Such praise is yours, while you the paffions move,
That 'tis no longer feign'd, 'tis real love,
Where nature triumphs over wretched art;
We only warm the head, but you the heart.
Always you warm; and if the rifing year,
As in hot regions, brings the fun too near,
'Tis but to make your fragrant fpices blow,
Which in our cooler climates will not grow.
They only think you animate your theme
With too much fire, who are themselves all phlegm.
Prizes would be for lags of flowest pace,
Were cripples made the judges of the race.
Despise those drones, who praise, while they accufe
The too much vigor of your youthful mufe.
That humble style which they your virtue make,
Is in your power; you need but stoop and take.
Your beauteous images must be allow'd
By all, but some vile poets of the crowd.
But how should any fign-poft dawber know
The worth of Titian or of Angelo?
Hard features every bungler can command;
To draw true beauty fhews a master's hand,
Excellent Effay on TRANSLATED VERSE.
Hether the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore,
The feeds of arts and infant science bore,
Tis fure the noble plant, tranflated first,
Advanc'd its head in Grecian gardens nurft.
The Grecians added verfe: their tuneful tongue
Made nature firft, and nature's God their fong.
Nor ftopt tranflation here: for conqu'ring Rome,
With Grecian fpoils, brought Grecian numbers
home;
Enrich'd by thofe Athenian muses more,
Than all the vanquifh'd world could yield before.
'Till barb'rous nations, and more barb'rous times,
Debas'd the majesty of verse to rhimes;
Those rude at firft: a kind of hobbling profe,
That limp'd along, and tinkled in the close.
But Italy, reviving from the trance
Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkih ignorance,
With pauses, cadence, and well-vowell'd words,
And all the graces a good ear affords,
Made rhyme an art, and Dante's polish'd page
Reftor'd a filver, not a golden age.
Then Petrarch follow'd, and in him we fee,
What rhyme improv'd in all its height can be :
At best a pleasing found, and fair barbarity.
The French purfu'd their steps; and Britain, last,
In manly sweetness all the reft furpafs'd.
The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome,
Appear exalted in the British loom:
The Muses empire is restor'd again,
In Charles his reign, and by Rofcommon's pen.
Yet modeftly he does his work furvey,
And calls a finish'd Poem an Effay;
For all the needful rules are scatter'd here
Truth smoothly told, and pleasantly fevere;
So well is art difguis'd, for nature to appear.
Nor need those rules to give tranflation light:
His own example is a flame fo bright;
That he who but arrives to copy well,
Unguided will advance, unknowing will excel.
Scarce his own Horace could fuch rules ordain,
Or his own Virgil fing a nobler ftrain.
How much in him may rifing Ireland boast,
How much in gaining him has Britain loft!
Their island in revenge has ours reclaim'd;
The more inftructed we, the more we still are
fham'd.
'Tis well for us his generous blood did flow
Deriv'd from British channels long ago,
That here his conqu'ring ancestors were nurst;
And Ireland but tranflated England first:
By this reprifal we regain our right,
Else must the two contending nations fight;
A nobler quarrel for his native earth,
Than what divided Greece for Homer's birth.
To what perfection will our tongue arrive,
How will invention and tranflation thrive,
When authors nobly born will bear their part,
And not difdain th'inglorious praise of art!
Great generals thus, defcending from command,
With their own toil provoke the foldiers hand.
How will sweet Ovid's ghoft be pleas'd to hear
His fame augmented by an English peer;
How he embellishes his Helen's loves,
Outdoes his foftnefs, and his fenfe improves ?
When these translate, and teach tranflators too,
Nor firstling kid, nor any vulgar vow,
Should at Apollo's grateful altar stand :
Rofcommon writes; to that aufpicious hand,
Mufe, feed the bull that spurns the yellow fand.
Rofcommon, whom both court and camps com-
mend,
True to his prince, and faithful to his friend;
Roscommon first in fields of honor known,
Firft in the peaceful triumphs of the gown;
Who both Minervas juftly makes his own.
Now let the few belov'd by Jove, and they
Whom infus'd Titan form'd of better clay,
On equal terms with ancient wit
engage, Nor mighty Homer fear, nor facred Virgil's page : Our English palace opens wide in ftate ;
And without ftooping they may pass the gate.
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