rwards
strung his lyre to notes of triumph for the honors of his Friend, he
little imagined _that_ Friend would finally suffer death for
ungratefully conspiring against the Monarch, who had so liberally
overlooked his former enmity.

2: Epidemic Diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the effect
of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks in
the first Book of the Iliad, produce the Pestilence, which follows
the rape of his Priest's Daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the
dependence of the human constitution upon the temperate, or
intemperate influence of the Sun, the avenging bow of Phoebus appears
an obvious allegory;--and since it is in the hours of health that the
fine Arts are sought and cultivated, the Sun, under the name of
Phoebus, Apollo, &c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their
Patron, as well as the Avenger of crimes by the infliction of
diseases.

[1]TO MAECENAS.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TWELFTH.

Maecenas, I conjure thee cease
To wake my harp's enamour'd strings
To tones, that fright recumbent Peace,
That Pleasure flies on rapid wings!

Slow conquest on Numantia's plain,
Or Hannibal, that dauntless stood,
Tho' thrice he saw Ausonia's main
Redden with Carthaginian blood;

The Lapithae's remorseless pride,
Hylaeus' wild inebriate hours;
The Giants, who the Gods defied,
And shook old Saturn's splendid towers;

These, dear Maecenas, _thou_ should'st paint,
Each glory of thy Caesar's reign,
In eloquence, that scorns restraint,
And sweeter than the Poet's strain;

Show captive Kings, who from the fight
Drag at his wheels their galling chain,
And the pale lip indignant bite
With mutter'd vengeance, wild and vain.

Enraptur'd by Licinia's grace,
My Muse would these high themes decline,
Charm'd that the heart, the form, the face
Of matchless Excellence is thine.

Ah, happy Friend! for whom an eye,
Of splendid, and resistless fire,
Lays all its pointed arrows by,
For the mild gleams of soft desire!

With what gay spirit does she foil
The Pedant's meditated hit!
What happy archness in her smile!
What pointed meaning in her wit!

Her cheek how pure a crimson warms,
When with the Nymphs, in circling line,
Bending she twines her snowy arms,
And dances round Diana's shrine[2]!

Maecenas, would'st not thou exchange
The treasures gorge