He pleads in vain, and I pronounce his doom: My brothers, tho' unjustly, shall o'ercome, But having pay'd their injur'd ghosts their due, My fon requires my death, and mine fhall his purfue, At this for the last time fhe lifts her hand, Averts her eyes, and half unwilling drops the brand. The brand, amid the flaming fuel thrown,

Or drew, or feem'd to draw a dying groan;

The fires themselves but faintly lick'd their prey, Then loath'd their impious food, and would have shrunk

away.

Juft then the hero caft a doleful cry, And in those abfent flames began to fry: The blind contagion rag'd within his veins; But he with manly patience bore his pains: He fear'd not fate, but only griey'd to die Without an honest wound, and by a death fo dry. Happy Ancæus, thrice aloud he cry'd, With what becoming fate in arms he dy'd! Then call'd his brothers, fifters, fire, around, And her to whom his nuptial vows were bound; Perhaps his mother; a long figh he drew, And his voice failing, took his laft adieu: For as the flames augment, and as they stay At their full height, then languish to decay, They rife, and fink by fits; at last they foar In one bright blaze, and then defcend no more: Juft fo his inward heats, at height, impair, Till the laft burning breath fhoots out the foul in air. Now lofty Calydon in ruins lies;

All ages, all degrees unfluice their eyes;

And heav'n and earth refound with murmurs, groans,

and cries.

Matrons and maidens beat their breafts, and tear
Their habits, and root up their fcatter'd hair.

The

The wretched father, father now no more,
With forrow funk, lies proftrate on the floor,
Deforms his hoary locks with duft obfcene,

And curfes age, and loaths a life prolong'd with pain.
By steel her ftubborn foul his mother freed,
And punish'd on herself her impious deed.
Had I an hundred tongues, a wit fo large
As could their hundred offices discharge;
Had Phœbus all his Helicon bestow'd,
In all the ftreams infpiring all the God;

Thofe tongues, that wit, thofe ftreams, that God in vain
Wou'd offer to defcribe his fifters' pain:

They beat their breafts with many a bruifing blow,
Till they turn livid, and corrupt the fnow.
The corps they cherish, while the corps remains,
And exercise and rub with fruitless pains;
And when to fun'ral flames 'tis borne away,
They kifs the bed on which the body lay:
And when thofe fun'ral flames no longer burn,
(The duft compos'd within a pious urn)

Ev'n in that urn their brother they confefs,
And hug it in their arms, and to their bofoms prefs,
His tomb is rais'd; then, ftretch'd along the ground,
Those living monuments his tomb furround:
Ev'n to his name, infcrib'd, their tears they pay,
Till tears and kiffes wear his name away.

But Cynthia now had all her fury spent,
Not with lefs ruin, than a race, content:
Excepting Gorge, perish'd all the feed,
And her whom heav'n for Hercules decreed,
Satiate at laft, no longer the purfu'd

The weeping fifters; but with wings endu'd,
And horny beaks, and fent to flit in air;

Who yearly round the tomb in feather'd flocks repair.

Out of the Eighth BOOK of

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

The author, pursuing the deeds of Thefeus, relates how he, with his friend Pirithous, were invited by Achelous, the River-God, to stay with him, till his waters were abated.

Achelous entertains them with a relation of his own love to Perimele, who was changed into an ifland by Neptune, at his request. Pirithous, being an atheift, derides the legend, and denies the power of the Gods to work that miracle. Lelex, another companion of Thefeus, to confirm the ftory of Achelous, relates another metamorphofis of Baucis and Philemon into trees; of which he was partly an eye-witness.

HUS Achelous ends: his audience hear

ΤΗ

With admiration, and admiring fear
The pow'rs of heav'n; except Ixion's fon,
Who laugh'd at all the Gods, believ'd in none
He fhook his impious head, and thus replies,
Thefe legends are no more than pious lies:
You attribute too much to heav'nly fway,
To think they give us forms, and take away.
The reft, of better minds, their fense declar'd
Against this doctrine, and with horror heard.

Then Lelex rofe, an old experienc'd man,
And thus with fober gravity began :
Heav'n's power is infinite: earth, air, and fea,
The manufacture mafs, the making power obey:

By

By proof to clear your doubt; in Phrygian ground
Two neighb'ring trees, with walls encompass'd round,
Stand on a mod'rate rife, with wonder fhown,
One a hard oak, a fofter linden one:

I saw the place and them, by Pittheus fent
To Phrygian realms, my grandfire's government.
Not far from thence is feen a lake, the haunt
Of coots, and of the fishing cormorant :
Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise
Of mortal men conceal'd their Deities:
One laid afide his thunder, one his rod;
And many toilfome steps together trod;
For harbour at thousand doors they knock'd,
Not one of all the thousand but was lock'd.
At laft an hofpitable house they found,
A homely fhed; the roof, not far from ground,
Was thatch'd with reeds and ftraw together bound.
There Baucis and Philemon liv'd, and there
Had liv'd long marry'd, and a happy pair:
Now old in love; tho' little was their store,
Inur'd to want, their poverty they bore,
Nor aim'd at wealth, profeffing to be poor.
For mafter or for fervant here to call,
Was all alike, where only two were all.
Command was none, where equal love was paid,
Or rather both commanded, both obey'd.

From lofty roofs the Gods repuls'd before,
Now ftooping, enter'd thro' the little door;
The man (their hearty welcome first exprefs'd)
A common fettle drew for either guest,
Inviting each his weary limbs to reft.

But ere they fat, officious Baucis lays

Two cushions ftuff'd with ftraw, the feat to raise;
Coarfe, but the beft fhe had; then takes the load
Of athes from the hearth, and spreads abroad
The living coals, and left they shou'd expire,
With leaves and barks fhe feeds her infant-fire:

}

It smokes, and then with trembling breath the blows,
Till in a chearful blaze the flames arofe.

With brush-wood and with chips the strengthens thefe,
And adds at laft the boughs of rotten trees.
The fire thus form'd, fhe fets the kettle on,
(Like burnifh'd gold the little feether fhone)
Next took the coleworts which her husband got
From his own ground (a fmall well water'd fpot;)
She ftripp'd the ftalks of all their leaves; the best
She cull'd, and then with handy care fhe drefs'd.
High o'er the hearth a chine of bacon hung;
Good old Philemon feiz'd it with a prong,
And from the footy rafter drew it down,
Then cut a flice, but fcarce enough for one:
Yet a large portion of a little ftore,

Which for their fakes alone he wifh'd were more.
This in the pot he plung'd without delay,
To tame the flesh, and drain the falt away,
The time between, before the fire they fat,
And fho ten'd the delay by pleafing chat.

A beam there was, on which a beechen pail
Hung by the handle, on a driven nail:
This fill'd with water, gently warm'd, they fet
Before their guefts; in this they bath'd their feet,
And after with clean towels dry'd their sweat :
This done, the hoft produc'd the genial bed,
Sallow the foot, the borders, and the sted,
Which with no coftly coverlet they spread;
But coarfe old garments, yet fuch robes as these
They laid alone, at feasts, on hclydays.
The good old housewife, tucking up her gown,
The table fets; th' invited Gods lie down.
The trivet-table of a foot was lame,
A blot which prudent Baucis overcame,
Who thrust, beneath the limping leg, a fherd,
So was the mended board exactly rear'd:

Then