miseries, they would concur in
recommending kindness, temperance, caution, and fortitude.

When therefore there are found in Virgil and Horace two similar
passages--

_Hae tibi erunt artes--
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos_. VIRG.

To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free:
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee. DRYDEN.

_Imperet bellante prior, jacentem
Lenis in hostem_. HOR.

Let Caesar spread his conquests far,
Less pleas'd to triumph than to spare--

it is surely not necessary to suppose with a late critick, that one is
copied from the other, since neither Virgil nor Horace can be supposed
ignorant of the common duties of humanity, and the virtue of moderation
in success.

Cicero and Ovid have on very different occasions remarked how little of
the honour of a victory belongs to the general, when his soldiers and
his fortune have made their deductions; yet why should Ovid be suspected
to have owed to Tully an observation which perhaps occurs to every man
that sees or hears of military glories?

Tully observes of Achilles, that had not Homer written, his valour had
been without praise:

_Nisi Ilias illa extitisset, idem tumulus qui corpus ejus contexerat,
nomen ejus obruisset_.

Unless the Iliad had been published, his name had been lost in the
tomb that covered his body.

Horace tells us with more energy that there were brave men before the
wars of Troy, but they were lost in oblivion for want of a poet:

_Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro_.

Before great Agamemnon reign'd,
Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave,
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd
In the small compass of a grave:
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown:
No bard had they to make all time their own. FRANCIS.

Tully inquires, in the same oration, why, but for fame, we disturb a
short life with so many fatigues?

_Quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vitae curriculo et tam brevi, tantis
nos in laboribus exerceamus?_

Why in so small a circuit of life should we employ ourselves in so
many fatigues?

Horace inquires in the same manner,

_Quid brevi fortes jaculamur aevo
Multa?_

Why do we aim, with eager strife,
At things beyond the mark of life? FRANCIS.

when our life is of so short duration, why we form such numerous
designs? But Ho