Excerpt from Description of a Journey to Marlborough, Bath, Portsmouth etc.
SOON as the Plains are ravish'd from my Sight,
New diff'rent Prospects equally delight;
Where *PEMBROKE's Turrets charm my gazing Eyes,
And awful Statues solemnly surprize:
Bards, Sages, Heroes, Patriots, Princes stand,
A mixt, majestic, venerable Band!
Here mighty HOMER, PHOEBUS' eldest Son,
Or sings, or seems to sing, in breathing Stone.
See Martial PHOCION silently persuade,
And smooth tongu'd CICERO, in Marble, plead:
Here shines great POMPEY, greater JULIUS there,
With daring BRUTUS, honestly severe:
Friendship, and Freedom in his Soul contend;
Forgive him, CAESAR, if he wrong'd his Friend!
Tho' BRUTUS' Dagger pierc'd thy Bosom thro',
'Twas Liberty, not Malice, struck the Blow.
Unhappy BRUTUS, destin'd to withstand
Thy Friend's Ambition with a fatal Hand!
Unhappy CAESAR, whose Ambition mov'd
That fatal Hand, to murder whom it lov'd!
Hadst thou, like Britain's MONARCH, strove to save
Expiring Nations, not the World enslave;
Pembroke's Turrets refer to the magnifcent Wilton House, seat of the Earls of Pembroke. The house and gardens lie in Wilton, on the edge of Salisbury. The Wilton house sculpture collection is one of Europe's largest and most famous collections of ancient art.