I heard this strain....(it now no longer flows Here on this beaten rock, O let me rest! Breathe thou damp gale upon my throbbing breast! Long years have flown since I, a careless boy, In early youth my steps were led astray I heard the echo babble from below. I lov'd the dingle and the tangled dell, And crept with silence to her hermit-cell. Nature I lov'd when cloth'd in mildest charms, She lur'd sweet Quiet to her fondling arms. I lov'd her more when with her clouds o'ercast, 250 And sigh'd to think the muse had told no more. May no one come to shed the thrilling tear, 260 Farewel cold world, farewel thou pallid beam, Give peace and comfort which ye never gave. Once* hardy Genius lov'd Egyptian plains, 271 * I had formed the design of shewing the connection of Genius with the social principles, and of tracing the rise, the cultivation and progress of Genius in different countries, particularly in Egypt, Greece, Rome, England and America; but not wishing to extend my poem beyond its present length, I have confined myself to this hasty and superficial sketch. History has recorded five ages in which human Genius has arrived at perfection not equalled in other times. The first was the age of Philip and Alexander.....The second was that of Ptolemy Philadelphus..... The third was that of Augustus....The fourth was that of Julius II, and Leo X....The fifth was that of Louis XIV. The arts uprose....The Muse in infant pride, The partial muses, then confin'd their song, Her once fair scenes lie wrapt in dreary gloom, And Taste sits weeping o'er her darling tomb.* 280 • Greece, once the favoured region of literature and science: Rome once the haughty mistress of the world, have long been sunk under the weight of luxury and corruption, and have long afforded exhibitions of national decay, which hastily succeeds the meridian of splendour. A feeble and effeminate race now own those hills and plains, once occupied by the most powerful people of the earth. Philosophy has now forsaken their academic shades. Tibur and Ilyssus no longer hear the strains of a Maro, a Flaccus, a Pindar, or a Menander. The head of gold has fallen a prey to time. His cankering tooth has devoured the arms and the trunk; and the iron dust has been blown before the winds of the north. How dignified is the task of the historian. He bids the laws, the transactions, the revolutions of a people, which are no more, live forever. He bids the hero and the sage, the orator and the poet, though dead, yet speak, and animates by their example. He discovers to nations and to individuals, the rocks of destruction, and points out the paths of safety and success. No more are heard her bold poetic strains; What a gloomy subject of contemplation is the fall of empires! What a sublime, but melancholy pleasure must it be to the traveller to visit the tombs of nations....to sit beneath the mouldering columns of an ancient city....to look back upon the long waste of time....to call to view those characters who once trod upon that ground which is now covered with ruins....to dart forward a searching eye into futurity, and see that thus will terminate all human glory!" After leaving Florence," says Gibbon, in his memoirs of his life and writings, "I compared the solitude of Pisa with the industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey through Siena to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Cæsar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a minute investigation. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." |