XI.

To Mr. GRANVILLE, on his excellent Tragedy called

Heroic Love.

AUSPICIOUS Poet! wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy what I must commend?
But since 'tis Nature's law in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and with'ring age submit,
With less regret those laurels I resign,

Which dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long-contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Tho' yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise;
Old monarchs, tho' successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage,
Which so declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduc'd to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the Town,
And, in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.

ΤΟ

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Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,
And murd'ring plays, which they miscal Reviving.
Our sense is nonsense thro' their pipes convey'd;
Scarce can a poet know the play he made,
'Tis so disguis'd in death, nor thinks 'tis he
That suffers in the mangled tragedy.

Thus Itys first was kill'd, and after dress'd
For his own sire, the chief invited guest.

I say not this of thy successful scenes,

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Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.
With length of time, much judgment, and more toil,
Not ill they acted what they could not spoil.
Their setting sun still shoots a glimm'ring ray, 35
Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay;

And better gleanings their worn soil can boast
Than the crab-vintage of the neighb'ring coast.
This diff'rence yet the judging world will see,
Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.

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XII.

To my friend Mr. MOTTEUX, on his Tragedy called Beauty in Distress.

"Tis hard, my friend! to write in such an age

As damns not only poets but the stage.

That sacred art, by Heav'n itself infus'd,

Which Moses, David, Solomon, have us'd,

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Is now to be no more. The Muses' foes
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
Were they content to prune the lavish vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
Who but a madman would his thoughts defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will mend: 10
But when to common sense they give the lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,

They give the scandal, and the wise discern,
Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
What I have loosely or prophanely writ,
Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
Nor, when accus'd by me, let them complain;
Their faults, and not their function I arraign.
Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they pursu'd;
The pulpit preach'd the crime the people ru'd.
The stage was silenc'd, for the saints would see
In fields perform'd their plotted tragedy.
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive:
Our desk be plac'd below their lofty chairs ;
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part, at least, we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride
Ambition, int'rest, avarice, accuse;

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These are the province of a Tragic Muse.
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice

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Has equall'd thy performance with thy choice.

Time, action, place, are so preserv'd by thee,
That e'en Corneille might with envy see
Th' alliance of his tripled Unity.

Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.

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At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherley in wit.

Let thy own Gauls condemn thee if they dare,40
Contented to be thinly regular.

Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil
With more increase rewards thy happy toil.
Their tongue, enfeebled, is refin'd too much,
And, like pure gold, it bends at ev'ry touch: 45
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey,

More fit for manly thought, and strengthen'd with allay.

But whence art thou aspir'd and thou alone.
To flourish in an idiom not thy own?

It moves our wonder that a foreign guest
Should overmatch the most and match the best.

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In under-praising thy deserts I wrong;
Here find the first deficience of our tongue;
Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
So great a poet and so good a friend.

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XIII.

To the Duchess of YORK, on her return from Scotland in the year 1682.

WHEN factious rage to cruel exile drove
The Queen of Beauty and the Court of Love,
The Muses droop'd with their forsaken arts,
And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts;
Our fruitful plains to wilds and deserts turn'd,
Like Eden's face when banish'd Man it mourn'd.
Love was no more when Loyalty was gone,
The great supporter of his awful throne.
Love could no longer after Beauty stay,
But wander'd northward to the verge of day, 10
As if the sun and he had lost their way.
But now th' illustrious Nymph, return'd again,
Brings ev'ry grace triumphant in her train.
The wond'ring Nereids, tho' they rais'd no storm,
Foreflow'd her passage to behold her form.

Some cry'd, A Venus; some, a Thetis, past;
But this was not so fair, nor that so chaste.
Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife, and Pride,
And Envy did but look on her, and dy'd.
Whate'er we suffer'd from her sullen fate,
Her sight is purchas'd at an easy rate.
Three gloomy years against this day were set,
But this one mighty sum has clear'd the debt:

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