Thus we, who lately, as of summer's heat,
Have felt a dearth of poetry and wit!
Once fear'd, Apollo would return no more
From warmer climes to an ungrateful shore.
But you, the favourite of the tuneful Nine,
Have made the god in his full lustre shine;
Our night have changed into a glorious day;
And reach'd perfection in your first essay:
So the young eagle that his force would try,
Faces the sun, and towers it to the sky.

Others proceed to art by slow degrees,
Awkward at first, at length they faintly please,
And still, whate'er their first efforts produce,
"Tis an abortive, or an infant Muse.

Whilst yours, like Pallas, from the head of Jove,
Steps out full
grown, with noblest pace to move.
What ancient poets to their subjects owe,
Is here inverted, and this owes to you:
You found it little, but have made it great,
They could describe, but you alone create.
Now let your Muse rise with expanded wings,
To sing the fate of empires and of kings;
Great William's victories she'll next rehearse,
And raise a trophy of immortal verse:
Thus to your art proportion the design,
And mighty things with mighty numbers join,
A second Namur, or a future Boyne.

H. BLOUNT.

FROM

HURDIS'S VILLAGE CURATE.

-IN the dapper-wit of sprightly GARTH We smile to see fantastic Poetry

Shake hands with Physic, and in grave burlesque
Arrange his gallipots and gild his pills;

Then march in dreadful armour to the field,
To screen her new ally from hostile shocks,
With pestle truncheon, Cloacinian helm,
And level'd squirt.

POEMS

OF

SAMUEL GARTH.

DEDICATION.

TO ANTHONY HENLEY, ESQ.

A MAN of your character can no more prevent a Dedication, than he would encourage one; for merit, like a virgin's blushes, is still most discovered, when it labours most to be concealed.

'Tis hard, that to think well of you, should be but justice, and to tell you so, should be an offence. Thus, rather than violate your modesty, I must be wanting to your other virtues; and to gratify one good quality, do wrong to a thousand.

The world generally measures our esteem by the ardour of our pretences; and will scarce believe that so much zeal in the heart, can be consistent with so much faintness in the expression; but when they reflect on your readiness to do good, and your industry to hide it; on your passion to oblige, and your pain to hear it owned; they will conclude that acknowledgments would be ungrateful to a person who even seems to receive the obligations he confers.

But though I should persuade myself to be silent upon all occasions; those more polite arts, which, till of late have languished and decayed, would appear under their present advantages, and own you for one of their generous restorers: insomuch, that Sculpture now breathes, Painting speaks, Music ravishes; and as you help to refine our taste, you distinguish your own.

Your approbation of this poem is the only exception to the opinion the world has of your judgment, that ought to relish nothing so much as what you write yourself. But you are resolved to forget to be a critic, by remembering you are a friend. To say more, would be uneasy to you; and to say less would be unjust in

Your humble Servant.

THE PREFACE.

SINCE this following poem in a manner stole into the world, I could not be surprised to find it incorrect; though I can no more say I was a stranger to its coming abroad, than that I approved of the publisher's precipitation in doing it. For a hurry in the execution, generally produces a leisure in reflection; so when we run the fastest, we stumble the oftenest. However, the errors of the printer have not been greater than the candour of the reader: and if I could but say the same of the defects of the author, he would need no justification against the cavils of some furious critics, who, I am sure, would have been better pleased if they had met with more faults.

Their grand objection is, that the fury Disease is an improper machine to recite characters, and recommend the example of present writers: but though I had the authority of some Greek and Latin poets, upon parallel instances, to justify the design; yet, that I might not introduce any thing that seemed inconsistent or hard, I started this objection myself to a gentleman, very remarkable in this sort of criticism, who would by no means allow that the contrivance was forced, or the conduct incongruous.

Disease is represented a Fury as well as Envy: she is imagined to be forced by an incantation from her recess; and, to be revenged on the exorcist, mortifies him with an introduction of several persons eminent in an accomplishment he has made some advances in.

Nor is the compliment less to any great genius mentioned there; since a very fiend, who naturally repines at any excellency, is forced to confess how happily they have all succeeded.

Their next objection is, that I have imitated the Lutrin of Monsieur Boileau. I must own, I am proud of the imputation: unless their quarrel be, that I have not done it enough: but he that will give himself the trouble of examining, will find I have copied him in nothing but in two or three lines in the complaint of Mollesse, Canto II. and in one in his first Canto; the sense of which line is entirely his, and I could wish it were not the only good one in mine.

I have spoken to the most material objections I have heard of, and shall tell these gentlemen, that for every fault they pretend to find in this