Nature unable longer to fuftain, Would fink opprefs'd with joy to endless rest. Let none henceforth of Providence complain, But then, dear Sir, be cautious how you use, HENRY GROVE. To Dr. WAT Ts, on the fifth Edition of his S Hora Lyrica. Overeign of facred verfe; accept the lays Of a young bard that dares attempt thy praise. You You in majeftic numbers mount the skies, With thee fhall thy divine Urania rise, } Great Great How and Gouge shall hail thee on thy way, Tui amantiffimus BRITANNICUS. PRE C PREFACE. IT T has been a long complaint of the virtuous and refined world, that poefy, whofe origina! is divine, fhould be enflaved to vice and profaneness; that an art, infpired from heaven, fhould have fo far loft the memory of its birth-place, as to be engaged in the interefts of hell. How unhappily is it perverted from its most glorious defign! How bafely has it been driven away from its proper ftation in the temple of God, and abufed to much difhonour! The iniquity of men has conftrained it to ferve their vile purposes, while the fons of piety mourn the facrilege and the fhame. The eldest fong, which history has brought down to our ears, was a noble act of worship paid to the God of Ifrael, when his "right hand became glorious in "power; when thy right hand, O Lord, dashed in "pieces the enemy: the chariots of Pharaoh and his hofts were caft into the red fea. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the deep-covered them, and they fank as lead in the mighty waters." Exod. xv. This art was maintained sacred through the following ages of the church, and employed by kings and prophets, by · David, Solomon, and Isaiah, in defcribing the nature and the glories of God, and in conveying grace or vengeance to the hearts of men. By this method they brought fo much of heaven down to this lower world, as the darkness of that dispensation would admit: And now and then a divine and poetic rapture lifted their fouls far above the level of that œconomy of fhadows, bore them away far into a brighter region, and gave them a glimpse of evangelic day. The life of angels was harmoniously breathed into the children of Alam, and their minds raifed near to heaven in melody and devotion at once. In the younger days of heathenifm the Mufes were devoted to the fame service: the language in which old Hefiod addreffes them is this: Μᾶσαι Πιερίηθεν αοιδῆσε κλείουσαι, Δεῦτε, Δῖ ἐννέπετε σφέτερον πατέρ' ὑμνείουσ « Pierian Mufes, fam'd for heavenly lays, "Defcend, and fing the God your Father's praise." And he pursues the subject in ten pious lines, which I could not bear to tranfcribe, if the aspect and found of fo much Greek were not terrifying to a nice reader. But fome of the latter Poets of the Pagan world have debased this divine gift; and many of the writers of the first rank, in this our age of national Christians, have, to their eternal fhame, furpaffed the vileft of the Gentiles. They have not only disrobed religion of all the ornaments of verfe, but have employed their pens in impious mifchief, to deform her native beauty and de-file her honours. They have expofed her most facred character to drollery, and dreffed her up in a most vile and ridiculous disguise, for the fcorn of the ruder herd of mankind. The vices have been painted like fo many |