The works, in verse and prose, of the late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. Esq ::

When first, o'er Athens, Learning's dawning ray
Gleamed the dim twilight of the Attick day;
To charm, improve, the hours of state repose,
The deathless father of the Drama rose.
No gorgeous pageantry adorned the show;
The plot was simple, and the scene was low.
Without the wardrobe of the Graces, drest;
Without the mimick blush of Art, caressed;
Heroick Virtue held her throne secure,
For Vice was modest, and Ambition poor.

But soon the Muse, by nobler ardours fired,
To loftiest heights of Scenick verse aspired.
From useful Life her comick fable rose,
And Epick passions formed her tale of woes:
The daring Drama heaven itself explored,
And gods descending trod the Grecian board.
The scene expanding, through the temple swelled;
Each bosom acted, what each eye beheld:
Warm to the heart, the chimick Fiction stole,
And purged, by moral Alchymy, the soul.

Hence Artists graced, and Heroes nerved the age,
The sons or pupils of a patriot stage.
Hence, in this forum of the virtues fired,
This living school of Eloquence inspired;

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With bolder crest, the dauntless warrior strode;
With nobler tongue, the ardent statesman glowed;
The void of Life instinctive morals filled,
And Fame herself with chaste Ambition thrilled;
Imperial Grief gave social Pity birth,
And frightened Folly feared instructive Mirth.

Thus Athens reigned Minerva of the globe;
First, in the hemlet—fairest in the robe;
In arms she triumphed, as in letters shone,
Of Taste the palace, and of War the throne.

But, lo! where, rising in majestick flight,
The Roman eagle sails the expanse of light!
His wings, like Heaven's vast canopy, unfurled,
Stretch their broad plumage o'er the subject world.
Behold! he soars, where climbing Phœbus rolls,
And, perching on his car, o'erlooks the poles!
Far, as the chariot winds its radiant way,
His empire follows on the ebb of day;
And Rome and Light revolve with rival fires,
And Cesar governs, when the Sun retires.

Bland nurse of Genius! mother queen of Grace!
Lo! Cecrops' throne is Ruin's charnel place!
Long ages past, with beating wing, have swept
Thy crumbling tomb, and as they smote, have wept;
Now, Time's grey eve, serene with lingering day,
Sheds o'er thy wrecks his sad sepulchral ray!
Departed Athens! round thy sullen shores,
Choaked with thy gods, thy vexed Pyræus roars,

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Once proud to glitter where thy columns stood,
That Heaven might see thy temples in his flood.
From their cold altars all thy priests have flown,
And hermit Silence worships there alone!
O'er thy drear mound no dirge thy muses swell;
Mute is the breath, that filled their votive shell.
Pierced at their shrines, the sacred sisters fled,
Veiled their stained breasts, and pitied while they bled;
Then, grouped in air, they showed the wounds they bore,
And dropped their broken lyres, to sound no more.
The Chissel's life still loves the realm it graced,
And weeps in marble o'er thy sculptured waste;
O'er broken cenotaphs and mouldering fanes,
Sits black Despair, while pagan Wonder reigns;
Where frowned thy Sages, from their niches thrown,
The prophet raven fills the vacant stone;
With Arab scars the Parian hero bleeds,
And Beauty's statue sleeps in groves of weeds;
Minerva's temple vainly greets the stars,
And pirates shelter on the rock of Mars.

Where lightens now, the Drama's vivid eye,
Whose glance reformed, where'er its beams could fly?
Who, when Desire was fond, and Art was young,
So rudely sported, and so simply sung?
Yet, when thy realm was wild, and dark with fate,
Could charm the tumult, and allay the state?
Could gently touch the film, that made thee blind,
And pour new day o'er thine infatuate mind?

Where, now, thy lofty Muse, thou bard divine!
Who bade a nation's wealth adorn her shrine!

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Who, graced their passions, and their pride to move,
A people's homage, and a senate's love,
With gorgeous drapery, and imperial air,
Awed mobs to think, and “wonder why they were;”
Who with her pencil moved the state-machine,
And swayed a faction, as she turned a scene;
With Art's last glories bade her temple flame,
And gave to Virtue, all she won from Fame;
Who o'er a realm her vast proscenium threw,
And saw all Athens in one splendid view;
With Attick genius moral truth impressed,
And taught a nation, while she charmed a guest!

