THE DREAM.

To the pale tyrant, who to horrid graves
Condemns so many thousand helpless slaves,
Ungrateful we do gentle Sleep compare,
Who, though his victories as numerous are,
Yet from his slaves no tribute does he take,
But woful cares that load men while they wake.
When his soft charms had eas'd my weary sight
Of all the baleful troubles of the light,
Dorinda came, divested of the scorn
Which the unequal'd maid so long had worn;
How oft, in vain, had Love's great god essay'd
To tame the stubborn heart of that bright maid!
Yet, spite of all the pride that swells her mind,
The humble god of Sleep can make her kind.
A rising blush increas'd the native store
Of charms, that but too fatal were before.
Once more present the vision to my view,
The sweet illusion, gentle Fate, renew!
How kind, how lovely she, how ravish'd I!
Show me,
blest god of Sleep, and let me die.

THE

GHOST OF THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS,

TO THE NEW ONE, APPOINTED TO MEET AT OXFORD.

FROM deepest dungeons of eternal night,
The seats of horrour, sorrow, pains, and spite,
I have been sent to tell you, tender youth,
A seasonable and important truth.

I feel (but, oh! too late) that no disease

Is like a surfeit of luxurious ease:

And of all others, the most tempting things
Are too much wealth, and too indulgent kings.
None ever was superlatively ill,

But by degrees, with industry and skill:

And some, whose meaning hath at first been fair,
Grow knaves by use, and rebels by despair.
My time is past, and yours will soon begin,
Keep the first blossoms from the blast of sin;
And by the fate of my tumultuous ways,
Preserve yourselves, and bring serener days.
The busy, subtle serpents of the law,
Did first my mind from true obedience draw:
While I did limits to the king prescribe,
And took for oracles that canting tribe,

I chang'd true freedom for the name of free,
And grew seditious for variety:

All that oppos'd me were to be accus'd,

And by the laws illegally abus'd;

The robe was summon'd, Maynard in the head,

In legal murder none so deeply read;

1 brought him to the bar, where once he stood,
Stain'd with the (yet unexpiated) blood

Of the brave Strafford, when three kingdoms rung
With his accumulative hackney-tongue;
Prisoners and witnesses were waiting by,
These had been taught to swear, and those to die,
And to expect their arbitrary fates,
Some for ill faces, some for good estates.
To fright the people, and alarm the town,
Bedloe and Oates employ'd the reverend gown.
But while the triple mitre bore the blame,
The king's three crowns were their rebellious aim:

269

I seem'd (and did but seem) to fear the guards,
And took for mine the Bethels and the Wards:
Anti-mornarchic heretics of state,
Immoral atheists, rich and reprobate:
But above all I got a little guide,
Who every ford of villany had try'd:
None knew so well the old pernicious way,
To ruin subjects, and make kings obey;
And my small Jehu, at a furious rate,
Was driving Eighty back to Forty-eight.
This the king knew, and was resolv'd to bear,
But I mistook his patience for his fear.
All that this happy island could afford,
Was sacrific'd to my voluptuous board.
In his whole paradise, one only tree
He had excepted by a strict decree;
A sacred tree, which royal fruit did bear,
Yet it in pieces I conspir'd to tear;
Beware, my child! divinity is there.
This so undid all I had done before,

I could attempt, and he endure no more;
My unprepar'd, and unrepenting breath,

Was snatch'd away by the swift hand of Death;
And I, with all my sins about me, hurl'd
To th' utter darkness of the lower world:
A dreadful place! which you too soon will see,
If you believe seducers more than me.

ON THE

DEATH OF A LADY'S DOG.

THOU, happy creature, art secure
From all the torments we endure;
Despair, ambition, jealousy,
Lost friends, nor love, disquiet thee;
A sullen prudence drew thee hence
From noise, fraud, and impertinence.
Though Life essay'd the surest wile,
Gilding itself with Laura's smile;
How didst thou scorn Life's meaner charms,
Thou who could'st break from Laura's arms!
Poor Cynic! still methinks I hear
Thy awful murmurs in my ear;
As when on Laura's lap you lay,
Chiding the worthless crowd away.
How fondly human passions turn!
What we then envy'd, now we mourn!

EPILOGUE

ΤΟ

ALEXANDER THE GREAT,

WHEN ACTED AT THE THEATRE IN DUBLIN.

