To Mr. DRYDEN, by Jo. ADDISON, Efq;
TOW long, great poet, fhall thy facred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise!
Can neither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetick heat, and quench thy rage? Not fo thy Ovid in his exile wrote;
Grief chill'd his breast, and check'd his rifing thought; Penfive and fad, his drooping mufe betrays The Roman genius in its laft decays.
Prevailing warmth has ftill thy mind poffeft, And fecond youth is kindled in thy breast. Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known, And England boafts of riches not her own: Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majefty, And Horace wonders at himself in thee. Thou teacheft Perfius to inform our ifle In smoother numbers, and a clearer style ; And Juvenal, inftructed in thy page, Edges his fatire, and improves his rage. Thy copy cafts a fairer light on all, And still outshines the bright original.
Now Ovid boasts th' advantage of thy long, And tells his story in the British tongue; Thy charming verfe, and fair translations show How thy own laurel firft began to grow; How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry Gods,
And frighted at himself, ran howling thro' the woods.
O may'st thou still the noble tale proiong, Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy fong: Then may we wond'ring read, how human limbs Have water'd kingdoms, and diffolv'd in streams, Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold: How fome in feathers, or a ragged hide, Have liv'd a fecond life, and different natures try'd. Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal' A nobler change than he himself can tell.
Grown old in rhyme, but charming ev'n in Great Dryden next! whose tuneful mufe affords The sweetest numbers and the fittest words. Whether in comic founds, or tragick airs
She forms her voice, fhe moves our fmiles and tears. If fatire or heroic ftrains fhe writes,
Her hero pleases, and her fatire bites.
From her no harsh, unartful numbers fall, She wears all dreffes, and the charms in all: How might we fear our English poetry,
That long has flourish'd, fhould decay in thee;
Did not the muses other hope appear, Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear! Congreve! whofe fancy's unexhausted store Has given already much, and promis'd more. Congreve shall still preferve thy fame alive, And Dryden's mufe fhall in his friend furvive.
On ALEXANDER's FEAST: Or, The POWER of MUSICK. An ODE.
From Mr. POPE'S ESSAY ON CRITICISM, L 376.
WEAR how Timotheus' vary'd lays furprize,
And bid alternate paffions fall and rife! While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now fighs steal out, and tears begin to flow. Perfians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood fubdu'd by found. The pow'r of Mufick all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was is Dryden now.
Ehold, where Dryden's lefs prefumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear:
Two courfers of ethereal race,
With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long-refounding
Bright-ey'd Fancy hov'ring o'er, Scatters from her pictur'd urn, Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. But, ah! 'tis heard no more ----
Oh! lyre divine, what daring fpirit Wakes thee now? though he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with fupreme dominion Through the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Such forms, as glitter in the mufe's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the fun : Yet fhall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate
Beneath the good how far---but far above the great.
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