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Great but ill-omen'd monument of fame,
Nor he furviv'd to give nor thou to claim:
Swift after him thy social spirit flies,
And close to his, how foon! thy coffin lies.
Blefs'd pair! whose union future bards shall tell
In future tongues; each others' boaft! farewell:
Farewell! whom join'd in fame, in friendship try'd,
No chance could fever, nor the grave divide.

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TO MR. DRYDEN.

THE AUTHOR'S AGE TWENTY-TWO.

How 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 rising thought;
Penfive and fad, his drooping Mufe betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.

Prevailing warmth has still thy mind poffeft,
And fecond youth is kindled in thy breaft;
Thou mak'ft the beautics of the Romans known,
And England boafts of riches not her own;
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee;
Thou teachest 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 fill outshines the bright original.

Now Ovid boafts th' advantage of thy fong,
And tells his story in the British tongue;

ΤΟ

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Thy charming verfe, and fair tranflations, show
How thy own laurel firft began to grow;

How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry gods,

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And frighted at himself, ran howling thro' the woods.
O! may'st thou still the noble task prolong,
Nor age nor fickness interrupt thy fong!
Then may we, wond'ring, read how human limbs
Have water'd kingdoms and diffolv'd in streams; 30
Of thofe rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold,
How fome in feather's, or a ragged hide,

Have liv'd a fecond life, and diff'rent natures try'd.
Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal

A nobler change than he himself can tell.

Magd. College, Oxon.

June 2. 1693.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST.

ENGLISH POETS.

TO MR. HENRY SACHEVERELL*.

April 3. 1694.

SINCE, dearest Harry! you will needs request

A fhort account of all the Mufe poffeft,

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That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,
Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes,
Without more preface, writ in formal length,
To speak the undertaker's want of ftrength,

*Afterwards Dr. Sacheverell.

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I'll try to make their fev'ral beauties known,
And show their verfes' worth, tho' not my own.

Long had our dull forefathers slept fupine,
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine,
Till Chaucer firft, a merry bard, arose,
And many a story told in rhyme and profe;
But age has rufted what the poet writ,
Worn out his language and obscur'd his wit;
In vain he jests in his unpolifh'd strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.
Old Spenfer next, warm'd with poetick rage,
In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age;
An age that, yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led, purfu'd
'Thro' pathlefs fields and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons and enchanted woods.
But now the myflick tale that pleas'd of yore
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-fpun allegories fulfome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below,
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the fights
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damfels in diftress, and courteous knights;
But when we look too near the shades decay,
And all the pleating landscape fades away.

Great Cowley then (a mighty genius!) wrote,
O'errun with wit, and lavish of his thought :
His turns too clofely on the reader prefs;
He more had pleas'd us had he pleas'd us lefs :

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One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With filent wonder, but new wonders rife ;
As in the Milky-way a fhining white
O'erflows the heav'n's with one continued light,
That not a fingle star can fhew his rays,
Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great Poet! that I dare to name

Th' unnumber'd beauties of thy verse with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excefs;

But wit like thine in any fhape will please.
What Mufe but thine can equal hints inspire,
And fit the deep-mouth'd Pindar to thy lyre?
Pindar! whom others, in a labour'd strain,
And forc'd expreffion, imitate in vain?

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Well pleas'd in thee he foars with new delight,

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And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a nobler flight.

Blefs'd man! whofe spotless life and charming lays Employ'd the tuneful prelate in thy praise;

Blefs'd man! who now fhall be for ever known

In Sprat's fuccefsful labours and thy own.

But Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, Unfetter'd in majestick numbers, walks:

No vulgar hero can his Mufe engage,

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Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage.
See! fee! he upward springs, and, tow'ring high, 60
Spurns the dull province of mortality;

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