Page:An Essay on the Opera's After the Italian Manner.pdf/26

 of mind mut thoe Heroes feel, whoe Virtue has been the preerver of Nations, and made a World Happy! That great Minds bravely contemn Death to further that Felicity; that Fate is unavoidable to Mankind, and that Thirty, Forty, Fifty Years is o very much nothing in the view of a comprehenive Soul, that a Hero mut eteem it wier as well as nobler, rather than languihingly to expect Death, to go out and meet him for the publick good, and o to make a ublime Virtue ev’n of the lat neceity: That what we call Life here is not properly the Hero’s Life, that almot half of it is pas’d in abolute Death, and the ret in Deire, in Grief, in Love, in Rage, in Pain. And that the bright and eternal Fame, to which great Minds apire, is never fully attain’d to here; that the Names of the greatet Heroes are circumcrib’d by narrow bounds both of time and pace; and that their bet and their bravet Actions, are mitaken and miinterpreted by ome, ev’n of thoe who have the fortune to hear of them, that they are traduced by others envyed by more, that that is properly the Hero’s Life, when et free from thee mortal Bonds, he hall arrive at that blisful Manion which is on purpoe prepar’d for thoe illutrious Souls, who by making it their buines here below to do good to their Country and Mankind, have practis’d the noblet and mot extenive Charity that divinet Poets can teach or God Himelf can inpire; that there they hall enjoy a Life, which hall be for ever et free from Death, there their Happines hall far urpas ev’n what the Heart of Man can conceive, and their Glory trancend ev’n their own apiring Wihes.

Thee Godlike Sentiments exalted Poetry intills into Mankind, and by infuing thee inpires us with a Zeal and Affection for our Country’s Service, and with a generous contempt of Death in time of the publick ger.