Indulge your genius, drench in wine your cares: It is not yours, with mercenary prayers, To ask of heaven what you would die with shame, Unless you drew the gods aside, to name; While other great ones stand, with downcast eyes, And with a silent censer tempt the skies!-- Sound sense, integrity, a conscience clear, Are begged aloud, that all at hand may hear; But prayers like these (half whispered, half suppressed) The tongue scarce hazards from the conscious breast: "O that I could my rich old uncle see In funeral pomp!--O that some deity To pots of buried gold would guide my share! O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir, Were once at rest! Poor child, he lives in pain, And death to him must be accounted gain.-- By wedlock thrice has Nerius swelled his store, And now--he is a widower once more!" The ingenious manner in which this prayer is framed so as to calm the conscience of the votary is admirably pointed out by Gifford. "The supplicant meditates no injury to any one. The death of his uncle is concealed under a wish that he could see his magnificent funeral, which, as the poor man must one day die, is a prayer becoming a pious nephew. The second petition is quite innocent.--If people will foolishly bury their gold and forget it, there is no more harm in his finding it than another. The third is even laudable; it is a prayer uttered in pure tenderness of heart, for the relief of a poor suffering child. With respect to the last, there can be no wrong in mentioning a fact which everybody knows. Not a syllable is said of his own wife; if the gods are pleased to take a hint and remove her, that is their concern; he never asked it." One question, friend, an easy one, in fine: What are thy thoughts of Jove? "My thoughts?" Yes, thine. Wouldst thou prefer him to the herd of Rome? To any individual?--But to whom? To Statius, for example. Heavens! a pause? Which of the two would best dispense of laws? Best shield th' unfriended orphan? Good! Now move The suit to Statius, late preferred to Jove: "O Jove! Good Jove!" he cries, o'erwhelmed with shame, And must not Jove himself "O Jove!" exclaim? Or dost thou think the impious wish forgiven, Because, when thunder shakes the vault of heaven, The bolt innoxious flies o'er thee and thine, To rend the forest oak and mountain pine? Because, yet livid from the lightning's scath, Thy smoldering corpse, a monument of wrath, Lies in no blasted grove, for public care To expiate, with sacrifice and prayer; Must, therefore, Jove, unsceptered and unfeared Give to thy ruder mirth his foolish beard? What bribe hast thou to win the powers divine Thus to thy rod?--The lungs and lights of swine!