Breeding vanity in knowledge ;
A poison in delicious meat,
Midst wines a fraud, midst mirth a cheat,
In courts, in cabinet, and college.
The toils are fix'd, the sportsmen keen:
Abroad unsafe, betrayed within,
Whither, O mortal! art thou flying?
Thy resolutions oft are snares,
Thy doubts, petitions, gifts, and prayers ;-
Alas, there may be snares in dying !
Deceiving none, by none ensnard,
O Paraclete,* be thou my guard,
Patron of every just endeavour !
The cross of Christ is man's reward it
No heights obstruct, no depths retard ;
Christian joys are joys for ever!

*TIAPAKAHTOX: The Comforter; the Holy Spirit.

John xiv. 16–26. Dryden first introdced the word Paraclete into the Englsh I languige, in his translation of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus : as also in his Brittania Rediviva.

+ Rom. viii. 39.

MACARIUS:

OR,

THE CONFESSOR.

Da vocem magno, Pater, ingeniumque dolori.

STAT. Epiced. Patris.

AN EPISTLE TO

THE REV. DR. ROBERT HORT,

CANON OF WINDSOR.

Who sung,

ALL sober poets with thy bard* agree,

• That truth was truest poetry.'Alike to me, and the deceas'd,t a friend, O Hort, to these my pious strains attend. Thou knew'st the man, and thy good sense is such, I dare not say too little, or too much.Under his eye the self-same views combin'd Our studies, and one horoscope conjoin'd. He check'd the impatient wanderings of our youth, And grafted on our fancy facts and truth. Together we amus'd our youthful prime, Days seem'd but hours, and time improv'd on time:

• Cowley. See his Davideis.

+ The Rev. Walter Harte, Prebend of Bristol, Canon of Wells, and father to the poet.

Mindless of cares, and how they pass'd or came ; Our sports, our labours, and our rest, the same.

See'st thou yon yews, by pensive nature made For tears, and grief, and melancholy shade ; Wide o'er the church they spread an awful light, Than day more serious, half-compos'd as night; There, where the winding Kennet gently laves Britannia's Lombardyt with silver waves : There sleeps Macarius, foe to pomp and pride ; Who liv'd contented, and contented died.

Say, shall the lamp where l'ullia was entomb'd Burn twice seven ages, and be unconsum'd ? And not one verse be sacred to a name Endear'd by virtuous deeds and silent fame? True fame demands not panegyric aid ; The funeral torch burns brightest in the shade ; Too fast it blazes, fan'd by public air ;Thus blossoms fall, before their tree can bear. True fame, like porcelain earth, for years must say Buried and mix'd with elemental clay.

His younger days were not in trifling spent, For pious Hallo a kind inspection lent:

. These eight lines are imitated from a famous passage in Persius, Sat. V. It begins

Geminos horoscope, '&c.
Berkshire.

It is reported, that the Chinese beat and mix thoroughly together the composition that makes porcelain, and then bury it in a deep bed of clay for an hundred years

See Dr. Donne's Letters. ☆ Mr. John Hall, master of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1667, and rector of St. Aldate's in the same university. Created D. D. in 1669; elected Margaret Professor in 1676; and con. secrated Bishop of Bristol the 12th of June, 1691.

But mostly Chrysostom engag'd his mind :
Great without labour, without art refin'd!
Now see his gentle elocution flows,
Soft as the flakes of heaven-descending snows.

Now see him, like the' impetuous torrent, roll:
Pure in his diction, purer in his soul :
By few men equalld, and surpass'd by none;
A Tully and Demosthenes in one!

Something at cheerful intervals was due
To Roman classics, and Athenian too.
Plato with raptures did his soul inspire ;
Plotinus fan'd the Academic* fire.
Then came the Stagyrite ;-whose excellence
Beams forth in clearness, brevity, and sense!

Next, for amusement's sake, he turn’d his eyes To them whom we despoil, and then despise : Foremost of these, unrivall’d Shakspeare stands; With Hooker, Raleigh, Chillingworth, and

Sands ;(For in those days were giants in our lands!'

* Academic is used in the Horatian sense of the word :

Atque inter sylvas Academi quærere verum.' + Edwyn Sandys, Archbishop of York, was one of the first eminent reformers, not only of our holy religion, but of our language. His sermons (the time when he preached them being duly considered) may be looked upon as a masterpiece of eloquence and fine writing. They were chiefly preached between the years 1550 and 1576.

His son George (and here let me be understood to refer chiefly to his Paraphrase on Job) knew the true harmony of the English Heroic Couplet long before Denham and Waller took up the pen; and preserved that harmony more oniformly Variety perhaps was wanting, which Dryden afterwards sur plied; but not till he came to the fortyof fih year of his age: namely, till the time he published • Aurengzebe.'