys;
A brave man fruggling in the forms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling ftate!
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,
What bofom beats not in his country's cause ?
Who fees bim act, but envies every deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Even when proud Cæfar 'midt triumphal cars,
The Spoils of nations, and the pomp of Wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate,
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft,
The triumph ceaft
-tears gush'd from every eye,
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by ;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And bonour'd Cæfar's lefs than Cato's fword.
Britons attend: be worth like this approv'd,
And how you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With boneft fcorn the firft-fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she fubdu'd
Our Scene precariously fubfifts too long.
On French tranflation, and Italian fong :
Dare to have fenfe yourselves; affert the flage, i
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone fhould please a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not difdain'd to hear.
HE dawn is over-caft, the morning lours,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th' important day, big with
the fate
Our Father's Death
Would fill up all the guilt of Civil war,
And close the fcene of blood. Already Cæfar
Has ravag'd more than half the globe, and fees
Mankind grown thin by his deftructive sword:
Should he go further, numbers would be wanting
To form new battles, and fupport his crimes.
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