The flinty path-way bath'd in blood, 7. Stung by despair, he fought the plain, 8. First of his race, he led the band, II. If later deeds quick raptures raise, 12. If these command thy generous zeal, 13. Oh! mourn the lost disastrous hour; 15. Let forrow bathe each blufhing cheek; Bend piteous o'er the tortur'd slave, Whofe wrongs compaffion cannot speak ; *LEONIDAS. DIALOGUE MERCURY AND A MODERN FINE LADY ; SHOWING THE FUTILE EN- Mrs. Modifb. INDEED, Mr. Mercury, I can. not have the pleasure of waiting upon you now. I am engaged, abfolutely engaged. Mercury. I know you have an amiable, affectionate hufband, and feveral fine children. But you need not be told, that neither conjugal attachments, maternal affections, nor even the care of a kingdom's welfare, can excufe a perfon who has received a fummons to the realms of death. If the grim meffenger were not as peremptory as unwelcome, Charon would not get a paffenger once in a century. You must be content to leave your husband and family, and pass the Styx. Mrs. M. I did not mean to to infift on any engagements with my husband and children. I never thought myself engaged to them. I had no engagements but fuch as were common to women in high life. Look at my memorandum, and you will fee I was engaged to the play on Mondays, balls on Tuesdays, routs on Saturdays, and to card affemblies the rest of the week for two months to come; and it would be the rudeft thing in the world not to keep my appointments. If you will stay for me till the fummer feafon, I will wait on you with all my heart. Perhaps the elysian fields may be lefs deteftable than the country in our world. Pray have you a fine theatre, pleafant gardens, and elegant affemblies there? I think I fhould not diflike drinking the Lethe waters when you have a full season. Mer. Surely you could not like to drink the waters of oblivion, who have made pleasure the business, end, and aim of your life! It is good to drown cares; but who would wash away the remembrance of a life of gaiety and pleasure ? Mrs. M. Diverfion was indeed the business of my life; but as to pleasure, I have enjoyed none fince the novelty of my amusements has worn off. Can one be pleased with feeing the fame thing over and over again? Late hours and fatigue fatigue gave me the vapours, fpoiled the natural cheerfulness of my temper, and even in youth wore away my youthful vivacity. Mer. If this mode of life did not give you pleasure, why did you continue in it? I fuppofe you did not think it very meritorious. Mrs. M. I was too much engaged to think at all. Thus far indeed my manner of life was agreeable enough. My friends always told me diverfions were neceffary; and my doctor affured me diffipation was good for my fpirits; my husband infifted that it was not. And you know one loves to oblige one's friends, comply with one's doctor, and contradict one's hufband. And, befides, I was ambitious to be thought du bon ton. Mer. Bon ton! What is that, madam? pray define it. Mrs. M. O Sir, excufe me; it is one of the privileges of the bon ton never to define or be defined. It is the child and parent of jargon. It is- -I can never tell you what it is; but I will try to tell you what it is not. In converfation it is not wit; in manners it is not politeness; in behaviour it is not address; but it is a little like them all. It can only belong to people of a certain rank, who live in a certain manner, with certain perfons, and who have not certain virtues, and who have certain vices, and who inhab it a certain part of the town. Now, Sir, I have told you as much as I know of it, though I have admired and aimed at it all my life. Mer. Then, madam, you have wasted your time, faded your beauty, and deftroyed your health, for the laudable. purposes of contradicting your husband, and being this fomething and this nothing called the bon ton. Mrs. M. What would you have had me do? Mer. I will follow your own mode of inftru&ting. I will tell you what I would not have had you do. I would not have had you facrifice your time, your reafon, and your duties, to fashion and folly. I would not have had you neglect your husband's happiness, and your children's education. Mrs. M. As to the education of my daughters, I fpared no expenfe. They had a dancing mafter, mufic mafter, drawing mafter, and a French governess to teach hem politenefs and the French language. Mer. Mer. So their religion, fentiments and manners were to be learned from a dancing master, music master, and a chamber maid! Perhaps they might prepare them to catch the bon ton. Your daughters must have been fo educated as to fit them to be wives without conjugal affection, and mothers without maternal care. I am forry for the fort of life they are commencing, and for that which you have juft concluded. Minos is a four old gentleman, without the leaft fmattering of the bon ton, and I am in a fright for you. The best thing I can advise you, is to do in this world as you did in the other; keep happinefs in your view, but never take the road that leads to it. Remain on this fide Styx; wander about without end or aim; look into the elyfian fields; but never attempt to enter into them, left Minos fhould push you into Tartarus. For duties neg lected may bring on a fentence not much lefs fevere than crimes committed. PART OF THE SPEECH OF PUBLIUS SCIPIO, TO THE ROMAN ARMY, BEFORE THE BATTLE OF THE TICIN. THAT HAT you may not be unapprized, foldiers, of what fort of enemies you are about to encounter, or what is to be feared from them, I tell you they are the very fame, whom, in a former war, you vanquished both by land and fea; the fame from whom you took Sicily and Sardinia; and who have been these twenty years your tributaries. 2. You will not, I prefume, march against thefe men with only that courage with which you are wont to face other enemies; but with a certain anger and indignation, fuch as you would feel if you faw your flaves on a fudden rife up in arms against you. 3. But you have heard, perhaps, that, though they are few in number, they are men of ftout hearts and robuft bod. ies; heroes of fuch ftrength and vigor as nothing is able to resist. Mere effigies; nay, fhadows of men! wretches, emaciated with hunger and benumbed with cold! bruised and and battered to pieces among the rocks and craggy cliffs! their weapons broken, and their horfes weak and foundered! 4. Such are the cavalry, and fuch the infantry, with which you are going to contend; not enemies, but the fragments of enemies. There is nothing which I more appre hend, than that it will be thought Hannibal was vanquished by the Alps before we had any conflict with him. 5. I need not be in any fear that you fhould suspect me of faying these things merely to encourage you, while inwardly I have different fentiments. Have I ever fhown any inclination to avoid a contest with this tremendous Hannibal? and have I now met with him only by acci dent and unawares? or am I come on purpose to challenge him to the combat? 6. I would gladly try, whether the earth, within these twenty years, has brought forth a new kind of Carthageni. ans; or whether they be the fame fort of men who fought at the gates, and whom at Eryx you fuffered to redeem themselves at eighteen denarii per head. Whether this Hannibal, for labours and journies, be as he would be thought, the rival of Hercules; or whether he be what his father left him, a tributary, a a flave to the Ro man people. 7. Did not the consciousness of his wicked deed at Sa guntum torment him and make him defperate, he would have fome regard, if not to his conquered country, yet furely to his own family, to his father's memory, to the treaty written with Amilcar's own hand. We might have ftarv ed them in Eryx; we might have paffed into Africa with our victorious fleet, and in a few days have destroyed Carthage. 8. At their humble fupplication, we pardoned them. We released them when they were closely fhut up without a poffibility of escaping. We made peace with them when they were conquered. When they were diftreffed by the African war, we confidered them, and treated them as a people under our protection. 9. And what is the return they make us for all thefe favors! Under the conduct of a hair brained young man, they come hither to overturn our State, and lay waste our country. |