Th' extremes of glory and of shame,
Like east and west, become the same.
No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.

-Wholesale critics, that in coffee-
Houses cry down all philosòphy,

-Antichristian assemblies

To mischief bent as far 's in thèm lies.

Bruis'd in body,

And conjured into safe custòdy.

That proud dame

Used him so like a base rascallion,

That old Pyg-what d' ye call him-malion, That cut his mistress out of stone,

Had not so hard a hearted one.

It was a question whether he

Or's horse were of a family

More worshipful; till antiquàries,

After they'd almost por❜d out their eyes,

Did very learnedly decide

The business on the horse's side.

Have they invented tones to win
The women, and make them draw in
The men; as Indians with a female
Tame elephant inveigle the male ?

Doctor epidemic,

Stor'd with deletery med' cines,

Which whosoever took is dead since.

So th' Emperor Caligula,

That triumph'd o'er the British sea,
Took crabs and oysters prisoners,
And lobsters 'stead of cuirassiers ;
Engaged his legions in fierce bustles
With periwinkles, prawns, and mussels,
And led his troops, with furious gallops,
To charge whole regiments of scallops.

Madame, I do, as is my duty

Honour the shadow of your shoe-tie.

Conven'd at midnight in outhouses,
To appoint new rising rendezvouses.

'Mong these there was a politician,
With more heads than a beast in vision.-

So politic, as if one eye

Upon the other were a spy

That to trepan the one to think

The other blind, both strove to blink.1

1 "Strove to blink." This was Lord Shaftesbury. What an idea of craft and self-deception! a man's two eyes, the most united and friendly of all things, and which cannot stir but in unison, endeavouring to outwit one another!

PASSAGES FROM THE POSTHUMOUS POEMS.

CAUTION AGAINST OVER-REFORM.

Should once the world resolve t' abolish

All that's ridiculous and foolish,

It would have nothing left to do,

T apply in jest or earnest to;
No business of importance, play,

Or state, to pass the time away.

LOFTY CARRIAGE OF IGNORANCE.

The truest characters of ignorance,

Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance;

As blind men use to bear their noses higher

Than those that have their eyes and sight entire.

CAUTION AGAINST PROSELYTISM.

More proselytes and converts use t' accrue
To false persuasions than the right and true;
For error and mistake are infinite,

But truth has but one way to be i' th' right.

The greatest saints and sinners have been made
Of proselytes of one another's trade.

A convert 's but a fly, that turns about
After his head's pull'd off, to find it out.

HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH.

A country that draws fifty foot of water;
In which men live, as in the hold of Nature;
That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,
And serve their cousins-german up in dishes ;-
A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd;

In which men do not live, but go aboard.1

1 Our great satirist is here indulging himself in one of the pleasant "extravagances" which he recommends as refreshments of thought: but it is impossible to take leave of extracts from such a writer without expressing a kind of transport at the perfection of his wit and good sense.

DRYDEN.

BORN, 1631-died, 1701.

Is Dryden had been cast in a somewhat finer mould, and added sentiment to his other qualifications, he would have been almost as great a poet in the world of nature, as he was in that of art and the town. He had force, expression, scholarship, geniality, admirable good sense, musical enthusiasm. The rhymed heroic couplet in his hands continues still to be the finest in the language. But his perceptions were more acute than subtle; more sensual, by far, than spiritual. The delicacy of them had no proportion to the strength. He prized the flower, but had little sense of the fragrance; was gross as well as generous in his intellectual diet; and if it had not been genuine and hearty, would have shown an almost impudent delight in doing justice to the least refined of Nature's impressions. His Venus was not the Celestial. He would as soon have described the coarsest flower, as a rose; sooner, if it