From thence to look below on humane kind,
Bewilder'd in the Maze of Life, and blind:
To fee vain fools ambitiously contend

For Wit and Pow'r; their laft endeavours bend
T' out-fhine each other, wafte their time and health
In search of honour, and pursuit of wealth.
O wretched Man! in what a mist of Life,
Inclos'd with dangers and with noifie ftrife,
He spends his little Span: And overfeeds

His cramm'd defires, with more than Nature needs:
For Nature wifely ftints our appetite,

And craves no more than undisturb'd Delight;
Which Minds unmix'd with cares and fears obtain;
A Soul ferene, a Body void of Pain.

So little this corporeal Frame requires ;
So bounded are our natural Defires,
That wanting all, and setting Pain aside,
With bare Privation, Senfe is fatisfy'd.
If Golden Sconces hang not on the Walls,
To light the coftly Suppers and the Balls;
If the proud Palace fhines not with the State
Of burnish'd Bowls, and of reflected Plate,
If well tun'd Harps, nor the more pleafing Sound
Of Voices, from the vaulted Roofs rebound;
Yet on the Grafs beneath a poplar shade

By the cool Stream, our careless Limbs are lay'd,
With cheaper Pleasures innocently bleft,

When the warm Spring with gawdy flow'rs is dreft.
Nor will the raging Feaver's fire abate,
With Golden Canopies and Beds of State:
But the poor Patient will as foon be found
On the hard mattress, or the Mother ground.
Then fince our Bodies are not eas'd the more
By Birth, or Pow'r, or Fortune's wealthy ftore,
'Tis plain, these useless Toys of every kind
As little can relieve the lab'ring Mind:
Unless we cou'd fuppofe the dreadful fight
Of marshall'd Legions moving to the fight,
VOL. II,

D

[way; Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of Death aBut, fince the fuppofition vain appears,

Could, with their Sound and terrible array,

Since clinging Cares, and trains of inbred Fears,
Are not with Sounds to be affrighted thence,
But in the midst of Pomp pursue the Prince,
Not aw'd by Arms, but in the Prefence bold,
Without refpect to Purple, or to Gold;
Why should not we these pageantries defpife;
Whofe, worth but in our want of Reafon lyes?
For Life is all in wandring Errors led;

And just as Children are furpriz'd with dread,
And tremble in the dark, fo riper Years
Ev'n in broad day-light are poffeft with fears:
And shake at fhadows fanciful and vain,
As those which in the Breasts of Children reign.
These bugbears of the Mind, this inward Hell,
No rays of outward sunshine can dispel;

But Nature and right Reason must display [to day.
Their Beams abroad, and bring the darkfome Soul

Tranflation of the latter Part of the Third Book of LUCRETIUS; against the Fear of Death.

W

By Mr. DRYDEN.

Hat has this Bugbear Death to frighten Man,
If Souls can die, as well as Bodies can ?

For, as before our Birth we felt no pain

When Punick Arms infefted Land and Main,
When Heav'n and Earth were in confufion hurl'd
For the debated Empire of the World,
Which aw'd with dreadful Expectation lay,
Sure to be Slaves, uncertain who should sway:

So, when our mortal frame fhall be disjoin'd,
The lifeless Lump, uncoupled from the Mind,
From fenfe of Grief and Pain we fhall be free
We fhall not feel, because we shall not Be.
Though Earth in Seas, and Seas in Heav'n were loft,
We should not move, we only should be toft.
Nay, ev'n fuppofe when we have fuffer'd Fate,
The Soul could feel in her divided State,
What's that to us? for we are only we
While Souls and Bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, tho' our Atoms fhould revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Tho' time our Life and Motion could restore,
And make our Bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made Man would be another thing;
When once an interrupting Paufe is made,
That individual Being is decay'd.

