Come, I say, thou powerful god,

But what in them is want of art or voice, And thy leaden charming rod,

in thec is either modesty or choice. Dipt in the Lethéan lake,

While this great piece, restor’d by thee, doth O’er his wakeful temples shake,

stand Lest he should sleep, and never wake.

Free from the blemish of an artless hand,

Secure of fame, thou justly dost esteem Nature (alas !) why art thou so

Less honour to create, than to redeem. Obliged to thy greatest foe?

Nor ought a genius less than his that writ, Sleep that is thy best repast,

Attempt translation ; for transplanted wit, Yet of death it bears à taste,

All the defects of air and soil doth share,
And both are the same thing at last.

And colder brains like colder cliniates are ;
In vain they toil, since nothing can beget

A vital spirit but a vital heat.
ON

That servile path thou nobly dost decline MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS. Of tracing word by word, and line by line.

Those are the lahour'd births of slavish brains, So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms Not the effect of poetry, but pains ; Have turn'd to their own substances and forms: Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to No fight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at fire,

words. We shall behold more than at first entire ; A new and nobler way thou dost pursue As now we do, to see all thine thy own

To make translations and translators too. In this my Muse's resurrection,

They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, Whose scatter'd parts from thy own race, mure True to his sense, but truer to his fame. wounds

Fording his current, where thou find'st it low, Hath suffer'd, than Acteon from his hounds; Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow; Which first their brains, and then their belly Wisely restoring whatsoever grace fed,

It lost by change of times, or tongues, or place. And from their excrements new poets bred. Nor fetter'd to his nambers and his times, But now thy Muse enraged, from her urn, Betray'st his music to unbappy rhymes. Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, does return Nor are the nerves of his compacted strength T'accuse the murderers, to right the stage, Stretch'd and dissolvd into unsinew'd length: And undeceive the long-abused age,

Yet after all, (lest we should think it thine) Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy | Thy spirit to his circle dost confine. wit

New names, new dressings, and the modern cast, Gives not more gold than they give dross to it: Some scenes, some persons alter'd, and outWho, not content, like felons, to purloin,

fac'd

known Add treason to it, and debase the coin.

| The world, it were thy work: for we have But whither am I stray'd ? I need not raise Some thank'd and prais'd for what was less their Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;

own. Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,

That master's hand which to the life can trace Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt

The airs, the lines, and features of the face,
Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, May with a free and bolder stroke express
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain. A vary'd posture or a flattering dress;
Then was Wit's empire at the fatal height, He could have made those like, who made the
When labouring and sinking with its weight,

rest,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung, But that he knew his own design was best.
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Jonson, Shakespeare, and thyself did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit,
Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow,

A DIALOGUE
Or what more easy Nature did bestow
On Shakespeare's gentler Muse, in thee full

SIR JOHN POOLEY
Their graces both appear, yet so that none
Can say, here Nature ends, and Art begins,

- AND But mixt like th' elements, and born like twins,

MR. THOMAS KILLIGREW.
So interwove, so like, so much the same,
None, this mere Nature, that mere Art can name :

To thee dear Tom, myself addressing, 'Twas this the ancients meant ; Nature and Skill

Most queremoniously confessing, Are the two tops of their Parnassus' hill.

'That I of late have been compressing. TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAW,

Destitute of my wonted gravity,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF

I perpetrated arts of pravity,

In a contagious concavity.
PASTOR FIDO.

Making efforts with all my puissance, Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,

For some venereal rejouissance, That few but such as cannot write, translate.

I got (as once may say) a nuysance.

BETWEEN

grown

Nature and Skill Pool.

Kil. Come leave this fooling, cousin Pooley, Two kings like Saul, much taller than the rest, And in plain English tell us truly

Their equal armies draw into the field : . Why under th' eyes you look so bluely? Till one take th’ other prisoner they contest;

Courage and fortune must to conduct yield.
"Tis not your hard words will avail you, | This game the Persian Magi did invent,
Your Latin and your Greek will fail! The force of Eastern wisdom to express;
you,

From thence to busy Europeans sent,
Till you speak plainly what doth ail you. And styl'd by modern Lombards pensive Chess.

Yet some that fled from Troy to Rome report,
When young, you led a life monastic,

Penthesilea Priam did oblige;
And wore a vest ecclesiastic;

Her Amazons, his Trojans taught this sport, Now in your age you grow fantastic. To pass the tedious hours of ten years' siege. Pool. Without more preface or formality,

There she presents herself, whilst kings and A female of malignant quality

peers Set fire on label of mortality.

