Since for the pleasures of an hour,
We must endure an age of pain,
I'll be this abject thing no more,

Love, give me back my heart again.
Despair tormented first my breast,
Now Falsehood, a more cruel guest;
O for the peace of humankind,
Make women longer true, or sooner kind;
With justice, or with mercy reign,
O Love! or give me back my heart again.

LOVE.

To love, is to be doom'd on Earth to feel
What after death the tortur'd meet in Hell:
The vulture dipping in Prometheus' side
His bloody beak, with his torn liver dy'd,
Is Love. The stone that labours up the hill,
Mocking the labourer's toil returning still,

is Love. Those streams where Tantalus is curst
To sit, and never drink, with endless thirst:
Those loaden boughs that with their burthen bend
To court his taste, and yet escape his hand,
All this is Love, that to dissembled joys
Invites vain men, with real grief destroys.

MEDITATION ON DEATH.

I.

ENOUGH, enough, my Soul, of worldly noise;
Of aery pomps, and fleeting joys;
What does this busy world provide at best,
But brittle goods that break like glass,

But poison'd sweets, a troubled feast,

He carefully consults each beauteous line,
Adjusting to his object, his design,

We praise the piece, and give the painter fame,
But as the just resemblance speaks the dame.
Poets are limners of another kind,

To copy out ideas in the mind;

Words are the paint by which their thoughts are
And Nature sits, the object to be drawn; [shown,
The written picture we applaud, or blame,
But as the due proportions are the same.

Who driven with ungovernable fire,
Or void of art, beyond these bounds aspire,
Gigantic forms, and monstrous births alone
Produce, which Nature, shock'd, disdains to own.
By true reflexion I would see my face,
Why brings the fool a magnifying glass?
(a)" But Poetry in fiction takes delight,
And mounting in bold figures out of sight,
Leaves Truth behind, in her audacious flight:
Fables and metaphors, that always lie,
And rash hyperboles that soar so high,
And every ornament of verse must die."
Mistake me not: no figures I exclude,
And but forbid intemperance, not food.
Who would with care some happy fiction frame,
So mimicks Truth, it looks the very same;
Not rais'd to force, or feign'd in Nature's scorn,
But meant to grace, illustrate, and adorn.
Important truths still let your fables hold,
And moral mysteries with art unfold.
Ladies and beaux to please, is all the task,
But the sharp critic will instruction ask.

(b) As veils transparent cover, but not hide,
Such metaphors appear when right apply'd ;
When thro' the phrase we plainly see the sense,
Truth, where the meaning's obvious, will dispense;
The reader what in reason 's due, believes,

And pleasures like the winds, that in a moment pass? Nor can we call that false, which not deceives.

Thy thoughts to nobler meditations give,

And study how to die, not how to live.

(c) Hyperboles, so daring and so bold,
Disdaining bounds, are yet by rules control'd
Above the clouds, but still within our sight,
They mount with Truth, and make a tow'ring flight,
Presenting things impossible to view,

They wander thro' incredible to true :
Falsehoods thus mix'd, like metals are refin'd,
And truth, like silver, leaves the dross behind.
Thus Poetry has ample space to soar,

Nor needs forbidden regions to explore:
Such vaunts as his, who can with patience read,
Who thus describes his hero slain and dead:
(d) "Kill'd as he was 1, insensible of death,
He still fights on, and scorns to yield his breath."
The noisy culverin, o'ercharg'd, lets fly,
And bursts unaiming in the rended sky:
Such frantic flights are like a madman's dream,
And Nature suffers in the wild extreme.

The captive Canibal weigh'd down with chains,
Yet braves his foes, reviles, provokes, disdains,
Of nature fierce, untameable, and proud,
He grins defiance at the gaping crowd,
And spent at last, and speechless as he lies,
This is the utmost stretch that Nature can, [dies:
With looks still threatning, mocks their rage and
And all beyond is fulsome, false, and vain.

Beauty's the theme; some nymph divinely fair
Excites the Muse: let truth be even there:
As painters flatter, so may poets too,
But to resemblance must be ever true.

Ariosto.

