swayed,
To see his just commands so well obeyed;"

by this time wine and friendship had brought poor Dick to a perfectly
maudlin state, and he hiccupped out the last line with a tenderness that
set one of his auditors a-laughing.

"I admire the license of your poets," says Esmond to Mr. Addison. (Dick,
after reading of the verses, was fain to go off, insisting on kissing
his two dear friends before his departure, and reeling away with his
periwig over his eyes.) "I admire your art: the murder of the campaign
is done to military music, like a battle at the opera, and the virgins
shriek in harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their
villages. Do you know what a scene it was?"--(by this time, perhaps,
the wine had warmed Mr. Esmond's head too,)--"what a triumph you are
celebrating? what scenes of shame and horror were enacted, over which
the commander's genius presided, as calm as though he didn't belong to
our sphere? You talk of the 'listening soldier fixed in sorrow,' the
'leader's grief swayed by generous pity;' to my belief the leader cared
no more for bleating flocks than he did for infants' cries, and many
of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity. I was
ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated, which came
under every man's eyes. You hew out of your polished verses a stately
image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage
idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are
shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is--ugly and
horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign,
believe me, you never would have sung it so."

During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of
his long pipe, and smiling very placidly. "What would you have?" says
he. "In our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis
impossible that the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands
with the horrors of war. These are indicated rather than described; as
in the Greek tragedies, that, I dare say, you have read (and sure there
can be no more elegant specimens of composition), Agamemnon is slain, or
Medea's children destroyed, away from the scene;--the chorus occupying
the stage and singing of the action to pathetic music. Something of this
I attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to
write, and not a satire. Were I to sing as you would have me, the t