Look gravely on whilst fierce Bellona fights;

Yet maiden modesty her motion steers,
The fæces of which ulceration

Nor rudely skips o’er bishops' heads like
Brought o'er the helm a distillation,

knights.
Through th' instrument of propagation.
KIL. Then, cousin, (as I guess the matter)
You have been an old fornicator,

THE
And now are shot 'twixt wind and water. | PASSION OF DIDO FOR ENEAS.

Your style has such an ill complexion, Having at large declar'd Jove's embassy,
That from your breath I fear infection, Cyllenius from Æneas straight doth fly :
That even your mouth needs an injec-

He loth to disobey the god's command,
tion.

Nor willing to forsake this pleasant land,

Asham'd the kind Eliza to deceive,
You that were once so economic,

But more afraid to take a solemn leave;
Quitting the thrifty style laconic,

He many ways his labouring thoughts revolves,
Turn prodigal in makeronic.

But fear o'ercoming shame at last resolves
Yet be of comfort, I shall send-a

(Instructed by the god of thieves 1) to steal Person of knowledge, who can mend-a

Himself away, and bis esca pe conceal.
Disaster in your nether end-a-

He calls his captains, bids them rig the fleet,

That at the port they privately should meet;
But you that are a man of learning, And some disembled colour to project,
So read in Virgil, so discerning, That Dido should not their design suspect :
Methinks towards fifty should take But all in vain he did his plot disguise;
warning.

No art a watchful lover can surprise.

Sbe the first motion finds; love though most Once in'a pit, you did ' miscarry,

Yet always to itself seeins unsecure. [sure, That danger might have made one wary | That wicked faine which their first love pro- . This pit is deeper than the quarry.

claim'd, Pool.

Give me not such disconsolation, Foretells the end; the queen with rage inflam'd
Having now cur'd my inflammation,

Thus greets him: “Thou dissembler, would'st thou
To ulcerate my reputation.

Out of my arms by stealth perfidiously? (fly

Could not the hand I plighted, nor the love,
Though it may gain the ladies' favour, Nor thee the fate of dying Dido move ?
Yet it may raise an evil savour

And in the depth of winter, in the night,
Upon all grave and staid behav'our. Dark as thy black designs to take thy flight,

To plow the raging seas to coasts unknown,
And I will rub my mater pia,

The kingdom thou pretend'st to, not thy own !
To fin! a rhyme to gonorrheja,

Were Troy restor'd thou should'st mistrust a
And put it in my Litania.

wind
False as thy rows, and as thy heart unkind.

Fly'st thou from me ? By these dear drops of AN OCCASIONAL IMITATION

brine OF A MODERN AUTHOR UPON THE

I thee adjure, by that right hand of thine,

By our espousals, by our marriage-bed,
GAME OF CHESS.

If all my kindness aught have merited ;
A tablet stood of that abstersive tree, snest,

If ever I stood fair in thy esteem, Where Æthiop's swarthy biru did build her

From ruin me and my lost house redeem. Inlaid it was with Lybian ivory,

Cannot my prayers a free acceptance find, Drawn from the jaws of Afric's prudent

Nor my tears soften an obdurate mind? beast.

My fame of chastity, by which the skies

I reach'd before, by thee extinguish'd dies. Hunting near Paris, he and his horse fell into a quarry.

1 Mercury

Into my horders now Iarbus falls,

I'll follow thee in funeral Names, when dead And my revengeful brother scales my walls ; My ghost shall thee attend at board and bed, The wild Numidians will advantage take, And when the gods on thee their vengeance For thee both Tyre and Carthage me forsake,

show, Hadst thou before thy flight but left with me That welcome news shall comfort me below."'. A young Æneas, who, resembling thee,

This saying, from his hated sight she fled, Might in my sight have sported, I had then Conducted by her damsels to her bed; Not wholly lost, nor quite deserted been; Yet restless she arose, anıl, looking out, By thee, no more my husband, but my guest, Beholds the fleet and hears the seamen shout, Betray'd to mischiefs, of which death's the When great Æneas pass'd before the guard, least.”

To make a view how all things were prepar'd. With fixed looks he stands, and in his breast Ah, cruel Love, to what dost thou inforce By Jove's command, his struggling care sup- Poor mortal breasts ! Again she hath recourse prest.