We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
In all the Pleafures, nor fhall feel the smart,
Which to that other Mortal fhall accrue,
Whom of our Matter Time fhall mould anew.
For backward if you look, on that long space
Of Ages past, and view the changing Face
Of Matter, toft and variously combin'd
In fundry fhapes, 'tis eafie for the Mind
From thence t' infer, that Seeds of things have been
In the fame Order as they now are seen:
Which yet our dark remembrance cannot trace,
Becaufe a paufe of Life, a gaping space

Has come betwixt, where memory lies dead,
And all the wandring Motions from the sense are fled.
For whofoe'er fhall in Misfortunes live,

Muft Be, when thofe Misfortunes fhall arrive;
And fince the Man who Is not, feels not woe,
(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,
Which we, the living, only feel and bear)'
What is there left for us in death to fear?

When once that pause of Life has come between, "Tis juft the fame as we had never been.

And therefore if a Man bemoan his Lot,

That after death his mouldring Limbs shall rot,
Or flames, or jaws of Beafts devour his Mass,
Know he's an unfincere, unthinking Ass.
A fecret Sting remains within his Mind,
The fool is to his own caft offals kind;
He boats no fenfe can after death remain,
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if fome other He could feel the pain.
If, while he live, this Thought moleft his Head,
"What Wolf or Vulture fhall devour me dead?
He waftes his days in idle Grief, nor can
Diftinguish 'twixt the Body and the Man:
But thinks himself can still himself survive;
And what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He,
No living He remains his Grief to vent,
And o'er his fenfeless Carcafs to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn

}

By Birds and Beafts, then why not so to burn,
Or drench'd in floods of Honey to be foak'd,
Imbalm'd to be at once preferv'd and choak'd;
Or on an airy Mountain's top to lye,
Expos'd to cold and Heav'ns inclemency;
Or crowded in a Tomb to be oppreft
With monumental Marble on thy Breaft?
But to be fnatch'd from all thy houshold Joys,
From thy chaft Wife, and thy dear prattling Boys,
Whofe little Arms about thy Legs are caft,

And climbing for a Kifs prevent their Mother's hafte,
Infpiring fecret Pleasure thro' thy Breast,

All these fhall be no more: thy Friends oppreft,
Thy Care and Courage now no more shall free:
Ah Wretch, thou cry'ft, ah! miferable me,
One woful day fweeps Children, Friends and Wife,
And all the brittle Bleffings of my Life!

Add one thing more, and all thou fay'ft is true ;-
Thy want and with of them is vanish'd too,
Which well confider'd were a quick relief,
To all thy vain imaginary Grief.

For thou shalt fleep and never wake again,
And quitting Life, fhalt quit thy living pain.
But we thy Friends fhall all thofe forrows find,
Which in forgetful death thou leav'ft behind,
No time fhall dry our Tears, nor drive thee from
our Mind.

The worft that can befal thee, meafur'd right,
Is a found flumber, and a long good Night.
Yet thus the Fools, that would be thought the Wits,
Disturb their Mirth with melancholy fits,
When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,
Till the fresh Garlands on their Foreheads glow,
They whine, and cry, let us make hafte to live,
Short are the joys that human Life can give.
Eternal Preachers, that corrupt the draught,
And pall the God that never thinks, with thought;
Ideots with all that thought, to whom the worst
Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst,
Or any fond defire as vain as these.

For ev'n in fleep, the body wrapt in ease,
Supinely lyes, as in the peaceful Grave,
And wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that found fleep eternal, it were death,
Yet the firft Atoms then, the Seeds of breath
Are moving near to fenfe, we do but shake
And roufe that fenfe, and straight we are awake.
Then death to us, and death's anxiety

Is less than nothing, if a lefs could be.
For then our Atoms, which in order lay,
Are scatter'd from their heap, and puff'd away,
And never can return into their place,

When once the paufe of Life has left an empty space..
And laft, fuppofe great Nature's Voice fhould call
To thee, or me, or any of us all,