Death and judgement, heaven and hell— No more move us than the bell Make us learn that we must die. ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1792. Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Happy the mortal who has traced effects THANKLESS for favours from on high, But he, not wise enough to scan To ages, if he might; To ages in a world of pain, To ages, where he goes Gall'd by affliction's heavy chain, And hopeless of repose. Strange fondness of the human heart, Enamour'd of its harm! VIRG. Strange world, that costs it so much smart, And still has power to charm. Whence has the world her magic power? The cause is Conscience :-Conscience oft Her tale of guilt renews; Then anxious to be longer spared, 'Tis judgement shakes him; there's the fear And must despair to pay. Pay?-follow Christ, and all is paid; ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1793. De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur, CIC. DE LEG. But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate. He lives who lives to God alone, And all are dead beside ; To live to God is to requite His love as best we may; To make his precepts our delight, 2 But life, within a narrow ring Is falsely named, and no such thing, Can life in them deserve the name, For what poor toys they can disclaim Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel; Who deem his house a useless place, Who trample order; and the day If scorn of God's commands, impress'd Such want it, and that want, uncured Speaks him a criminal, assured Sad period to a pleasant course! Yet so will God repay Sabbaths profaned without remorse, And mercy cast away. ADAM: A SACRED DRAMA. TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIO. BATTISTA ANDREINI. TO THE COURTEOUS READER. HAVING satiated and fatigued my eyes, gentle reader, by too intent an observation of what is passing on earth; and raising therefore my thoughts to higher contemplations, to the wonders diffused by the supreme Being, for the benefit of man, through the universe; I felt my heart penetrated by a certain Christian compunction, in reflecting how his inexpressible goodness, though perpetually and grievously offended by us, still shows itself in the highest degree indulgent towards us in preserving those wonders with a continual influence to our advantage; and how on the first provocation to vengeance, Almighty power does not enlarge the ocean to pass its immense boundary, does not obscure the light of the sun, does not impress sterility on the earth, to ingulf us, to blind us, and finally to destroy us. Softened and absorbed in these divine emotions, I felt myself transported and hurried by a delightful violence into a terrestial paradise, where I seemed to behold the first man Adam, a creature dear to God, the friend of Angels, the heir of heaven, familiar with the stars, a compendium of all created things, the ornament of all, the miracle of nature, the lord of the animals, the only inhabitant of the universe, and enjoyer of a scene so wonderfully grand. Whence charmed more than ever, I resolved with the favour of the blessed God, to usher into the light of the world, what I bore in the darkness of my imagination; both to render it known in some measure, that, I know myself, and the infinite obligations that I have to God; and that others, who do not know, may learn, the true nature of man, and from the low contemplation of earthly things, may raise their minds to things celestial and divine. 66 I remained however a considerable time in doubt if I ought, or if I were able to undertake a composition most difficult to me on many accounts, since in beginning the sacred subject from man's creation to the point where he is driven from the terrestrial paradise, a period of six years, (as St. Augustine relates in his book on the City of God,) I did not clearly perceive, how an action so brief, could be formed into five acts, especially allowing to every act the number of at least six or seven scenes, -difficult from the dispute that the Devil maintained with Eve, first, that he might induce her to eat the apple, since we have only the text that mentions it, in saying nequaquam moriemini, et eritis sicut Dii scientes bonum et malum,"-difficult from the words of Eve in persuading Adam (who had indeed the gift of knowledge infused,) to taste the apple ;—but difficult above all, from my own infirmity, since the composition must remain deprived of those poetic ornaments, so dear to the muses; deprived of the power to draw comparisons from implements of art introduced in the course of years, since in the time of the first man there was no such thing: deprived also of naming, (at least while Adam speaks, or discourse is held with him,) for example, bows, arrows, hatchets, urns, knives, swords, spears, trumpets, drums, trophies, banners, lists, hammers, torches, bellows, funeral piles, theatres, exchequers, infinite things of a like nature, introduced by the necessities of sin; and yet, as circumstances of affliction and punishment, they ought not to pass through the mind or through the lips of Adam, although he had knowledge infused into him, as one who lived most happy in a state of innocence: deprived moreover of introducing points of history sacred or profane, of relating fictions of fabulous deities, of rehearsing loves, furies, sports of hunting or fishing, triumphs, shipwrecks, conflagrations, enchantments, and things of a like nature, that are in truth the ornament and the soul of poetry: difficult from not knowing in what style Adam ought to speak, since in respect to his knowledge it might be proper to assign to him verses of a high majestic and flowing style; but considering him as a shepherd and inhabitant of the woods, it appears that he should be |