Once Cato's virtue did the gods oppose,

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While they the victor, he the vanquish'd, chose; 10
But you have done what Cato could not do,
To chuse the vanquish'd, and restore him too.
Let others still triumph, and gain the cause
By their deserts, or by the world's applause;
Let Merit crowns, and Justice laurels, give,
But let me, happy, by your pity live.
True poets empty fame and praise despise ;
Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize.
You sit above, and see vain men below
Contend for what you only can bestow :
But those great actions others do by chance,
Are, like your beauty, your inheritance:
So great a soul, such sweetness, join❜d in one,
Could only spring from noble Grandison.
You, like the stars, not by reflection bright,

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Are born to your own heav'n and your own light;
Like them are good, but from a nobler cause,
From your own knowledge, not from Nature's laws.
Your pow'r you never use but for defence,

To guard your own or others' innocence:

Your foes are such as they, not you, have made,
And Virtue may repel, tho' not invade.

Such courage did the ancient heroes show,

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Who, when they might prevent, would wait the blow;
With such assurance as they meant to say,
We will o'ercome, but scorn the safest way.

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Volume III.

D

What further fear of danger can there be?

Beauty, which captives all things, sets me free.
Posterity will judge by my success,

I had the Grecian poet's happiness,

Who, waving plots, found out a better way;
Some god descended, and preserv'd the play.
When first the triumphs of your sects were sung
By those old poets, Beauty was but young,
And few admir'd the native red and white,

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Till poets dress'd them up to charm the sight;
So Beauty took on trust, and did engage
For sums of praises till she came to age:
But this long-growing debt to poetry

You, justly, Madam, have discharg'd to me,
When your applause and favour did infuse
New life to my condem'd and dying Muse.

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IV.

To Mr. LEE on his ALEXANDER,

THE blast of common censure could I fear,
Before your play my name should not appear;
For 'twill be thought, and with some colour too,
I pay the bribe I first receiv'd from you;
That mutual vouchers for our fame we stand,
And play the game into each other's hand;
And as cheap penn'worths to ourselves afford,
As Bessus and the brothers of the sword.

Such libels private men may well endure,

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When states and kings themselves are not secure ;10
For ill men, conscious of their inward guilt,
Think the best actions on by-ends are built.
And yet my silence had not 'scap'd their spite,
Then envy had not suffer'd me to write;
For since I could not ignorance pretend,
Such merit I must envy or commend.
So many candidates their stand for wit,
A place at court is scarce so hard to get:
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
For e'en reversions are all begg'd before:
Desert, how known soe'er, is long delay'd,
And then, too, fools and knaves are better paid.
Yet as some actions bear so great a name,
That courts themselves are just for fear of shame ;
So has the mighty merit of your play
Extorted praise, and forc'd itself a way.
'Tis here as 'tis at sea; who farthest goes,
Or dares the most makes all the rest his foes.

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Yet when some virtue much outgrows the rest,
It shoots too fast and high to be express'd;

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As his heroic worth struck Envy dumb
Who took the Dutchman, and who cut the boom.
Such praise is your's, while you the passions move,
That 'tis no longer feign'd, 'tis real love,
Where Nature triumphs over wretched Art; 35
We only warm the head, but you the heart;

Always you warm; and if the rising year,
As in hot regions, brings the sun too near,
'Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow,
Which in our cooler climates will not grow.
They only think you animate your theme

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With too much fire, who are themselves all phlegm.
Prizes would be for lags of slowest pace,
Were cripples made the judges of the race.
Despise those drones who praise while they accuse.
The too much vigour of your youthful Muse:
That humble style which they your virtue make
Is in your pow'r; 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 signpost-dauber know
The worth of Titian or of Angelo?

Hard features ev'ry bungler can command;
To draw true beauty shews a master's hand.

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V.

To the Earl of ROSCOMMON, on his excellent Essay on Translated Verse.

WHETHER the fruitful Nile or Tyrian shore
The seeds of arts and infant science bore,
'Tis sure the noble plant, translated first,
Advanc'd its head in Grecian gardens nurst

The Grecians added verse; their tuneful tongue 5
Made Nature first, and Nature's God, their song.
Nor stopt translation her: for conqu❜ring Rome,
With Grecian spoils, brought Grecian numbers home,
Enrich'd by those Athenian Muses more

Than all the vanquish'd world could yield before;10
Till barb'rous nations, and more barb'rous times,
Debas'd the majesty of verse to rhymes;
Those rude at first, a kind of hobbling prose,
That limp'd along, and tinkled in the close.
But Italy, reviving from the trance

Of Vandal, Goth, and Monkish 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
Restor❜d a Silver, not a Golden, age.

Then Petrarch follow'd, and in him we see
What rhyme, improv'd in all its height, can be';
At best a pleasing sound and fair barbarity.
The French pursu'd their steps; and Britain last,
In manly sweetness all the rest surpass'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 Roscommon's pen:
Yet modestly he does his work survey,

And calls a finish'd poem an Essay:

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