Deep through the belly pierc'd, fupine he lay,
And breath'd his foul against the face of day.

The ftrong Lymnocharis, who view'd with ire
A victor triumph, and a friend expire;
With heaving arms a rocky fragment caught,
And fiercely flung where Troglodytes fought
(A warrior vers'd in arts, of fure retreat,
But arts in vain elude impending fate);
Full on his finewy neck the fragment fell,
And o'er his eye-lids clouds eternal dwell..
Lychenor (fecond of the glorious name)
Striding advanc'd, and took no wandering aim;
Through all the Frogs the fhining javelin flies,
And near the vanquish'd Mouse the victor dies.
The dreadful stroke Crambophagus affright,
Long bred to banquets, lefs inur'd to fights,
Heedlefs he runs, and stumbles o'er the steep,
And wildly floundering flashes up the deep;
Lychenor, following with a downward blow,
Reach'd in the lake his unrecover'd foe;
Gafping he rolls, a purple ftream of blood
Diftains the furface of the filver flood;

Through the wide wound the rushing entrails throng,
And flow the breathlefs carcafs floats along.
Lymnifius good Tyroglyphus affails,

Prince of the Mice that haunt the flowery vales,
Loft to the milky fares and rural seat,

He came to perish on the bank of fate.

The dread Pternoglyphus demands the fight, Which tender Calaminthius fhuns by flight,

2

Drops

Drops the green target, fpringing quits the foe,
Glides through the lake, and safely dives below.
But dire Pternophagus divides his way

Through breaking ranks, and leads the dreadful day.
No nibbling prince excell'd in fierceness more,
His parents fed him on the favage boar;

But where his lance the field with blood imbrued,
Swift as he mov'd Hydrocharis pursued.

Till fallen in death he lies, a fhattering stone
Sounds on the neck, and crushes all the bone.
His blood pollutes the verdure of the plain,
And from his noftrils burfts the gufhing brain.

Lychopinax with Borborocates fights,

A blameless Frog, whom humbler life delights;
The fatal javelin unrelenting flies,

And darkness feals the gentle Croaker's eyes.
Incens'd Praffophagus, with spritely bound,
Bears Cniffodio&tes off the rifing ground,
Then drags him o'er the lake depriv'd of breath,
And, downward plunging, finks his foul to death.
But now the great Pfycarpax fhines afar

(Scarce he fo great whose lofs provok'd the war);
Swift to revenge his fatal javelin fled,

And through the liver ftruck Pelufius dead;
His freckled corpfe before the victor fell,
His foul indignant fought the shades of hell.

This faw Pelobates, and from the flood

Heav'd with both hands a monftrous mafs of mud,
The cloud obscene o'er all the hero flies,

Dishonours his brown face, and blots his eyes.

Enrag'd, and wildly fputtering, from the shore
A ftone, immenfe of fize, the warrior bore,

A load for labouring earth, whose bulk to raise,
Asks ten degenerate mice of modern days.
Full on the leg arrives the crushing wound :
The Frog, fupportlefs, writhes upon the ground.
Thus flush'd, the victor wars with matchlefs force,
Till loud Craugafides arrefts his course,

Hoarse croaking threats precede! with fatal speed
Deep through the belly ran the pointed reed,
Then, ftrongly tugg'd, return'd imbrued with gore,
And on the pile his reeking entrails bore :

The lame Sitophagus, opprefs'd with pain,
Creeps from the defperate dangers of the plain;
And where the ditches rifing weeds fupply
To fpread their lowly fhades beneath the fky,
There lurks the filent Moufe reliev'd from heat,
And, fafe embower'd, avoids the chance of fate.
But here Troxartas, Phyfignathus there,

Whirl the dire furies of the pointed fpear;
But where the foot around its ankle plies,
Troxartas wounds, and Phyfignathus flies,
Halts to the pool, a fafe retreat to find,
And trails a dangling length of leg behind.
The Moufe ftill urges, ftill the Frog retires,
And half in anguifh of the flight expires.

Then pious ardour young Preffæus brings
Betwixt the fortunes of contending kings:
Lank harmless Frog! with forces hardly grown,
He darts the reed in combat not his own,

Which, faintly tinkling on Troxartas' shield,
Hangs at the point, and drops upon the field.
Now nobly towering o'er the rest appears
A gallant prince that far tranfcends his years,
Pride of his fire, and glory of his house,
And more a Mars in combat than a Moufe:
His action bold, robuft his ample frame,
And Meridarpax his refounding name.
The warrior, fingled from the fighting croud,
Boafts the dire honours of his arms aloud;
Then strutting near the lake, with looks elate,
To all its nations threats approaching fate.
And fuch his ftrength, the filver lakes around
Might roll their waters o'er unpeopled ground.
But powerful Jove, who shews no less his grace
To Frogs that perish, than to human race,
Felt foft compaffion rising in his foul,

And shook his facred head, that shook the pole.
Then thus to all the gazing powers began
The fire of Gods, and Frogs, and Mice, and Man.
What feas of blood I view! what worlds of flaint
An Iliad rising from a day's campaign;

How fierce his javelin o'er the trembling lakes
The black-furr'd hero Meridarpax shakes!
Unless fome favouring Deity defcend,
Soon will the Frogs loquacious empire end.
Let dreadful Pallas wing'd with pity fly,
And make her ægis blaze before his eye:
While Mars refulgent on his rattling car,
Arrefts his raging rival of the war.

He ceas'd, reclining with attentive head,
When thus the glorious God of combats faid:
Nor Pallas, Jove! though Pallas take the field,
With all the terrors of her hiffing fhield;
Nor Mars himself, though Mars in armour bright
Afcend his car, and wheel amidst the fight;
Not these can drive the defperate Moufe afar,
Or change the fortunes of the bleeding war.
Let all go forth, all heaven in arms arife,
Or launch thy own red thunder from the fkies,
Such ardent bolts as flew that wondrous day,
When heaps of Titans mix'd with mountains lay;
When all the giant-race enormous fell,

And huge Enceladus was hurl'd to hell.

'Twas thus th' armipotent advis'd the Gods,
When from his throne the cloud-compeller nods,
Deep-lengthening thunders run from pole to pole,
Olympus trembles as the thunders roll.

Then fwift he whirls the brandish'd bolt around,
And headlong darts it at the distant ground;
The bolt difcharg'd inwrap'd with lightning flies,
And rends its flaming paffage through the fkies:
Then earth's inhabitants, the nibblers, shake,
And Frogs, the dwellers in the waters, quake.
Yet fill the Mice advance their dread defign,
And the last danger threats the croaking line,
Till Jove, that inly mourn'd the lofs they bore,
With ftrange affiftants fill'd the frighted shore.

Pour'd from the neighbouring ftrand, deform'd to view, They march, a fudden unexpected crew!

Strong