(e) "The day that she was born, the Cyprian

queen

Had like t'have dy'd thro' envy and thro' spleen;
The Graces in a hurry left the skies
To have the honour to attend her eyes;
And Love, despairing in her heart a place,
Would needs take up his lodging in her face."
Tho' wrote by great Corneille, such lines as these,
Such civil nonsense sure could never please.
Waller, the best of all th' inspir'd train,
To melt the fair, instructs the dying swain.
(f) The Roman wit 2, who impiously divides
His hero and his gods to diff'rent sides,
I would condemn, but that, in spite of sense,
Th' admiring world still stands in his defence,
How oft, alas! the best of men in vain
Contend for blessings which the worst obtain !
The gods, permitting traitors to succeed,
Become not parties in an impious deed:
And by the tyrant's murder, we may find
That Cato and the gods were of a mind.

Thus forcing truth with such prepost'rous praise,
Our characters we lessen, when we'd raise:
Like castles built by magic art in air,
That vanish at approach, such thoughts appear;
But rais'd on truth, by some judicious hand,
As on a rock they shall for ages stand.

(g) Our King 3 return'd, and banish'd peace re-
The Muse ran mad to see her exi'd lord; [stor'd,
On the crack'd stage the bedlain heroes roar'd,
And sarce could speak one reasonable word;
Dryden himself, to please a frantic age,
Was fore'd to let his judgment stoop to rage,
To a wild audience he conform'd his voice,
Comply'd to custom, but not err'd by choice:
Deem then the people's, not the writer's sin,
Almansor's rage, and rants of Maximin ;
That fury spent in each elaborate piece,

He vies for fame with ancient Rome and Greece.
First Mulgrave rose, Roscommon next, like
light,

To clear our darkness, and to guide our flight;
With steady judgment, and in lofty sounds,
They gave us patterns, and they set us bounds;
The Stagirite and Horace laid aside,
Inform'd by them, we need no foreign guide:
Who seek from poetry a lasting name,
May in their lessons learn the road to fame :
But let the bold adventurer be sure
That every line the test of truth endure;
On this foundation may the fabric rise,

Firm and unshaken, till it touch the skies.

and chimera: but being however a system universally agreed on, all that has or may be contrived or invented upon this foundation, according to nature, shall be reputed as truth; but whatsoever shall diminish from, or exceed the just proportions of nature, shall be rejected as false, and pass for extravagance; as dwarfs and giants, for monsters.

(b) When Homer, mentioning Achilles, terms him a lion, this is a metaphor, and the meaning is obvious and true, though the literal sense be false, the poet intending thereby to give his reader some idea of the strength and fortitude of his hero. Had he said, that wolf, or that bear, this had been false, by presenting an image not conformable to the nature and character of a hero, &c.

(c) Hyperboles are of diverse sorts, and the manner of introducing them is different: some are as it were naturalized and established by a customary way of expression; as when we say, such a one is as swift as the wind, whiter than snow, or the itself. Martial, of Zoilus, lewdness itself. Such like. Homer, speaking of Nereus, calls him beauty hyperboles lie indeed, but deceive us not; and therefore Seneca terms them lies that readily conduct our imagination to truths, and have an intelligible signification, though the expression be strained beyond credibility. Custom has likewise ple, by irony; as when we say of some infamous familarised another way for hyperboles, for examwoman, she's a civil person, where the meaning is to be taken quite opposite to the latter. These few figures are mentioned only for example sake; it will be understood that all others are to be used with the like care and discretion.

(d) I needed not to have travelled so far for an extravagant flight; I remember one of British growth of the like nature:

See those dead bodies hence convey'd with care, Life may perhaps return-with change of air. But I choose rather to correct gently, by foreign examples, hoping that such as are conscious of the like excesses will take the hint, and secretly reprove themselves. It may be possible for some tempers to maintain rage and indignation to the last gasp; but the soul and body once parted, there must necessarily be a determination of action.

Qoudcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.

I cannot forbear quoting on this occasion, as an example for the present purpose, two noble lines of Jasper Main's, in the collection of the Oxford Verses

From pulpits banish'd, from the court, from love, printed in the year 1643, upon the death of my

Forsaken Truth seeks shelter in the grove;
Cherish, ye Muses! the neglected fair,
And take into your train th' abandon'd wanderer.

EXPLANATORY ANNOTATIONS

ON THE

FOREGOING POEM.

