tain encouragement can be provided, than the bare uncertain profits of a third day, and the theatre be put under some more impartial management than the jurisdiction of players. Who write to live, must unavoidably comply with their taste by whose approbation they subsist; some generous prince, or prime minister, like Richlieu, can only find a remedy. In his epistle dedicatory to the Spanish Friar, this incomparable poet thus censures himself:
'I remember some verses of my own, Maximin and Almanzor, which cry vengeance upon me for their extravagance, &c. All I can say for those pas sages (which are, I hope, not many) is, that I knew they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them; but I repent of them among my sins: And if any of their fellows intrude by chance into my present writings, I draw a stroke over those Dalilahs of the theatre, and am resolved I will settle myself no reputation by the applause of fools. 'Tis not that I am mortified to all ambition, but I scorn as much to take it from half-witted judges, as I should to raise an estate by cheating of bub. bles. Neither do I discommend the lofty style in tragedy, which is pompous and magnificent; but nothing is truly sublime, that is not just and proper.'
This may stand as an unanswerable apology for Mr. Dryden, against his critics; and likewise for an unquestionable authority to confirm those principles which the foregoing poem pretends to lay down, for nothing can be just and proper but what is built upon truth.
EPIGRAMS AND CHARACTERS, &c.
INSCRIPTION FOR A FIGURE REPRESENTING THE GOD OF LOVE.
WHOE'ER thou art, thy lord and master see,
Thou wast my slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.
DEFINITION OF LOVE.
LOVE is begot by fancy, bred
By ignorance, by expectation fed,
Destroy'd by knowledge, and, at best,
Lost in the moment 'tis possess❜d,
WOMEN to cards may be compar'd: we play
A round or two; when us'd, we throw away,
Take a fresh pack; nor is it worth our grieving,
Who cuts or shuffles with our dirty leaving.
Or two reliefs to ease a love-sick mind,
Flavia prescribes despair; I urge, be kind :
Flavia, be kind, the remedy's as sure,
"Tis the most pleasant, and the quickest cure.
SENT TO CLARINDA WITH A NOVEL, INTITULED,
MALHEURS DE L'AMOUR.
HASTE to Clarinda, and reveal Whatever pains poor lovers feel;
When that is done, then tell the fair
That I endure much more for her:
Who'd truly know love's pow'r or smart,
Must view her eyes, and read my heart.
BRIGHT as the day, and like the morning fair,
Such Chloe is-and common as the air.
ON HIS SEVERAL EXCELLENT TRANSLATIONS OF THE
ANCIENT POETS.
As flowers transplanted from a southern sky,
But hardly bear, or in the raising die,
Missing their native sun, at best retain
But a faint odour, and survive with pain:
Thus ancient wit, in modern numbers taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a senseless draught,
While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.
Who then to copy Roman wit desire,
Must imitate with Roman force and fire,
In elegance of style, and phrase the same,
And in the sparkling genius and the flame;
Whence we conclude from thy translated song,
So just, so smooth, so soft, and yet so strong;
Celestial poet! soul of harmony!
That every genius was reviv'd in thee.
Thy trumpet sounds, the dead are rais'd to light,
Never to die, and take to Heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays they shine,
All glorified, immortal, and divine.
As Britain in rich soil, abounding wide,
Furnish'd for use, for luxury, and pride,
Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore
For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more;
To her own wool the silks of Asia joins ;
And to her plenteous harvests, Indian mines:
So Dryden, not contented with the fame
Of his own works, though an immortal name,
To lands remote, sends forth his learned muse,
The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose;
Feasting our sense so many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise?
That by comparing others, all might see,
Who most excell'd are yet excell'd by thee.
ON THE PRESENT CORRUPTION OF MANKIND.
Inscribed to the Lord Falkland.
() FALKLAND! Offspring of a generous race,
Renown'd for arms and arts, in war and peace,
My kinsman, and my friend! from whence this curse
Entail'd on man, still to grow worse and worse?
Each age, industrious to invent new crimes,
Strives to outdo in guilt preceding times:
But now we're so improv'd in all that's bad,
We shall leave nothing for our sons to add.
That idol, gold, possesss every heart,
To cheat, defraud, and undermine, is art;
Virtue is folly; conscience is a jest ;
Religion gain, or priestcraft at the best.
Friendship's a cloak to hide some treacherous end,
Your greatest foe, is your professing friend;
The soul resign'd, unguarded, and secure,
The wound is deepest, and the stroke most sure.
Justice is bought and sold; the bench, the bar
Plead and decide; but gold's the' interpreter.
Pernicious metal! thrice accurs'd be he
Who found thee first; all evils spring from thee.
Sires sell their sons, and sons their sires betray,
And senates vote, as armies fight, for pay;
The wife no longer is restrain❜d by shame,
But has the husband's leave to play the game.
Diseas'd, decrepit, from the mix'd embrace
Succeeds, of spurious mold, a puny race;
From such defenders what can Britain hope?
And where, O liberty! is now thy prop?
Not such the men who bent the stubborn bow,
And learn'd in rugged sports to dare a foe:
Not such the men who fill'd with heaps of slain
Fam'd Agincourt and Cressy's bloody plain.
Haughty Britannia then, inur'd to toil,
Spread far and near the terrors of her isle;
True to herself, and to the public weal,
No Gallic gold could blunt the British steel.
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