+The continence of Nor blaz'd his glory in the field alone, Scipio who was young To her true lord he gave the captive bride. of unlimited power to If some smooth lawn its verdant mantle spreads, do wrong as well as right has been suffi- Nigh to where mountains lift their craggy heads, ciently celebrated, There the pleas'd eye directs its willing ray, but that an act of Common justice and Fatigu'd too long by nature's rude display : humanity shoud have been so distinguishdSo his soft manners our regards engage, gives noverylovou Midst the stern heroes of that warlike age. ble impression of favou-Midst conduct 675 680 the morality and Nor think, the Great from their high place descend, of Roman Commande:Who choose the Muse's favourite for a friend, 685 at that advanced When mighty Scipio, Rome well pleas'd could see, period of the Republick, ABritish Generalin With Ennius join'd, in kindest amity;" Similar circumstances abroad woud probably tho' shoud he be POLYB. X. 19. Could act in the same manners Scipio's well-known continence, in the instance here alluded to, at the without expecting age of seven and twenty, was the more meritorious, as Polybius, his to have his name contemporary, informs us that he was naturally extremely amorous: immortalized by συνειδότες, ΦΙΛΟΓΥΝΗΝ οντα τον Πούπλιον,—” Sculptors of Painters, • Prior Africanus Q. Ennii statuam sepulchro imponi suo jussit; clatempted to reserve rumque illud nomen, immo vero spolium ex tertia orbis parte raptum, in cinere supremo cum poetæ titulo legi. PLIN. Hist. Nat. 1. vii. c. 30. the Lady for his own L'intime liaison de Scipion avec le poëte Ennius, avec qui il voulut gratification he might perhaps be made to answer for it before a British Tribun-1; from the shafts of the Press at least he woud have no chance of escaping with impunity. Where Christianity prevails actions must be more than barely just to become subjects of extror dinary encomium. .. avoir Two BUSTS. found in the Tomb of the Family of Scipio. difcovered at Rome, near Porta Capena, in 1780; fupposed to be the Bufts of P.C.SCIPIO AFRICANUS, THE ELDER, and Q.ENNIUS. Romæ extra portam Capenam in Scipionum monumento Could hear him wish their friendship might survive, Genius avoir un tombeau commun, fait juger qu'il ne manquoit pas de goût pour les belles lettres. HIST. ROм. par Rollin. vol. vii. 7 Ennius emeruit, Calabris in montibus ortus, Contiguus poni, Scipio magne, tibi. OVID. de Arte Aman. 1. iii. 8 Voltaire says, and he says truly, that the superiority of one nation over another may be better estimated by the superiority of its authors, particularly poets, than by its conquests, or extent of territory. Invention, wit, wisdom, and learning, are certainly preferable to bodily strength, conftitutional courage, and the science of destruction. How would the glory of kingdoms fade, and their reputation wither, were they to remain with the fame of their military atchievements, and to be deprived of their writers? Were the names of Homer and Demosthenes blotted out from the nativities of Greece; Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, and Livy, from those of Rome; Ariosto and Taffo from Italy; take from Spain her Lopez de Vega, Calderon, and Cervantes; Corneille, Racine, Moliere, and Boileau, from France; and-my pen shrinks while I write it-dismantle England of her Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, and what a mournful chasm would be left in the intellectual world! How would our present veneration for the countries which produced H Genius is form'd from Nature's choicest clay, 695 CHANGE OF ROMAN MANNERS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. A. U. C. 621. Now other maxims, different spirits rise, Who fear the strict centurion's nightly round,- And every virtue rous'd up to its post: produced these immortal names subside in a moment! They are the true luminaries of the world, and mental darkness in proportion would be the consequence of their extinction. The Goths and Tartars were as great destroyers of mankind as the Romans, but they owe the celebrity of their conquests to the genius of other nations. There is no advantage upon which Ireland ought to value herself so much as her having given birth to such men as Southerne, Steele, Swift, Berkeley, Goldsmith, Burke, and Sheridan.-The barrenness of Scotland is covered by the fertile eloquence of her historians and moralists. |