THE TEMPLE OF FAME.
95
Around, a thoufand winged wonders fly,
Born by the trumpet’s blafl, and flatter'd through the
There, at one paffage, oft you might furvey,A lie and truth contending for the way; 490And long ’twas doubtful, both fo clofely pent,Which firft flionld iffne through the narrow vent:At laft agreed, together out they fly,
Infeparable now, the truth and lie;
The Arift companions are for ever join’d, 4g5And this or that unmix’d, no mortal e’er fliall find.
While thus I flood, intent to fee and hear,One came, methought, and whifper’d in my ear:What could thus high thy rafli ambition raife?Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praife? 5oo
NOTES.
VnR. 496. And this or that unmiit'd,] The Prefident MouUfquieuobferves, (in his Grandeur of tbe Romans), that the rank or placewhich pofterity beftows is fubjed, like all others, to the whim andcaprice of fortune. Woolafton faid, ia bis own epitaph, that heretired early from the world, propter iniqua hominum judicia.
Ver. 497. While thus I Jlood , etc,] The hint is taken from apaflage in another part of the third book, but here more naturallymade the conclufion, with the addition of a moral to the whole. In
“ And fometime I faw there at once,il A lefiog and a fad footh faw“ That gonnen at adventure draw“ Out of a window forth to pace—
44 And no man, -be he ever fo wrothe,
“ Shall have one of thefe two, but botbe,” etc. P.