No legs at first the insect's weight sustain,

At length it moves its new-made limbs with pain;
Now strikes the air with quiv'ring wings, and tries
To lift its body up, and learns to rise;

Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears
Full grown, and all the bee at length appears;
From every side the fruitful carcass pours
Its swarming brood, as thick as summer show'rs,
Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows,
When twanging strings first shoot them on the foes.
Thus have I sung the nature of the bee;
While Cæsar, tow'ring to divinity;

The frighted Indians with his thunder aw'd,
And claim'd their homage, and commenc'd a god;
I flourish'd all the while in arts of peace,
Retir'd and shelter'd in inglorious ease:
I who before the songs of shepherds made,
When
gay and young my rural lays I play'd,
And set my Tityrus beneath his shade.

A SONG

FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, AT OXFORD.

[Dr. Johnson informs us, that this ode has been imitated by Pope, and has something in it of Dryden's vigour.]

I.

CECILIA, whose exalted hymns

With joy and wonder fill the blest,

In choirs of warbling seraphims

Known and distinguish'd from the rest,

Attend, harmonious saint, and see,

Thy vocal sons of harmony;

Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our pray'rs ;
Enliven all our earthly airs,

And, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee:
Tune every string and every tongue,

Be thou the muse and subject of our song.

II.

Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,

Employ the echo in her name.

Hark! how the flutes and trumpets raise,
At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;
The organ labours in her praise.

Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From every voice the tuneful accents fly,
In soaring trebles now it rises high,

And now it sinks, and dwells upon the bass.

Cecilia's name through all the notes we sing,

The work of every skilful tongue,

The sound of every trembling string.

The sound and triumph of our song.

III.

For ever consecrate the day,

To music and Cecilia;

Music, the greatest good that mortals know,

And all of heaven we have below.
Music can noble hints impart,

Engender fury, kindle love;

With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art.

When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre, The streams stand still, the stones admire ; The list'ning savages advance,

The wolf and lamb around him trip,

The bears in awkward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance.

The moving woods attended as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a shade.

IV.

Music religious heat inspires,

It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires,

And fits it to bespeak the deity.

Th' Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue,

And seems well pleas'd and courted with a song.

Soft moving sounds and heav'nly airs

Give force to every word, and recommend our prayers.

When time itself shall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,

Music shall then exert its power,
And sound survive the ruins of the world:
Then saints and angels shall agree

In one eternal jubilee :

All heav'n shall echo with their hymns divine, And God himself with pleasure see

The whole creation in a chorus join.

CHORUS.

Consecrate the place and day
To music and Cecilia.

Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,

Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,

Nor spoil the fleeting sounds.

Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard,

But gladness dwell on every tongue; Whilst all, with voice and strings prepar'd,

Keep up the loud harmonious song.

And imitate the blest above,

In joy, and harmony, and love.

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE

GREATEST ENGLISH POETS.

TO MR. H. S.1 APRIL 3, 1694.

SINCE, dearest Harry, you will needs request
A short account of all the muse-possest,

That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,
Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes;
Without more preface, writ in formal length,
To speak the undertaker's want of strength.
I'll try to make their several beauties known,
And show their verses' worth, though not my own.

1 The initials H. S. have generally been considered to refer to the famous Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whose story and trial are well known. Whether, however, it was to that individual that Addison addressed these verses, is made a question by some information which Sir John Hawkins obtained from a letter he found among Johnson's papers. This letter, dated January 1784, from a lady in Wiltshire, states, "that these verses were not addressed to Dr. H. Sacheverell, but to a very ingenious gentleman of the same name, who died young, supposed to be a Manksman, for that he wrote the History of the Isle of Man." See JOHNSON'S WORKS, Oxford edition, vol. vii. p. 422.