The Art of Poetry, by Mr. Dryden and Sir
UST noble Haftings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, fin's wages, grace's now ? shall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study self-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces fecurely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguist whofe worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Tho not his own, all tongues befides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may feem less;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native foil was the four parts o'th'earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and with rev'rence may
I fpeak it infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft ftrive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul
Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole:
Whofe reg'lar motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heav'n's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scatter'd in others; all; as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his foul; and thence
Shone thro his body, with fweet influence;
Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celeftial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and tryal make,
If thou this hero's altitude can't take:
But that tranfcends thy fkill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus aftronomical.
Liv'd Tycho now, ftruck with this ray which fhone
More bright i'th' morn', than others beam at noon,
He'd take his aftrolabe, and feek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemifphere.
Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for fuch a foul disease?
The nation's fin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our day-fpring in fo fad benighting clouds,
Heaven would no longer truft its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many fpots, like næves on Venus' foil,
One jewel fet off with so many a foil;
Blisters with pride fwell'd, which through's flesh did sprout
Like rofe-buds, stuck i'th' lilly-skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit:
Which, rebel-like, with it's own lord at ftrife,
Thus made an infurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems fent to adorn his skin,
The cab'net of a richer foul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whofe corps might seem a conftellation.
O! had he dy'd of old, how
great a ftrife Had been, who from his death fhould draw their
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæfar, were?
Learn'd, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An univerfal metempsychofis.
Must all these aged fires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he liv'd his life out, his great fame
Had fwol'n 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hafty winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, fummer, fpring, to nought.
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