"Having mentioned Mr. Cowley, it may very well be expected that something should be said of him, at a time when the imitation of Pindar is the theme of our discourse. But there is that great deference due to the memory, great parts, and learning, of that gentleman, that I think nothing should be objected to the latitude he has taken in his Pindaric odes. The beauty of his verses is an atonement for the irregularity of his stanzas.... Yet I must beg leave to add that I believe those irregular odes of Mr. Cowley may have been the principal, though innocent, occasion of so many deformed poems since, which, instead of being true pictures of Pindar, have (to use the Italian painters' term) been only caricatures of him." (_Discourse on the Pindaric Ode_, in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. x. p. 300.) Who shall awake the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life The youths whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view? What new Alcæus, fancy-blest, Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?), Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound? O goddess, in that feeling hour, When most its sounds would court thy ears, Let not my shell's misguided power E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. No, Freedom, no, I will not tell How Rome before thy weeping face, With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell, Push'd by a wild and artless race From off its wide ambitious base, When Time his Northern sons of spoil awoke, And all the blended work of strength and grace, With many a rude repeated stroke, And many a barb'rous yell, to thousand fragments broke....