Or of their own, or of their fellows' shame,

To make thy wholesome words seem harsh and rude;
Yet, not the less, of falsehood scorn the name;

Give all thy VISION to the public light,
And where the sin is, there let rest the blame :
For, though thy speech shall savor no delight
On the first taste, its substance then shall prove
Vital nutrition, when digested quite.

In a vast hall, which greater space o'erspread
Than Auburn's fields and villas of the dead,
Or those near Isis' city, where grief showers
A public flood, and wo 's express'd by flowers,

35

Ver. 37. Or those, etc.] The cemetery of Mont Louis, better known as Père Lachaise; the largest in the vicinity of PARIS; containing from eighty to a hundred acres. - On the first and second of November, (All Saints' Day and the Festival of the Dead,) it is a general fashion for the PARISIANS to decorate the tombs of their relatives with flowers and garlands. The scene may be imagined, and its propriety.

**

37.- ISIS' city-] One of the conjectural derivations of the name of the French metropolis, is that a temple of Isis anciently stood near the city, whence the people were termed Parisii (as living near Isis,) and the city itself, Paris. This is not so probable as another, but it is sufficient for the pencil of the poet, whose art it is to paint by periphrasis.

**

Were throng'd the infernal senate.

Not yet come

40

Their sceptred head, all silent was the dome,

Save where a whisper, or the shifting feet

Of some archangel passing to his seat,

Broke on their ears, who waited from HELL's borders The source of death on Earth and feminine disorders.

Was darkness o'er that area; not entire :
Through the dun air broad tongues of lambent fire
Play'd intermittent. Such they went and came
As round the billet curls the growing flame
Ere the green bark 's ignited, or as gas

Jets from a seacoal fire, whose glowing mass

Is freshly fuel'd; rapid as the glare

Of summer lightning in the midnight air.

Yet as in cities, on a misty night,

45

50

The lamps around them spread but scanty light,
Which, distant view'd, seem large and burning bright; 55
About the glass a circular vapor 's seen,

Like the red halo round the silver queen;

So serv'd those tongues of fire, each other minute,

Only to show the dark to HELL's dark senate.

Like the white tops of surges, seen to gleam
Beneath a crescent moon's imperfect beam,
While every billow else is heaving black,
And the pale stars shine few amid the rack,
Sparkled at intervals, as went and came
Over the gloom those floating cressets' flame,
The gemm'd tiaras of the infernal Powers ;
And their hair glisten'd, like grass after showers.

60

65

Now, from the brazen ordinance, a peal
Thunder'd terrific through the gulfs of HELL,
Signal the king was coming. At the blast,
The smit air, struggling for escape, upcast
The Earth's foundations; bellowing, gave a groan
From all his caves old Sangai, and the cone
Of Cahtopahhi, heaving, upward threw,
From his wide fissures, flames of sanguine hue,
Follow'd by boiling water. Downward fell
The enormous torrent, over plain and dell,

Village and pasture: stall nor cottage stood;

70

75

Men, cattle, flocks sunk whelm'd beneath the abundant flood.

Ver. 68. - ordinance -] SHAKSPEARE so writes it.

72, 73.- - bellowing, gave a groan From all his caves old Sangai — ] Sangai is the most southerly mountain of the eastern ridge of the Andes, and is particularly remarkable for its frightful noises, which, according to Don ANTONY DE ULLOA, might sometimes be heard at the distance of forty leagues. A report in some degree corroborated by the testimony of more recent writers.

73, 74. the cone of Cahtopahhi — ] The shape of this mountain (Catopaxi) is that of a truncated cone. Its height LA CONDAMINE estimates at 2950 toises.

75, 76. flames of sanguine hue Follow'd by boiling water.] A peculiarity of the volcanoes of the Andes, where, I believe, lava has never been found. Of the eruption of 1743 the appearance and consequences were precisely such as are described in the text; the flames which issued from the various apertures near the summit of Catopaxi, were instantly followed by a vast torrent of water, which deluged all the plain. The river which runs by LATACUNGA, swollen by the flood, rushed over its banks; and the people of the town were obliged to fly to the hills to avoid being involved in a like ruin with their habitations.