To tears and prayers, again she feels the smart “ Great queen, your favours and desert so great, Of a fresh wound from his tyrannic dart. Though numberiess, I never shall forget;

That she no ways nor means may leave untry'd, No time, until myself I have forgot,

Thus to her sister she herself apply'd ; Out of my heart Eliza's name shall blot : “ Dear sister, my resentment had no been But my unwilling flight the gods inforce,

So moving, if this fate I had foreseen; And that must justify our sad divorce.

Therefore to me this last kind office do, Since I must you forsake, would Fate permit, Thou hast some interest in our scornful foe, To my desires I might my fortune fit;

He trusts to thee the counsels of his mind, Troy to her ancient splendour I would raise, Thou his soft hours, and free access canst find; And where I first began, would end my days. Tell him I sent not to the Ilian coast But since the Lycian lots, and Delphic god My fleet to aid the Greeks ; his father's ghost. Have destin'd Italy for our abode;

I never did disturb ; ask him to lend Since you proud Carthage (fied from Tyre) | To this, the last request that I shall send, enjoy,

A gentle ear ; I wish that he may find Why should not Latium us receive from A happy passage, and a prosperous wind. Troy?

The contract I don't plead, which he betray'd, As for my son, my father's angry ghost

Nor that his promis'd conquest be delay'd ;
Tells me his hopes by my delays are crost, All that I ask is but a short reprieve,
And mighty Jove's ambassador appear'd

Till I forget to love, and learn to grieve; With the same message, whom I saw and Some pause and respite only I require, heard;

Till with my tears I shall have quench'd my fire. We both are griev'd when you or I complain, If thy address can but obtain one day But much the more when all complaints are Or two, my death that service shall repay.” vain:

Thus she entreats ; such messages with tears I call to witness all the gods, and thy

Condoling Anne to him, and from him, bears, Beloved head, the coast of Italy

But him no prayers, nor arguments can move; Against my will I seek.”

[eyes, The Fates resist, his ears are stopt by Jove. "Whilst ihus he speaks, she rolls her sparkling | As when fierce northern b'asts from th' Alps Surveys him round, and thus incens'd replies;

descend, “ Thy mother was no goddess, nor thy stock | From his firm roots with struggling guts to From Dardanus, but in some horrid rock, An aged sturdy oak, the rattling sound [rend Perfidious wretch, rough Caucasus thee bred, Grows loud, with leaves and scatter'd arms the And with their milk Hyrcanian tigers fed. Is over-laid; yet he stands fixt, as high [ground Dissimulation I shall now forget,

As his proud head is rais'd towards the sky, And my reserves of rage in order set,

So low towards Hell his roots descend. With Could all my prayers and soft entreaties force

prayers Sighs from his breast, or from his look remorse. And tears the hero thus assail'd, great cares Where shall I first complain? can mighty Jove | He smothers in his breast, yet keeps his post, Or Juno such impieties approve?

All their addresses and their labour lost. The just Astræa sure is fed to Hell ;

Then she deceives her sis er with a smile: Nor more in Earth, nor Heaven itself will dwell. “Anne, in the inner court erect a pile; Oh Faith! him on my coasts by tempest cast, 1 Thereon his arms and once-lov'd portrait lay, Receiving madly, on my throne I plac'd ;

Thither our fatal marriage-bed convey ; His men from famine, and his fleet from fire | All cursed monuments of him with fire I rescued : Now the Lycian lots conspire

We must abolish (so the gods require.”) With Phæbus; now Jove's envoy though the She gives her credit for no worse effect air

Than from Sicbæus' death she did suspect, Brings dismal tidings ; as if such low care

And her commands obeys. Could reach their thoughts, or their repose dis Aurora now had left Tithonus' bed, turb!

And o'er the world her blushing rays did spread; Thou art a false impostor, and a fourbe;

The queen beheld, as soon as day appear'd, Go, go, pursue thy kingdom through the main, The navy under sail, the haven clear'd; I hope, if Heaven her justice still retain,

Thrice with her hand her naked breast she Thou shalt be wreck's, or cast upon some rock,

knocks, Where thou the name of Dido shalt invoke: And from her forehead tears her golden locks.

rise,

" Jove," she cry'd, “and shall he thus delude ( As loud as if her Carthage, or old Tyre
Me and my realm! why is he not pursued? The foe had entered, and had set on fire.
Arm, arm,” she cry'd,' and let our Tyrians board | Amazed Anne with speed ascends the stairs
With ours his feet, and carry fire and sword; And in her arms her dying sister rears:
Leave nothing unattempted to destroy

