The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face:

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain ;

Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise,

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse ;

He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,

With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree;

'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:

If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

The many rend the skies with loud applause; So love was crowned, but music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound

Has raised up his head;

As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,

See the Furies arise;

See the snakes that they rear,

How they hiss in their hair,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain :

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew.

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods.
The princes applaud with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

ON MILTON.

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the other two.

DANIEL DEFOE.

Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1661, and died in 1731. He was the author of more than two hundred separate works, including political pamphlets. His best known book, Robinson Crusoe, has probably had more readers than any printed in English except the Bible. No schoolboy will need to be reminded of its wonderful naturalness, its simple air of truth, its easy, unconscious and idiomatic style. Equally striking is the Journal of the Plague in London. In this work the reader is made a fellow-spectator of the horrors described; and throughout the long narrative, which is faithful to history and filled with minute and vivid pictures, the interest never for a moment flags.

The labors of this brave and indefatigable author brought him the usual return. His long life was spent in poverty, and occasionally in prison. Liberty of the press was then unknown. Criticisms upon the acts of the ministry were termed libels, and the answers which the powerful made to the critic or satirist were fines, the dungeon, and the pillory. Defoe suffered all of these with an unflinching courage.

As an essayist, he was the precursor of Addison and Steele; as a novelist, the master of Richardson, Fielding, Thackeray, and Dickens; as a defender of popular rights, he is entitled to the homage of all liberty-loving men.

In the narratives of Defoe the interest is so equally diffused, and the plots are so inartificial, that it is extremely difficult to make any selections. It is in their cumulative effect that the power of his works is felt. A handsome and useful volume, containing his best works, has been published by W. J. Swayne, of New York.

[From Robinson Crusoe. — Appearance of Friday.]

He was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight, strong limbs, not too large, tall and well shaped, and, as I reckon, about twenty-six years of age. He had a very good countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly in his face; and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of an European in his countenance, too, especially when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled like wool, his forehead very high and large, and a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The color of his skin was not quite black, but very tawny, and yet not of any ugly, yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and Virginians, and other natives of America are; but of a bright kind of a dun olive color, that had in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to describe. His face was round and plump ; his nose small, not flat, like the negro's, a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well set, and white as ivory. After he had slumbered, rather than slept, about half an hour, he waked again, and comes out of the cave to me, for I had been milking my goats, which I had in the enclosure just by: when he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble thankful disposition, making a many antic gestures to show it: at last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as

he had done before; and after this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived. I understood him in many things, and let him know I was very well pleased with him; in a little time I began to speak to him, and teach him to speak to me; and first, I let him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life; I called him so for the memory of the time; I likewise taught him to say master, and let him know that was to be my name; I likewise taught him to say yes and no, and to know the meaning of them; I gave him some milk in an earthen pot, and let him see me drink it before him, and sop my bread in it; and I gave him a cake of bread to do the like, which he quickly complied with, and made signs that it was very good for him.

But I needed none of all this precaution; for never man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant, than Friday was to me; without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and engaged, his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father; and I dare say he would have sacrificed his life for the saving mine upon any occasion whatsoever; the many testimonies he gave me of this, put it out of doubt, and soon convinced me that I needed to use no precautions as to my safety on his account.

This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that however it had pleased God, in his providence, and in the government of the works of his hands, to take from so great a part of the world of his creatures the best uses to which their faculties and the powers of their souls are adapted, yet that He has bestowed upon them the same powers, the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs, the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, and fidelity, and all the capacities of doing good and receiving good, that He has given to us; and that when He pleases to offer to them occasions of exerting these, they are as ready, nay, more ready, to apply them to the right uses for which they were bestowed, than we are. And this made me very melancholy sometimes, in reflecting, as the several occasions presented, how mean a use we make of all these, even though we have these powers enlightened by the great lamp of instruction, the Spirit of God, and by the knowledge of his word added to our understanding; and why it has pleased God to hide the like saving knowledge from so many millions of souls, who, if I might judge by this poor savage, would make a much better use of it than we did.