DESCRIPTIVE PIECES.

THE

DEN OF THE VICES.

69

THERE in her den lay pompous Luxury,
Stretch'd out at length; no vice could boast such high
And general victories as she had won,

Of which proud trophies there at large were shown.
Besides small states and kingdoms ruined,

Those mighty monarchies, that had o'erspread
The spacious earth, and stretch'd their conquering arms
From pole to pole, by her ensnaring charms
Were quite consum'd; there lay imperial Rome,
That vanquish'd all the world, by her o'ercome.
Fetter'd was th' old Assyrian lion there,
The Grecian leopard, and the Persian bear,
With others numberless lamenting by,
Examples of the power of luxury.

Next with erected looks Ambition stood,
Whose trophies all were pourtray'd forth in blood.
Under his feet Law and Religion

He trampled down; sack'd cities there were shown,
Rivers and fields with slaughter overspread,

And stain'd with blood which his wild sons had shed.

There Ninus' image stood, who first of all
By lawless arms and slaughter did enthral

The quiet nations that liv'd free till then,
And first took pride to triumph over men.
There was Sesostres figured; there the son
Of Philip lay, whose dire ambition
Not all the spacious earth could satisfy.
Swift as the lightning did his conquests fly
From Greece to furthest eastern lands, and like
Some dire contagion through the world did strike
Death and destruction; purple were the floods
Of every region with their native bloods.
Next him that Roman lay, who first of all
Captiv'd his country; there were figur'd all
His wars and mischiefs, and whatever woes
Through all the world by dire ambition rose.
Next to that fiend lay pale Revenge; with gore

His ghastly visage was all sprinkled o'er.
The hate he bore to others had quite 'reft
Him of all love unto himself, and left

No place for nature; o'er his den were shown
Such tragedies and sad destruction,

As would dissolve true human hearts to hear,
And from the Furies selyes inforce a tear.

Those bloody slaughters there to view were brought,
Which Jacob's cruel sons in Shechem wrought,

When all the males but newly circumcis'd

To their revengeful rage were sacrific'd.
There the slain youth of Alexandria lie
By Caracalla's vengeful butchery;

The captiv'd fate of Spain was there display'd,
Which wrathful Julian in revenge betray'd
To pagan Moors, and ruin'd so his own
Sad house, his country and religion.

Not all these sacred bonds with him prevail,
When he beholds his ravish'd daughter wail,
Wring her white hands, and that fair bosom strike
That too much pleas'd the lustful Roderic*.

The next Sedition lay, not like the rest
Was he attir'd, nor in his looks exprest
Hatred to heaven and virtue's laws; but he
Pretends religion, law, or liberty,
Seeming t'adore what he did most o'erthrow,
"And would persuade virtue to be a foe
To peace and lawful power; above his den
For boasting trophies hung such robes, as when
Old Sparta stood, her Ephori did wear,

And Rome's bold tribunes. Stories carved there
Of his achievements numberless were seen,
Such as the Gracchi's factious stirs had been
In ancient Rome, and such as were the crimes
That oft wreck'd Greece in her most potent times;
Such as learn'd Athens and bold Sparta knew,
And from their ablest soldiers oft did rue.

Next to that vice lay foul Impiety

At large display'd, the cursed enemy

Of nature's best and holiest laws; through all
Her loathsome den unthankful vipers crawl.
Above those stories were display'd, which show
How much the monarchy of hell did owe
For people's wreck to that abhorred vice.
There were Mycena's baleful tragedies,

* Wring her white hands, &c.] Thus Johnson:
Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring;
And Sedley curs'd the form that pleas'd a King.
Vanity of Human Wishes.

See likewise in this volume the Death of Rosamond, who has the same reflection.

And all the woes that fatal Thebes had wrought.
There false Medea, when away she brought
Her own betrayed country's spoils, before

Her weeping father Oeta piecemeal tore

Her brother's limbs, and strew'd them o'er the field.
There with the same impiety she kill'd

Her own two sons, and through the air

apace,
By dragons drawn, she fled from Jason's face.
There strong Alcathoe, king Nisus' town,
By Scylla's impious treason was o'erthrown,
And sack'd with fire and sword; the wretched maid
Had from her lofty sounding tower survey'd

King Minos' host, and doating on her fair

Foe's face, cut off her father's purple hair.

Reigne of Henry II. by T. May,
B. I. v. 466.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE*.

THUS Orpheus, when his lost Eurydice,

Whom some deaf snake, that could no music hear,
Or some blind newt, that could no beauty see,

Thinking to kiss, kill'd with his forked spear:

*These lines of Fletcher are a paraphrase, or rather translation, from Boethius. The whole description is forcible: some of the circumstances perhaps are heightened too much; but it is the fault of this writer to indulge himself in every aggravation that poetry allows, and to stretch his prerogative of “quidlibet audendi” to the utmost. This subject, versified in a very inferior style, occurs in his Poetical Miscellanies, p. 79, subjoined to the Purple Island. For the effects of music on the Infernal Regions it may be almost impertinent to refer the reader to the story of Orpheus, Virg. Georg. iv.; and the very

He, when his plaints on earth were vainly spent,
Down to Avernus' river boldly went,

And charm'd the meagre ghosts with mournful blandishment.

There what his mother, fair Calliope,

From Phoebus' harp and Muse's spring had brought him,
What sharpest grief for his Eurydice,

And love redoubling grief had newly taught him,
He lavish'd out, and with his potent spell

Bent all the rigorous powers of stubborn hell:
He first brought pity down with rigid ghosts to dwell.

Th' amazed shades came flocking round about,
Nor car'd they now to pass the Stygian ford:
All hell came running there (an hideous rout),
And dropt a silent tear for every word:

The aged ferryman shov'd out his boat;

But that without his help did thither float;
And having ta'en him in, came dancing on the moat.

The hungry Tantal might have fill'd him now,
And with large draughts swill'd in the standing pool:
The fruit hung list'ning on the wond'ring bough,
Forgetting hell's command; but he (ah fool!)

Forgot his starved taste, his ears to fill.

;

Ixion's turning wheel unmov'd stood still
But he was rapt as much with powerful music's skill.

Tir'd Sisyphus sat on his resting stone,

And hop'd at length his labour done for ever:

masterly introduction of it by Pope in his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. The same effect is represented by Horace as produced by the harps of Sappho and Alcæus, Lib. II. Od. xiii. 1. 33. See also his Ode to Mercury, Lib. III. Od. xi. 1, 15, &c. See likewise Milton's Paradise Lost, ii. 546, 555.