“ Did you for this, yourself and me beguile?
That perjur'd race, then let us die with joy. For such an end did I erect this pile?
What if th' event of war uncertain were ? Did you so much despise me, in this fate
Nor death, nur danger, can the desperate fear. Myself with you not to associate?
But, oh, too late! this thing I should have done, Yourself and me, alas ! this fatal wound
When first I plac'd the traitor on my throne, The senate, and the people, doth confound.
Behold the faith of him who sav'd from fire P'll wash her wound with tears, and at her
His honour'd household gods, his aged sire

death His pious shoulders from Troy's flames did bear; | My lips from hers shall draw her parting Why did I not his carcase piece-meal tear,

breath." And cast it in the sea ? why not destroy

Then with her vest the wound she wipes and All his companions, and beloved boy

dries; Ascanius; and his tender limbs have drest, Thrice with her arm the queen attempts to And made the father on the son to feast? Thou Sun, whose lustre all things here below But her strength failing, falls into a swound, Surveys; and Juno, conscious of my woe; Life's last efforts yet striving with her wound; Revengeful Furies, and queen Hecate,

Thrice on her bed she turns, with wandering Receive and grant my prayer ? if he the sea

sight Must needs escape, and reach th' Ausonian land, Seeking, sbe groans when she beholds the light. If Jove decrec it, Jove's decree must stand; | Then Juno pitying her disastrous fate, When landed, may he be with arms opprest Sends Iris down, her pangs to mitigate. By his rebelling people, be distrest

(Since, if we fall before th' appointed day, By exile from his country, be divorc'd

Nature and Death continue long their fray.) From young Ascanius' sight, and be enforc'd Iris descends; “ This fatal locki (says she) To implore foreign aids, and lose his friends To Pluto I bequeath, and set thee free;" By violent and undeserved ends!

Then clips her hair : cold numbness straight be When to conditions of uvequal peace

reaves He shall submit, then may he not possess | Her corpse of sense, and th' air her soul reKingdom nor life, and find his funeral

ceives. l'th’ sands, when he before bis day shall fall ! And ye, oh Tyrians, with immortal hate Pursue this race, this service dedicate

OF PRUDENCE.. To my deplored ashes, let there be 'Twixt us and them no league nor amity.

Going this last summer to visit the Wells, I May from my bones a new Achilles rise,

took an occasion (by the way) to wait upon That shall infest the Trojan colonies

an ancient and honourable friend of mine, With fire, and sword, and famine, when at length whom I found diverting his (then solitary) reTime to our great attempts contributes strength; tirement with the Latin original of this transOur seas, our shores, our armies theirs oppose, lation, which (being out of print) I had never And may our children be for ever foes !"

seen before: when I looked upon it, I saw A ghastly paleness death's approach portends, that it had formerly passed through two learnThen trembling she the fatal pile ascends;

ed hands not without approbation; which were Viewing the Trojan reliques, she unsheath'd Ben Jobnson and Sir Kenelm Digby; but Æneas' sword, not for that use bequeath'd ;

I found it (where I shall never find myself) Then on the guilty bed she gently lays

in the service of a better master, the earl of lierelf, and softly thus lamenting prays :

Bristol, of whom I shall say no more ; for I " Dear reliques, whilst that Gods and Fates give love not to improve the honour of the living by leave,

impairing that of the dead; and my own Free me from care, and my glad soul receive. profession hath taught me not to erect new That date which Fortune gave, I now must end; superstructures upon an old ruin. He was And to the shades a noble ghost descend.

pleased to recommend it to me for my comSichæus' blood, by his false brother spilt,

panion at the Wells, where I liked the enterI have reveng'd, and a proud city built.

tainment it gave me so well, that I undertook Happy, alas; too happy I had liv'd,

to redeem it from an obsolete English disguise, Had not the Trojan on my coast arriv'd.

wherein an old monk had clothed it, and to But shall I die without revenge? yet die

make as becoming a new vest for it as I could. Thus, thus with joy to thy Sichæus fly.

The author was a person of quality in Italy, his My conscious foe my funeral fire shall view

name Mancini, which family matched since From sea, and may that omen him pursile !" with the sister of cardinal Mazarine; he was Her fainting hand let fall the sword besmear'd contemporary to Petrarch and Mantuan, and With blood, and then the mortal wound ap not long before 'Torquato Tasso ; which shows pear'd;

that the age they lived in was not so unlcamThrough all the conrt the fright and clamours ed as that which preceded, or that which folrise,

lowed. Which the whole city fills with fears and crics The author wrote upon the four cardinal vir.

tues; bnt I have translated only the two first, | Those who are generous, humble, just, and wise, not to turn the kindness I intended to him into Who not their gold, nor themselves idolize; an injury; for the two last are little more To form thyself by their example learn than repetitions and recitals of the first; and (Por many eyes can more than one discern); (to make a just excuse for him) they could But yet beware of counsels when too full, not well be otherwise, since the two last vir- Number makes long disputes and graveness tues are but descendants from the first; Pru

dull; dence being the true mother of Temperance, Though their advice be good, their counsel and true Fortitude the child of Justice.

wise,
Yet length still loses opportunities :

Debate destroys dispatch ; as fruits we see
WISDOM's first progress is to take a view

Rot, when they hang too long upon the tree; What's decent or indecent, false or true.

