Then all, reclaim’d by this example, show’d A due regard for each peculiar god: Both men and women their devoirs express’d, And great Latona’s awful power confess’d. Then, tracing instances of older time, To suit the nature of the present crime, Thus one begins his tale:⁠—“Where Lycia yields A golden harvest from its fertile fields, Some churlish peasants, in the days of yore, Provoked the goddess to exert her power. The thing, indeed, the meanness of the place Has made obscure, surprising as it was; But I myself once happen’d to behold This famous lake, of which the story’s told. My father, then, worn out by length of days, Nor able to sustain the tedious ways, Me with a guide had sent the plains to roam, And drive his well-fed straggling heifers home. Here, as we saunter’d through the verdant meads, We spied a lake o’ergrown with trembling reeds, Whose wavy tops an op’ning scene disclose, From which an antique smoky altar rose. I, as my superstitious guide had done, Stopp’d short, and bless’d myself, and then went on