(a) THE poetic world is nothing but fiction; Parnassus, Pegasus, and the Muses, pure imagination

1 Corneille. 2 Lucan. 3 King Charles II. 4 Earl of Mulgrave's Essay upon Poetry; and Lord Roscommon's upon translated Verse.

grandfather, sir Bevil Granville, slain in the heat of action at the battle of Lansdowne. The poet, after having described the fight, the soldiers animated by the example of their leader, and enraged at his death thus concludes:

Thus he being slain, his action fought anew,
And the dead conquer'd, whilst the living slew.
This is agreeable to truth, and within the compass
of nature: it is thus only that the dead can act.
(e) Le jour qu'elle nâquit, Venus bien qu'immor-
telle,

Pensa mourir de honte, en la voyant si belle,
Les Graces a l'envi descendirent des cieux
Pour avoir l'honeur d'accompagner ses yeux,

Et l'Amour, qui ne pût entrer dans son courage, Voulut obstinément loger sur son visage. This is a lover's description of his mistress, by the great Corneille; civil, to be sure, and polite as any thing can be. Let any body turn over Waller, and he will see how much more naturally and delicately the English author treats the article of love, than this celebrated Frenchman. I would not, however, be thought by any derogatory quotation to take from the merit of a writer, whose reputation is so universally and so justly established in all nations; but as I said before, I rather choose, where any failings are to be found, to correct my own countrymen by foreign examples, than to provoke them by instances drawn from their own writings. Humanum est errare. I cannot forbear one quotation more from another celebrated French author. It is an

epigram upon a monument for Francis I. king of France, by way of question and answer, which in English is verbatim thus:

Under this marble, who hes buried here?
Francis the Great, a king beyond compare.
Why has so great a king so small a stone?
Of that great king here's but the heart alone.
Then of this conqueror here lies but part?
No-here he lies all-for he was all heart.
The author was a Gascon, to whom I can properly
oppose nobody so well as a Welchman, for which
purpose I am farther furnished from the foremen-
tioned collection of Oxford Verses, with an epigram
by Martin Lluellin upon the same subject, which I
remember to have heard often repeated to me when
I was a boy. Besides, from whence can we draw
better examples than from the very seat and nursery
of the Muses?

Thus slain, thy valiant ancestor 1 did lie,
When his one bark a navy did defy;
When now encompass'd round, he victor stood,
And bath'd his pinnace in his conquering blood,
Till, all the purple current dry'd and spent,
He fell, and made the waves his monument.
Where shall the next fam'd Granville's ashes
stand?

Thy grandsire's fills the sea, and thine the land
I cannot say the two last lines, in which consists the
sting or point of the epigram, are strictly conform-
able to the rule herein set down: the word ashes,
metaphorically, cau signify nothing but fame; which
is mere sound, and can fill no space either of land
or sea: the Welchman, however, must be allowed
to have out-done the Gascon. The fallacy of the
French epigram appears at first sight; but the
English strikes the fancy, suspends and dazzles the
judgment, and may perhaps be allowed to pass
under the shelter of those daring hyperboles, which,
by presenting an obvious meaning, make their way,
according to Seneca, through the incredible to true.
(f) Victrix causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
The consent of so many ages having established the
reputation of this line, it may perhaps be presump-
tion to attack it; but it is not to be supposed that

1 Sir Richard Granville, vice-admiral of England in the reign of queen Elizabeth, maintained a fight with his single ship against the whole Armada of Spain, consisting of fifty-three of their best

men of war.

Cato, who is described to have been a man of rigid morals and strict devotion, more resembling the gods than men, would have chosen any party in opposition to those gods, whom he professed to adore. The poet would give us to understand, that his hero was too righteous a person to accompany the divinities themselves in an unjust cause; but to represent a mortal man to be either wiser or juster than the Deity, may show the impiety of the writer, but add nothing to the merit of the hero; neither reason nor religion will allow it, and it is impossible for a corrupt being to be more excellent than a divine: success implies permission, and not approbation; to place the gods always on the thriving side, is to make them partakers of all successful wickedness: to judge right, we must wait for the conclusion of the action; the catastrophe will best decide on which side is Providence, and the violent death of Cæsar acquits the gods from being companions of his usurpation.

Lucan was a determined republican; no wonder he was a free-thinker.

(g) Mr. Dryden, in one of his prologues, has these two lines:

He's bound to please, not to write well, and knows There is a mode in plays, as well as clothes. From whence it is plain where he has exposed himself to the critics; he was forced to follow the fashion to humour an audience, and not to please himself. A hard sacrifice to make for present subsistence, especially for such as would have their writings live as well as themselves. Nor can the poet whose labours are his daily bread, be delivered from this cruel necessity, unless some more certain 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:

Maximin

"I remember some verses of my own, and Almanzor, which cry vengeance upon me for their extravagance, &c. All I can say for those passages, which are 1 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 settie 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 bubbles: 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.