Twice warn'd, he study'd flight; but would convey,
At once, his perfon and his wealth away:
Thus while he linger'd, his defign was heard;
A speedy procefs form'd, and death declar’d.
Witnefs there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence :
Condemn'd, and destitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he suffer'd, thus he pray'd:
O Power, who hast deserv'd in heaven a throne
Not given, but by thy labours made thy own,
Pity thy fuppliant, and protect his cause,
Whom thou haft made obnoxious to the laws.
A cuftom was of old, and still remains,
Which life or death by fuffrages ordains;
White ftones and black within an urn are caft,
The firft abfolve, but fate is in the last:
The judges to the common urn bequeath

Their votes, and drop the fable signs of death;
The box receives all black; but pour'd from thence
The ftones came candid forth, the hue of innocence.
Thus Alimonides his fafety won,

Preferv'd from death by Alcumena's fon :
Then to his kinfman God his vows he pays,
And cuts with profperous gales th' Ionian feas:
He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind,
And Thurine bays, and Temites, behind;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the fhore, he makes in fight of land;
Still doubling, and still coasting, till he found
The mouth of Æíaris, and promis'd ground:

K 4

Then

Then faw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton ftood:
Here, by the God's command, he built and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd :

Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down
The fure tradition of th' Italian town.

Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore,
But now felf-banish'd from his native shore,

Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear

The chains which none but fervile fouls will wear:
He, though from heaven remote, to heaven could move,
With ftrength of mind, and tread th’abyss above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,

Thofe upper depths, which Nature hid from fight:
And what he had obferv'd, and learnt from thence,
Lov'd in familiar language to difpense.

The crowd with filent admiration ftand,

And heard him, as they heard their God's command;
While he difcours'd of heaven's myfterious laws,
The world's original, and nature's caufe;
And what was God, and why the fleecy fnows
In filence fell, and rattling winds arose;
What hook the fedfaft earth, and whence begun
The dance of planets round the radiant fun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,

Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above :
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He spoke, and charm'd his audience with his spcech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove,
And argued well, if arguments could move.

O mor

O mortals! from your fellows blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane :
While corn and pulse by nature are befow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholfome herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their generous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are loft,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the froft,
While kine to pails diftended udders bring,
And bees their honey redolent of spring;
While earth not only can your needs fupply,
But, lavish of her ftore, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feaft adminifters with eafe,

And without blood is prodigal to please.

Wild beats their maws with their flain brethren fill, And yet not all, for fome refufe to kill:

Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler fteed, On browz, and corn, the flowery meadows feed. Bears, tigers, wolves, the lion's

angry brood, Whom heaven endued with principles of blood, He wifely funder'd from the reft, to yell

In forests, and in lonely caves to dwell,
Where ftronger beats opprefs the weak by might,
And all in prey and purple feafts delight.

O impious ufe! to Nature's laws oppos'd,
Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:
Where, fatten'd by their fellows' fat, they thrive;
Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.
'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides
The ftores of all she shows, and all the hides,

If men with fleshly morfels must be fed,
And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread;
What elfe is this but to devour our guests,
And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts!
We, by deftroying life, our life fuftain;
And gorge

th' ungodly maw with meats obfcene.
Not fo the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durft with bloody meals their mouths pollute.
Then birds in airy fpace might fafely move,
And timorous hares on heaths fecurely rove:
Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear,
For all was peaceful, and that peace fincere.
Whoever was the wretch (and curs'd be he)
That envy'd first our food's fimplicity;
Th' effay of bloody feats on brutes began,
And after forg'd the sword to murder man.
Had he the fharpen'd feel alone employ'd
On beasts of prey that other beafts destroy'd,
Or men invaded with their fangs and paws,
This had been juftify'd by Nature's laws,
And felf-defence: but who did feats begin
Of flesh, he stretch'd néceffity to fin.
To kill man-killers, man has lawful power;
But not th' extended licence, to devour.
Ill habits gather by unfeen degrees,

As brooks make rivers, rivers run to feas.
The fow, with her broad fnout for rooting up
Th'intrusted seed, was judg`d to spoil the crop,
And intercept the fweating farmer's hope :

The

The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind,
Th' offender to the bloody prieft refign'd;
Her hunger was no plea; for that the dy'd.
The goat came next in order, to be try'd:
The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine:
In vengeance laity and clergy join,

Where one had loft his profit, one his wine.
Here was, at least, fome fhadow of offence:
The sheep was facrific'd on no pretence,
But meek and unrefiting innocence.
A patient, ufeful creature, born to bear

The warm and woolly fleece, that cloath'd her murderer,
And daily to give down the milk the bred,
A tribute for the grafs on which the fed.
Living, both food and raiment fhe fupplies,
And is of leaft advantage when he dies.

How did the toiling ox his death deserve,
A downright fimple drudge, and born to ferve?
O tyrant with what juftice canft thou hope
The promise of the year, a plenteous crop;
When thou destroy'st thy labouring fteer, who till'd,
And plow'd, with pains, thy elfe ungrateful field?
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
That neck with which the furly clods he broke ;
And to the hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the fpring began!
Nor this alone! but heaven itself to bribe,
We to the Gods our impious a&s ascribe :
First recompenfe with death their creature's toil,
Then call the blefs'd above to fhare the fpoil:

The