d heroes were the gods.
Thus, ancient times, to virtue ever just,
To arts and valour rear'd the worshipp'd bust.
High, steep, and rugged, painful to be trod,
With toils on toils immense is virtue's road;
But smooth at last the walks umbrageous smile,
Smooth as our lawns, and cheerful as our isle.
Up the rough road Alcides, Hermes, strove,
All men like you, Apollo, Mars, and Jove:
Like you to bless mankind Minerva toil'd;
Diana bound the tyrants of the wild;
O'er the waste desert Bacchus spread the vine;
And Ceres taught the harvest-field to shine.
Fame rear'd her trumpet; to the blest abodes
She rais'd, and hail'd them gods, and sprung of gods.

"The love of fame, by heav'n's own hand impress'd,
The first, and noblest passion of the breast,
May yet mislead.--Oh guard, ye hero train,
No harlot robes of honours false and vain,
No tinsel yours, be yours all native gold,
Well-earn'd each honour, each respect you hold:
To your lov'd king return a guardian band,
Return the guardians of your native land;
To tyrant power be dreadful; from the jaws
Of fierce oppression guard the peasant's cause.
If youthful fury pant for shining arms,
Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms;[588]
There bends the Saracen the hostile bow,
The Saracen thy faith, thy nation's foe;
There from his cruel gripe tear empire's reins,
And break his tyrant-sceptre o'er his chains.
On adamantine pillars thus shall stand
The throne, the glory of your native land;
And Lusian heroes, an immortal line,
Shall ever with us share our isle divine."

DISSERTATION

ON THE

FICTION OF THE ISLAND OF VENUS.

From the earliest ages, and in the most distant nations, palaces,
forests and gardens, have been the favourite themes of poets. And
though, as in Homer's island of Rhadamanthus, the description is
sometimes only cursory; at other times they have lavished all their
powers, and have vied with each other in adorning their edifices and
landscapes. The gardens of Alcinous in the Odyssey, and Elysium in the
AEneid, have excited the ambition of many imitators. Many instances of
these occur in the later writers. These subjects, however, it must be
owned, are so natural to the genius of poetry, that it is scarcely fair
to attribute to an imitation of the classics, the innumerable
descriptions of this kind whic