The Spectator Volume Iii Part 131

'Himself, in rustic pomp, on holydays, To rural powers a just oblation pays; And on the green his careless limbs displays: The hearth is in the midst: the herdsmen, round The cheerful fire, provoke his health in goblets crown'd.

He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize, The groom his fellow-groom at buts defies, And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes: Or, stript for wrestling, smears his limbs with oil, And watches with a trip his foe to foil.

Such was the life the frugal Sabines led; So Remus and his brother king were bred, From whom th' austere Etrurian virtue rose; And this rude life our homely fathers chose; Old Rome from such a race derived her birth, The seat of empire, and the conquer'd earth.'

(Dryden).

162. HOR. Ars Poet. v. 126.

'Keep one consistent plan from end to end.'

163. ENN. apud TULLIUM.

'Say, will you thank me if I bring you rest, And ease the torture of your troubled breast?'

164. VIRG. iv. Georg. 494.

'Then thus the bride: What fury seized on thee, Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?

And now farewell! involved in shades of night, For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight: In vain I reach my feeble hands to join In sweet embraces, ah! no longer thine.'

(Dryden).

165. HOR. Ars Poet. v. 48.

'--If you would unheard-of things express, Invent new words; we can indulge a muse, Until the licence rise to an abuse.'

(Creech).

166. OVID, Met. xv. 871.

'--Which nor dreads the rage Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age.'

(Welsted).

167. HOR. 2 Ep. ii. 128. _Imitated_.

'There lived in Primo Georgii (they record) A worthy member, no small fool, a lord; Who, though the house was up, delighted sate, Heard, noted, answer'd as in full debate; In all but this, a man of sober life, Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife; Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell, And much too wise to walk into a well.

Him the d.a.m.n'd doctor and his friends immured; They bled, they cupp'd, they purged, in short they cured, Whereat the gentleman began to stare-- 'My friends!' he cry'd: 'pox take you for your care!

That from a patriot of distinguish'd note, Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.' '

(Pope).

168. HOR. 2 Ep. i. 128.

'Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art.'

(Pope).

169. TER. Andr. Act i. Sc. 1.

'His manner of life was this: to bear with everybody's humours; to comply with the inclinations and pursuits of those he conversed with; to contradict n.o.body; never to a.s.sume a superiority over others. This is the ready way to gain applause without exciting envy.'

170. TER. Eun. Act i. Sc. 1.

'In love are all these ills: suspicions, quarrels, Wrongs, reconcilements, war, and peace again.'

(Coleman).

171. OVID, Met. vii. 826.

'Love is a credulous pa.s.sion.'

172. PLATO apud TULL.

'As knowledge, without justice, ought to be called cunning, rather than wisdom; so a mind prepared to meet danger, if excited by its own eagerness, and not the public good, deserves the name of audacity, rather than that of fort.i.tude.'

173. OVID, Met. v. 215.

'Hence with those monstrous features, and, O! spare That Gorgon's look and petrifying stare.'

(P.)

174. VIRG. Ecl. vii. 69.

'The whole debate in memory I retain, When Thyrsis argued warmly, but in vain.'