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Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and Lempriere,

Led all wild beasts but women by the ear; And had he fiddled at the present hour, We'd seen the lions waltzing in the Tower; And old Amphion, such were minstrels then, Had built St. Paul's without the aid of Wren.

Verse too was justice, and the bards of Greece

669 Did more than constables to keep the peace; Abolish'd cuckoldom with much applause, Call'd county meetings, and enforced the laws,

Cut down crown influence with reforming scythes,

And served the church

ing tithes;

without demand

And hence, throughout all Hellas and the East,

Each poet was a prophet and a priest, Whose old-establish'd board of joint con

trols

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press'd, Behold a quarto!

rest.

Tarts must tell the

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THE CURSE OF MINERVA

Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit. Eneid xii. [948, 949].

ATHENS: CAPUCHIN CONVENT, March 17, 1811. SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, Along Morea's hills the setting sun; Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light! O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,

Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows.

On old Egina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to
shine,

Though there his altars are no more divine. Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss

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40

Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And, sad and sombre mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the
eye

And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold

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The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp,

Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her

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Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride

Despatch her scheming children far and wide:

Some east, some west, some every where but north,

150

In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus-accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once of yore in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched

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168

Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race.
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate;
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is to sell:
To sell, and make may Shame record the
day!-

The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard,
West,

Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best,

With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the bruisers cull'd from all St.
Giles'

That art and nature may compare their styles;

180

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