In vain Illyssus flowed, or Locris bled,
The vital virtue of my heart had fled!
What though to victory patriot Valour wades;
Or musing Science consecrates thy shades;
While thankless Praise on dangerous Glory frowns,
And Envy banishes, whom Fortune crowns;
While the blest seer, who taught all, Nature knew,
Receives a chalice for the heaven he drew.

In vain thy Epick heroes wake with rage,
And stalk like spectres o'er thy trembling stage!
Ruled by caprice, with varying passion raised,
As rhetorick flattered, or as triumph blazed;
Bound by no law, a trope could not repeal,
Just to no merit, faction could not feel;
A crowd of schools, and a scholastick crowd,
Light, though forensick, impotent, though loud;
Wild by abstraction, and by fiction vain,
Crude by refinement, and by sense insane;

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With quick conceits thy fickle fancy burned,
With learning fooled thee, 'till thy folly learned;
With clamoruus Wisdom waged its patriot feud,
'Till words alone defended publick good,
Disgusted Pallas her allegiance broke,
Ilium revived, and bade thee pass the yoke.

Dear wild of Genius! o'er thy mouldering scene,
While Taste explores, where Time's rude step has been,
Thy marble fragments, and thy desert mart,
Frown Fate to Faction, and Despair to Art;
Alike they mark thy frenzy and thy fame,
Record thy glory, and confess thy shame!

Bare and defenceless to the blast of war,
The gates of Greece received the victor's car;
Chained to his wheels, was captive Faction led,
And Taste transplanted bloomed at Tyber's head.
O'er the rude minds of Empire's hardy race,
The opening pupil beamed of lettered grace.
With charms so sweet, the houseless Drama smiled,
That Rome adopted Athens orphan child:
With bounty cloathed her, and with kindness cheered,
Her fancy copied, and her satire feared;
Vice, fashion, folly—to her power resigned,
And bowed an empire to the Muse's mind.
Wealth, honour, fame her Cesar's hand bestowed,
Wit, virtue, grace repaid the debt, she owed;
Life breathed in fable, eloquence in mien,
And manners taught how morals should be seen.
From Beauty's touch no mail could guard the heart,
Rome conquered science and was ruled by art.

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Transplanted Athens' in her stage revived,
Her patriots mouldered, but her poets lived.
Fledged by her hand, the Mantuan swan aspired;
Glanced by her eye, e'en Pompey's self retired;
And raptured Tully half his graces caught,
While Roscius bodied all the forms of thought.
Sheathed was the sword, by which a world had bled;
And Janus blushing to his temple fled:
The Globe's proud butcher grew humanely brave;
Earth staunched her wounds, and Ocean hushed his wave.

Augustan Rome, with sad, prophetick eye,
Beheld her empire circle round the sky;
And saw along the ever rolling view,
Her shadow tremble, as her pennons flew.
Around her throne Pretorian cohorts stood,
Yet Fiction governed what her arms subdued.
O'er vassal man she dared not reign alone,
And called the Drama to support her throne;
And shook her sceptre, and her legions led,
When spoke the Larva, or the Arena bled.

At length, though huge of limb, by power oppressed,
Groaning with Slavery's mountain on their breast,
Her giant nations struggled from disgrace,
And Rome, like Ætna, tottered to her base.

Thus set the sun of intellectual light,
And, wrapped in clouds, lowered on the Gothick night.
Dark gloomed the storm—the rushing torrent poured,
And wide the deep Cimmerian deluge roared;

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E'en Learning's loftiest hills were covered o'er,
And seas of dulness rolled, without a shore.
Yet, ere the surge Parnassus' top o'erflowed,
The banished Muses fled their blest abode.
Frail was their ark, the heaven topped seas to brave,
The wind their compass, and their helm the wave;
No port to cheer them, and no star to guide,
From clime to clime they roved the billowy tide;
At length, by storms and tempests wafted o'er,
They found an Ararat on Albion's shore.

