ar, chief where'er thy voice ordain
To fix midst gods thy yet unchosen reign--
Wilt thou o'er cities fix thy guardian sway,
While earth and all her realms thy nod obey?
The world's vast orb shall own thy genial power,
Giver of fruits, fair sun, and favouring shower;
Before thy altar grateful nations bow,
And with maternal myrtle wreathe thy brow;
O'er boundless ocean shall thy power prevail,
Thee her sole lord the world of waters hail,
Rule where the sea remotest Thule laves,
While Tethys dowers thy bride with all her waves. Sotheby.

Horace has elegantly adopted the same strain of compliment.

Te multa prece, te prosequitur mero
Defuso pateris; et Laribus tuum
Miscet numen, uti Graecia Castoris
Et magni memor Herculis. Carm. IV. 5.

To thee he chants the sacred song,
To thee the rich libation pours;
Thee placed his household gods among,
With solemn daily prayer adores
So Castor and great Hercules of old,
Were with her gods by grateful Greece enrolled.

(155) The panegyric bestowed upon Augustus by the great poets of that
time, appears to have had a farther object than the mere gratification of
vanity. It was the ambition of this emperor to reign in the hearts as
well as over the persons of his subjects; and with this view he was
desirous of endearing himself to their imagination. Both he and Mecaenas
had a delicate sensibility to the beauties of poetical composition; and
judging from their own feelings, they attached a high degree of influence
to the charms of poetry. Impressed with these sentiments, it became an
object of importance, in their opinion, to engage the Muses in the
service of the imperial authority; on which account, we find Mecaenas
tampering with Propertius, and we may presume, likewise with every other
rising genius in poetry, to undertake an heroic poem, of which Augustus
should be the hero. As the application to Propertius cannot have taken
place until after Augustus had been amply celebrated by the superior
abilities of Virgil and Horace, there seems to be some reason for
ascribing Mecaenas's request to a political motive. Caius and Lucius,
the emperor's grandsons by his daughter Julia, were still living, and
both young. As one of them, doubtless, was intended to succeed to the
government of the empire, prudence justified the adoption of every
expedient that might tend to secure a quiet s