When Orpheus tuned his lyre with pleasing woe, Rivers forgot to run, and winds to blow, While listening forests covered as he played, The soft musician in a moving shade. That this night's strains the same success may find, The force of magic is to music joined; Where sounding strings and artful voices fail, The charming rod and muttered spells prevail. Let sage Urganda wave the circling wand On barren mountains, or a waste of sand, _10 The desert smiles; the woods begin to grow, The birds to warble, and the springs to flow. The same dull sights in the same landscape mixed, Scenes of still life, and points for ever fixed, A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow, And pall the sense with one continued show; But as our two magicians try their skill, The vision varies, though the place stands still, While the same spot its gaudy form renews, Shifting the prospect to a thousand views. _20 Thus (without unity of place transgressed) The enchanter turns the critic to a jest. But howsoe'er, to please your wandering eyes, Bright objects disappear and brighter rise: There's none can make amends for lost delight, While from that circle we divert your sight. PROLOGUE TO SMITH'S[10] PHÆDRA AND HIPPOLITUS. SPOKEN BY MR WILKS. Long has a race of heroes fill'd the stage, That rant by note, and through the gamut rage; In songs and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. _10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd Phædra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy, It had not moved your wonder to have seen An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen: How would it please, should she in English speak, And could Hippolitus reply in Greek! But he, a stranger to your modish way, By your old rules must stand or fall to-day, _20 And hopes you will your foreign taste command, To bear, for once, with what you understand. HORACE.-ODE III., BOOK III. Augustus had a design to rebuild Troy, and make it the metropolis of the Roman empire, having closeted several senators on the project: Horace is supposed to have written the following Ode on this occasion.