CHORUS.

With ravished ears
The monarch hears,

Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

3

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face:

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

CHORUS.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

4

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o'er again; [the slain. And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew The master saw the madness rise,

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse;

He sung Darius great and good,

By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,

And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

CHORUS.

Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

5

The mighty master smiled, to see
That love was in the next degree;
"Twas but a kindred-sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour, but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

CHORUS.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

6

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;

As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise;

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,

And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain :
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,

To light him to his

prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

CHORUS.

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

7

Thus long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:
He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down.*

* Dr. Johnson has a singular remark on this stanza. 'The conclusion,' he says, is vicious; the music of Timotheus, which raised a mortal to the skies,' had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which drew an angel down,' had a real effect; the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be divided.' Whoever believes that St. Cecilia 'drew an angel down,' will admit the validity of this criticism; but as that is a matter of faith, and not a matter of fact, the criticism must be regarded as a waste of ingenuity. Dryden, who was no more bound

GRAND CHORUS.

At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

TO MR. GRANVILLE,

ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY, CALLED HEROIC LOVE.'

[THE date of Heroic Love is 1698. Mr. Granville is better known as Lord Lansdowne. He was a man of taste, but Dryden's panegyric upon his poetical merits is pure hyperbole. So far from being 'copied' from Homer, the tragedy detracts widely from the original in the principal characters, especially that of Agamemnon, while the mixture of Latin and Greek names, and the profound bathos of the dialogue, remove it to a still greater distance from its source. It is painful to find Dryden transferring to the author of a piece of dramatic fustian the same laurels which four or five years before he had hung upon the brows of Congreve. Some lines in this epistle indicate the decadence into which the stage of the Restoration was already declining, and which was in a great measure to be ascribed to Collier's exposition of its vices. Not long after the publication of his book, several informations were laid against the players by the society for the

to put implicit faith in the Church legends than in the fables of the Pantheon, could hardly have believed it, or he would not have invoked the comparison. Dr. Johnson certainly did not believe it. What, then, becomes of this subtle antithesis? Surely the mortal' of Timotheus is quite as real as the angel' of St. Cecilia.