"This was my error, this my gross mistake,
Myself a demy-votary to make.
"Thus, with Sapphira and her husband's fate
"(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late),
"For all that I gave up I nothing gain,
"And perish for the part which I retain.
"Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Mufe!
"The court, and better king, ť accuse :
"The heaven under which I live is fair,
"The fertile foil will a full harvest bear : "Thine, thine is all the barrennefs; if thou "Mak'ft me fit ftill and fing, when I should plough.. “ When I but think how many a tedious year "Our patient fovereign did attend "His-long misfortunes' fatal end; "How chearfully, and how exempt from fear, "On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend ; "I ought to be accurft, if I refufe
"To wait on his, O thou fallacious Mufe!
"Kings have long hands, they fay; and, though I be "So diftant, they may reach at length to me. "However, of all princes, thou
"Should'st not reproach rewards for being fmall or flow <<Thou ! who rewardest but with popular breath, "And that too after death."
ON COLONEL TUKE'S TRAGI-COMEDY, THE ADVENTURES OF FIVE HOURS.
S when our kings (lords of the spacious main) Take in just wars a rich plate-fleet of Spain, The rude unfhapen ingots they reduce
Into a form of beauty and of use ;
On which the conqueror's image now does thine,
Not his whom it belong'd to in the mine :
So, in the mild contentions of the Mufe
(The war which Peace itself loves and purfues)
So have you home to us in triumph brought
This Cargazon of Spain with treasures fraught.
You have not bafely gotten it by stealth,
Nor by tranflation borrow'd all its wealth ;
But by a powerful spirit made it your own;
Metal before, money by you 'tis grown.
'Tis current now, by your adorning it
With the fair ftamp of your victorious wit.
But, though we praife this voyage of your mind,
And though ourselves enrich'd by it we find;
We're not contented yet, because we know
What greater ftores at home within it grow.
We've seen how well you foreign ores refine;
Produce the gold of your own nobler mine :
The world shall then our native plenty view,
And fetch materials for their wit from you;
They all shall watch the travails of your pen,
And Spain on you shall make reprisals then.
RUEL Disease! ah, could not it fuffice
Thy old and conftant spite to exercise
Against the gentleft and the fairest sex,
Which still thy depredations most do vex?
Where ftill thy malice most of all
(Thy malice or thy luft), does on the fairest fall?
And in them most assault the fairest place,
The throne of emprefs Beauty, ev'n the face?
There was enough of that here to affuage,
(One would have thought), either thy luft or rage..
Was 't not enough,, when thou, prophane Disease !-
Didft on this glorious temple feize?
Was 't not enough, like a wild zealot, there,
All the rich outward ornaments to tear,
Deface the innocent pride of beauteous images?
Was 't not enough thus rudely to defile,
But thou must quite deftroy, the goodly pile?
And thy unbounded facrilege commit
On th' inward holiest holy of her wit ?
Cruel Difeafe! there thou mistook'st thy power;
No mine of death can that devour;
On her embalmed name it will abide
An everlasting pyramid,
As high as heaven the top, as earth the basis wide.
All ages paft record, all countries now
In various kinds fuch equal beauties show,
That ev'n judge Paris would not know
On whom the golden apple to bestow;
Though Goddeffes t' his fentence did submit,
Women and lovers would appeal from it:
Nor durft he say, of all the female race,
This is the fovereign face.
And fome (though these be of a kind that 's rare,
That 's much, ah, much less frequent than the fair).
So equally renown'd for virtue are,
That it the mother of the Gods might pose,
When the best woman for her guide the chofe.
But if Apollo fhould defign
A woman Laureat to make,
Without dispute he would Orinda take,
Though Sappho and the famous Nine
Stood by, and did repine.
To be a princess, or a queen,
Is great; but 'tis a greatness always feen :
The world did never but two women know,
Who, one by fraud, th' other by wit, did rife
To the two tops of fpiritual dignities;
One female pope of old, one female poet now..
Of female poets, who had names of old,
Nothing is shown, but only told, And all we hear of them perhaps may be. Male-flattery only, and male-poetry..
Few minutes did their beauty's lightning wafte,
The thunder of their voice did longer last,
But that too foon was paft.
The certain proofs of our Orinda's wit
In her own lafting characters are writ,
And they will long my praise of them survive,
Though long perhaps, too, that may live.
The trade of glory, manag'd by the pen,
́Though great it be, and every where is found,
Does bring in but fmall profit to us men;
'Tis, by the number of the fharers, drown'd.
Orinda, on the female coafts of Fame,
Ingroffes all the goods of a poetic name
She does no partner with her fee ;
Does all the business there alone, which we
Are forc'd to carry on by a whole company.
'But wit's like a luxuriant vine ;
Unless to virtue's prop it join,
Firm and erect towards heaven bound;
Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant fruit
be crown'd,
It lies, deform'd and rotting, on the ground.
Now fhame and blushes on us all,
Who our own fex fuperior call!
Orinda does our boafting fex out-do,
Not in wit only, but in virtue too:
She does above our beft examples rife,
In hate of vice and fcorn of vanities.
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