There, Commerce gathers wealth to foster Art,
And Art devotes her efforts still to us.

There, Bards awake the lofty strain of song;
Thalia and Melpomene there reign

Triumphantly.

MINERVA.

Then now farewell to Athens:

My once beloved Parthenon, adieu!

Hence from this home of slaves, and let me see
The land where Freedom reigns.

MERCURY.

Haste there with me.

This very day, the people of its capital,
Within a temple raised to our Apollo,
The Graces, and the Muses, crown a Bard
In effigy,-wise as your Socrates,
Profound as Plato, sublime as Eschylus,
Tender as Sophocles, pathetic as
Euripides, daring as Pindar; in wit,

An Aristophanes, in strains of love

More passionate than Sappho. "He was a man,

Take him for all in all, we shall not look

MERCURY waves his Caduceus, and the Scene changes to

SCENE III.-LONDON. The facade of the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, and the Statue of the Duke of Wellington appear.

MERCURY.

Now by the power of thought,

The wondrous change is wrought!

This is the great emporium of the world;

The city of an isle where all are free:

Here, slaves of other lands, are slaves no more.
Neptune hath placed his trident in her hand,
Who sits upon its regal pinnacle;

And Jove hath granted her the power to wield
His conquering thunderbolts by land and sea,
To guard her subjects, to uphold their laws,
And to maintain their freedom when assailed.
Oppressors crouch before her awful frown ;
Just monarchs woo her friendship, and obtain it;
And victors lay the laurels and the palms
They gain in distant countries at her feet.
Her land has been assailed on every side;
And should it be again, she is prepared
To stand against all enemies, and prove
Victoria and Victory are sisters!

(Pointing to the Exchange.)

Within that temple Commerce rears to me,
Merchants from every quarter of the globe resort,
To barter for, or buy the produce wrought
By her industrious artizans, who toil like bees,-
And like the bees, turn all they touch-to gold!
(Pointing to the Bank.)

That is the hive wherein they store their wealth:
For money is their honey, which is gain'd
By industry; and thus obtained, 'tis sweet.
(Pointing to the Statue.)

There stands the trophy of a hundred victories:
The hero yet exists.

MINERVA.

The hero never dies:

He lives in the remembrance of the past.

MERCURY.

Then he will live as long as time shall last,
Wreath'd with the laurels he has nobly won,
And wears with so much unassuming grace:-

MINERVA

Which I henceforth will cherish, ne'er to fade, In this most favor'd land.

SCENE IV. The interior of the Temple dedicated to Apollo and the Muses; in the centre is an Altar, which Groups are employed in decorating with garlands, &c.

Enter in procession, to music, the various Characters of Shakspeare's Dramas; passing across the stage. The Comic, precede a car, drawn by Satyrs, in which is Thalia; the Tragic, precede a car, wherein is Melpomene.

Dance by a Group of Fairies, from the MIDSUMMER

NIGHT'S DREAM; after which, they retire.

MINERVA. (To Mercury.)

What motley group was this?

MERCURY.

As from the brain

Of the Olympian Thunderer, all arm'd
The heiress of his godlike wisdom sprang;
So, from the Jove of Helicon came forth

These creatures of his mind. And well he said,
When picturing your own Athenian Theseus :—
"The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing,
A local habitation and a name."

And did he this?

MINERVA.

MERCURY.

He did; and hear what more,

From yon grave personage about to speak.

PROSPERO. (Waving his wand.)

"Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be,) I have bedimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory,
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have waked their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure and, when I have required
Some heavenly music (which ev'n now I do)
To work mine end upon their senses, that

:

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book."

The Witches of Macbeth attract the attention of MINERVA.

MINERVA. (To Mercury.)

"But what are these

So withered and so wild in their attire,

That look not like th' inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't?

1st Witch.

2nd Witch.

3rd Witch.

1st Witch.

"Hail!

Hail!

Hail!"

Hail, Minerva,

In ancient Greece, Athena of th' Athenians:-
And here, and now Britannia of the Britons!

All. (vanishing.)

PROSPERO.

Hail!

"These were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air :

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."

CHORUS.

Susceptible hearts in our bosoms are beating;
Our feelings respond to a smile, or tear;

Here, kindred Art and Nature meeting,
Charm us in fiction whene'er you appear.

SOLO AND CHORUS.

PRIEST OF APOLLO.

Deign, great Apollo, now to hear our supplication;
And let his form whose memory we revere,—

His, whose wise precepts exist still in shapes of his creation,
Enthron'd within thy temple now appear.

Our Bard whose art embellished Nature,

Shall ever be admired-renown'd.