In vain that husbandman his seed doth sow, He's truly prudent, who can separate

If he his crop not in due season mow.
Honest from vile, and still adhere to that; A general sets bis army in array
Their difference to measure, and to reach, In vain, unless he fight, and win the day.
Reason well rectify'd must Nature teach. 'Tis virtuous action that must praise bring forth,
And these high scrutinies are subjects fit Without which slow advice is little worth.
For man's all-searching and inquiring wit; Yet they who give good counsel, praise deserve,
That search of knowledge did from Adam flow; Though in the active part they cannot serve:
Who wants it, yet abhors his wants to show. In action, learned counsellors their age,
Wisdom of what herself approves, makes choice, Profession, or disease, forbids t engage.
Nor is led captive by the common voice.

Nor to philosophers is praise deny'd,
Clear-sighted Reason, Wisdom's judgment leads, Whose wise instructions after-ages guide;
And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads.. Yet vainly most their age in study spend;
That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st No end of writing books, and to no end :
know,

Beating their brains for strange and hidden To thee all her specific forms I'll show ;

things, He that the way to honesty will learn,

Whose knowledge, nor delight nor profit brings : First what's to be avoided must discern.

Themselves with doubt both day and night perThyself from flattering self-conceit defend,

. plex, Nor what tbou dost not know, to know pretend. Nor gentle reader please, or teach, but vex. Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie; Books should to one of these four ends conduce, To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye. For wisdom, piety, delight, or use. Nor rashly therefore to such things assent, What need we gaze upon the spangled sky? Which undeceiv'd, thou after may'st repent; Or into matter's hidden causes pry, Study and time in these must thee instruct, "To describe every city, stream, or hill And others old experience may conduct.

l'th' world, our fancy with vain arts to fill ? Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend

What is 't to hear a sophister, that pleads, To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend.

Who by the ears the deceiv'd audience leads? In equal scales two doubtful matters lay,

If we were wise, these things we should not mind, Thou may'st choose safely that which most doth But more delight in easy matters find. weigh;

Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too; Tis not secure this place or that to guard,

To live and die is all we have to do : If any other entrance stand unbarr'd;

'The way (if no digression's made) is even, He that escapes the serpent's teeth may fail, And free access, if we but ask, is given, If he himself secures not from his tail.

Then seek to know those things which make us Who saith, Who could such ill events expect?

blest, With shame on his own counsels doth reflect. And having found them, lock them in thy Most in the world doth self-conceit deceive,

breast; Who just and good, whate'er they act believe; Inquiring then the way, go on, nor slack, To their wills wedded, to their errours slaves, But mend thy pace, nor think of going back. No man (like them) they think bimself behaves. Some their whole age in these inquiries waste, This stiff-neck'd pride por art nor force can bend, And die like fools before one step they've past. Nor high-flown hopes to Reason's lure descend. 'Tis strange to know the way, and not l'advance, Fathers sometimes their children's faults re That knowledge is far worse than ignorance. · gard

The learned teach, but what they teach, not do, With pleasure, and their crimes with gift re And standing still themselves, make others go. ward.

In vain on study time away we throw, -111 painters, when they draw, and poets write, When we forbear to act the things we know. Virgil and Titian (self-admiring) slight;

The soldier that philosopher well blam'd, Then all they do, like gold and pearl appears, Who long and loudly in the schools declaim'd; And other actions are but dirt to theirs.

“ Tell” (said the soldier) “ venerable sir, They that so highly think themselves above Why all these words, this clamour, and this stir? All other men, themselves can only love;

Why do disputes in wrangling spend the day? Reason and virtue, all that man can boast Whilst one says only yea, and t'other nay." O'er other creatures, in those brutes are lost. “Oh," said the doctor, " we for wisdom toil'd, Observe (if thee this fatal error touch,

For which none toils too much” ; the soldier Thou to thyself contributing too much)

smil'd;