Yet sterile proved the cold, reluctant Age,
And scarcely seemed to vegetate the stage;
Nature, in dotage, second childhood mourned,
Outlived her wisdom, and to straw returned.
But, hark! her mighty rival sweeps the strings;
Sweet Avon, flow not!—'tis thy Shakespeare sings!
With Blanchard's wing, in Fancy's heaven he soars;
With Herschel's eye, another world explores!
Taught by the tones of his melodious song,
The scenick Muses tuned their barbarous tongue,
With subtle powers the crudest soul refined,
And warmed the Zombia of the dormant mind.
The World's new queen, Augusta, owned their charms,
And clasped the Grecian nymphs in British arms.

Then triumphed Nature with imperial Art,
The Drama's province was the human heart.
No tint of verse can paint the extatick view,
When Garrick sighed the Muse his last adieu!
Description but a shadow's shade appears,
When Siddons' looks a nation into tears!

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But, ah! while thus unrivalled reigns the Muse,
Her soul o'erflows and Grief her face bedews;
Sworn at the altar, proud Oppression's foe,
She weeps, indignant for her Britain's woe.
Long has she cast a fondly wishful eye,
On the pure climate of the Western sky;
And now, while Europe bleeds at every vein,
And pinioned forests shake the crimsoned main;
While sea-walled Britain mid the tempest stands,
And hurls her thunders from a thousand hands;
Lured by a clime, where, hostile arms afar,
Peace rolls luxurious in her dove drawn car;
Where Freedom first awoke the human mind,
And broke the enchantment, which enslaved mankind;
Behold! Apollo seeks this liberal plain,
And brings the Thespian Goddess in his train.
O, happy realm! to whom are richly given
The noblest bounties of indulgent Heaven;
For whom has Earth her wealthiest mine bestowed,
And Commerce bridged old Ocean's broadest flood;
To you a stranger guest, the Drama, flies;
An angel wanders in a pilgrim's guise!
To charm the fancy and to feast the heart,
She spreads the banquit of the Scenick art.
By you supported, shall her infant stage
Pourtray, adorn, and regulate the age.
When rages Faction with intemperate sway,
And grey-haired Vices shame the face of day;
Drawn from their covert to the indignant pit,
Be such the game to stock the park of Wit;
That park, where Genius all his shafts may draw,
Nor dread the terrors of a forest law.

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But not to scenes of pravity confined,
Her polished life an ample field shall find;
Reflected here, its fair perspective, view,
The stage, the Camera—the landscape, you.

Ye circling fair, whose clustering beauties shine
A radiant galaxy of charms divine;
Whose gentle hearts those tender scenes approve,
Where pity begs, or kneels adoring love;
Ye sons of sentiment, whose bosom fire
The song of pathos, and the epick lyre;
Whose glowing souls with tragick grandeur rise,
When bleeds a hero, or a nation dies;
And ye, who, throned on high, a Synod sit,
And rule the turbid atmosphere of wit;
Whose clouds dart light'ning on our comick wires,
And burst in thunder, as the flash expires.
If here, those eyes, whose tears with peerless sway,
Have wept the vices of an Age away;
If here, those lips, whose smiles with magick art,
Have laughed the foibles from the cheated heart;
On Mirth's gay cheek, can one bright dimple light;
In Sorrow's breast, one passioned sigh excite;
With nobler streams, the Buskin's grief shall fall;
With pangs sublimer, throb this breathing wall;
Thalia too, more blythe, shall trip the stage,
Of Care the wrinkles smooth, and thaw the veins of Age.

And now, Thou Dome, by Freedom's patrons reared,
With Beauty blazoned, and by Taste revered;
Apollo consecrates thy walls profane,—
Hence be thou sacred to the Muses reign!

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In Thee, three ages in one shall conspire;
A Sophocles shall sweep his lofty lyre;
A Terence rise, in chariest charms serene;
A Sheridan display the polished scene;
The first, with epick Grief shall swell the stage,
And give to virtue fiction's noblest rage;
The second, laws to Beauty shall impart,
And copy nature by the rules of art;
The last, great master, ends invention's strife,
And gilds the mirror, which he holds to life!
Thy classick lares shall exalt our times,
With distant ages and remotest climes;
And Athens, Rome, Augusta, blush to see,
Their virtue, beauty, grace, all shine—combined in thee.

University of Virginia Library

THE PRIZE PROLOGUE:

Spoken in the character of Apollo. BY Mr. C. POWELL, AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST THEATRE, IN BOSTON, JANUARY, 1794.