Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age. See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! Hear in all tongues consenting paeans ring! In praise so just let every voice be join'd, And fill the general chorus of mankind. Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier days; Immortal heirs of universal praise! 190 Whose honours with increase of ages grow, As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow; Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, And worlds applaud that must not yet be found! Oh may some spark of your celestial fire, The last, the meanest of your sons inspire, (That on weak wings, from far, pursues your flights, Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes) To teach vain wits a science little known, T' admire superior sense, and doubt their own! 200 * * * * * VARIATIONS. Between ver. 25 and 26 were these lines, since omitted by the author:-- Many are spoil'd by that pedantic throng, Who with great pains teach youth to reason wrong. Tutors, like virtuosos, oft inclined By strange transfusion to improve the mind, Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new; Which yet, with all their skill, they ne'er could do. VER. 80,81:-- There are whom Heaven has bless'd with store of wit, Yet want as much again to manage it. VER. 123. The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions:-- Zoilus, had these been known, without a name Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame; The sense of sound antiquity had reign'd, And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned. None e'er had thought his comprehensive mind To modern customs, modern rules confined; Who for all ages writ, and all mankind. VER. 130, 131:-- When first young Maro sung of kings and wars, Ere warning Phoebus touch'd his trembling ears PART SECOND. Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools. Whatever Nature has in worth denied, She gives in large recruits of needless pride; For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind: Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense: 210 If once right reason drives that cloud away, Truth breaks upon us with resistless day. Trust not yourself; but your defects to know, Make use of every friend--and every foe.