Can all your tap'ftries, or your pictures, show
More beauties, than in herbs and flowers do grow?
Fountains and trees our wearied pride do please,
Ev'n in the midft of gilded palaces,

And in your towns, that profpect gives delight,
Which opens round the country to our fight,
Men to the good, from which they rafhly fly,
Return at last; and their wild luxury

Does but in vain with thofe true joys contend,
Which nature did to mankind recommend.
The man who changes gold for burnifh'd brass,
Or fmall right gems for larger ones of glass,
Is not, at length, more certain to be made
Ridiculous, and wretched by the trade,
Than he, who fells a folid good, to buy
The painted goods of pride and vanity.
If thou be wife, no glorious fortune choose,
Which 'tis but pain to keep, yet grief to lofe;
For, when we place ev'n trifles in the heart,
With trifles too, unwillingly we part.

An humble roof, plain bed, and homely board,
More clear, untainted pleasures do afford,
Than all the tumult of vain greatness brings
To kings, or to the favourites of kings.
The horned deer, by nature arm'd so well,
Did with the horse in common pafture dwell;
And, when they fought, the field it always wan,
Till the ambitious horfe begg'd help of man,
And took the bridle, and thenceforth did reign
Bravely alone, as lord of all the plain :

But

But never after could the rider get

From off his back, or from his mouth the bit.
So they, who poverty too much do fear,
T'avoid that weight, a greater burden bear;
That they might power above their equals have,
To cruel masters they themselves enslave.
For gold, their liberty exchang'd we fee,
That fairest flower, which crowns humanity
And all this mischief does upon them light,
Only, because they know not how, aright,
That great, but secret, happiness to prize,
That 's laid up in a little, for the wife:
That is the best and easiest estate,
Which to a man fits clofe, but not too ftrait;
'Tis like a fhoe; it pinches and it burns,
Too narrow; and too large, it overturns.
My dearest friend! ftop thy defires at last,
And chearfully enjoy the wealth thou haft:
And, if me still fecking for more you fee,
Chide and reproach, defpife and laugh at me.
Money was made, not to command our will,
But all our lawful pleafures to fulfil :

Shame and woe to us, if we our wealth obey;
The horse doth with the horfeman run away.

*The poet, as ufual, expreffes his own feeling: but he does more, he expreffes it very claffically. The allufion is to the ancient cuftom of wearing wreaths or garlands of flowers, on any occafion of joy and feftivity. H.

THE COUNTRY

Lib. IV. Plantarum.

LIFE.

BLEST be the man (and bleft he is) whom e'er
(Plac'd far out of the roads of hope or fear)
A little field, and little garden, feeds:
The field gives all that frugal nature needs;
The wealthy garden liberally beftows
All she can ask, when the luxurious grows.
The fpecious inconveniences, that wait
Upon a life of business, and of state,
He fees (nor does the fight disturb his rest)
By fools defir'd, by wicked men possest.
Thus, thus (and this deferv'd great Virgil's praise)
The old Corycian yeoman pass'd his days;
Thus his wife life Abdolonymus spent :

Th' ambaffadors, which the great emperor fent
To offer him a crown, with wonder found
The reverend gardener hoeing of his ground;
Unwillingly, and flow, and difcontent,

From his lov'd cottage to a throne he went
And oft he stopt, in his triumphant way,
And oft look'd back, and oft was heard to say,
Not without fighs, Alas! I there forfake

A happier kingdom than I go to take!
Thus Aglaüs (a man unknown to men,

But the gods knew, and therefore lov'd him then}
Thus liv'd obfcurely then without a name,

Aglaüs, now consign'd t' eternal fame.

For

For Gyges, the rich king, wicked and great,
Prefum'd, at wife Apollo's Delphic feat

Prefum'd, to ask, Oh thou, the whole world's eye,
See'ft thou a man that happier is than I?

The god, who fcorn'd to flatter man, reply'd,
Aglaüs happier is. But Gyges cry'd,

In a proud rage, Who can that Aglaüs be!
We have heard, as, yet, of no fuch king as he.
And true it was, through the whole earth around
No king of fuch a name was to be found.
Is fome old hero of that name alive,

Who his high race does from the gods derive?
Is it fome mighty general, that has done
Wonders in fight, and god-like honours won?
Is it fome man of endless wealth? faid he.
None, none of thefe. Who can this Aglaüs be?
After long fearch, and vain enquiries paft,
In an obfcure Arcadian vale at last

(Th' Arcadian life has always fhady been)
Near Sopho's town (which he but once had fee)
This Aglaüs, who monarchs' envy drew,
Whofe happiness the gods ftood witness to,
This mighty Aglaüs, was labouring found,
With his own hands, in his own little ground.
So, gracious God! (if it may lawful be,
Among thofe foolish gods to mention thee)
So let me act, on fuch a private stage,
The last dull scenes of my declining age;
After long toils and voyages in vain,
This quiet port let my toft veffel gain;

Y 3.

of.

Of heavenly reft, this earneft to me lend,
Let my life sleep, and learn to love her end.

I

V.

THE GARDEN.

To J. EVELYN, Efquire.

Never had any other defire so strong and fo like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be mafter at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and study of na

ture;

And there (with no defign beyond my wall) whole and intire to lie,

In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.

Or, as Virgil has faid, fhorter and better for me, that I might there

"Studiis florere ignobilis otî *:"

(though I could wish that he had rather faid, " Nobilis oti," when he spoke of his own.)

But feveral acci

*Virg. Georg. iv. 564.

dents