You've seen to-night the glory of the East,
The man, who all the then known world possest,
That kings in chains did son of Ammon call,
And kingdoms thought divine, by treason fall.
Him Fortune only favour'd for her sport;
And when his conduct wanted her support,
His empire, courage, and his boasted line,
Were all prov'd mortal by a slave's design.
Great Charles, whose birth has promis'd milder sway,
Whose awful nod all nations must obey,

Secur'd by higher powers, exalted stands
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands;
Those miracles that guard his crowns declare,
That Heaven has form'd a monarch worth their care;

Born to advance the loyal, and depose
His own, his brother's, and his father's foes.
Faction, that once made diadems her prey,
And stopt our prince in his triumphant way,
Fled like a mist before this radiant day.
So when, in Heaven, the mighty rebels rose,
Proud, and resolv'd that empire to depose,
Angels fought first, but unsuccessful prov'd,
God kept the conquest for his best belov'd:
At sight of such omnipotence they fly,
Like leaves before autumnal winds, and die.
All who before him did ascend the throne,
Labour'd to draw three restive nations on.
He boldly drives them forward without pain,
They hear his voice, and straight obey the rein.
Such terrour speaks him destin'd to command;
We worship Jove with thunder in his hand;
But when his mercy without power appears,
We slight his altars, and neglect our prayers.
How weak in arms did civil Discord show!
Like Saul, she struck with fury at her foe,
When an immortal hand did ward the blow.
Her offspring, made the royal hero's scorn,
Like sons of Earth, all fell as soon as born:
Yet let us boast, for sure it is our pride,
When with their blood our neighbour lands were dy'd,
Ireland's untainted loyalty remain'd,
Her people guiltless, and her fields unstain'd.

ON THE

DAY OF JUDGMENT.

THE day of wrath, that dreadful day,
Shall the whole world in ashes lay,
As David and the Sibyls say.

What horrour will invade the mind,
When the strict Judge, who would be kind,
Shall have few venial faults to find!

The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound
Shall through the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations under ground.
Nature and Death shall, with surprise,
Behold the pale offender rise,

And view the Judge with conscious eyes.

Then shall, with universal dread,
The sacred mystic book be read,
To try the living and the dead.

The Judge ascends his awful throne,
He makes each secret sin be known,
And all with shame confess their own.

O then! what interest shall I make,
To save my last important stake,
When the most just have cause to quake?

Thou mighty, formidable King,
Thou mercy's unexhausted spring,

Some comfortable pity bring!

Forget not what my ransom cost,
Nor let my dear-bought soul be lost,
In storms of guilty terrour tost.
Thou, who for me didst feel such pain,

Whose precious blood the cross did stain,
Let not those agonies be vain.

Thou, whom avenging powers obey,
Cancel my debt (too great to pay)
Before the sad accounting-day.

Surrounded with amazing fears,
Whose load my soul with anguish bears,
I sigh, I weep: accept my tears.

Thou, who wert mov'd with Mary's grief,
And, by absolving of the thief,
Hast given me hope, now give relief.

Reject not my unworthy prayer,
Preserve me from that dangerous snare
Which Death and gaping Hell prepare.

Give my exalted soul a place
Among thy chosen right-band race;
The sons of God, and heirs of grace.

From that insatiable abyss,
Where flames devour, and serpents hiss,
Promote me to thy seat of bliss.

Prostrate my contrite heart I rend,
My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end.

Well may they curse their second breath,
Who rise to a reviving death;

Thou great Creator of mankind,
Let guilty man compassion find!

PROLOGUE

ΤΟ

POMPEY, A TRAGEDY,

TRANSLATED BY MRS. CATH. PHILIPS, FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSIEUR CORNEILLE,

AND ACTED AT THE THEATRE IN DUBLIN.

THE mighty rivals, whose destructive rage
Did the whole world in civil arms engage,
Are now agreed; and make it both their choice,
To have their fates determin'd by your voice.
Cæsar from none but you will have his doom,
He hates th' obsequious flatteries of Rome :
He scorns, where once he rul'd, now to be try'd,
And he hath rul'd in all the world beside.
When he the Thames, the Danube, and the Nile,
Had stain'd with blood, Peace flourish'd in this isle;
And you alone may boast, you never saw
Cæsar till now, and now can give him law.
Great Pompey too, comes as a suppliant here,
But says he cannot now begin to fear:
He knows your equal justice, and (to tell
A Roman truth) he knows himself too well.
Success, 'tis true, waited on Cæsar's side,
But Pompey thinks he conquer'd when he died.
His fortune, when she prov'd the most unkind,
Chang'd his condition, but not Cato's mind.

HORACE'S ART OF POETRY'. Scribendi rectè, sapere est et principium et fons. I HAVE seldom known a trick succeed, and will put none upon the reader; but tell him plainly, that I

think it could never be more seasonable than now

to lay down such rules, as, if they be observed, will make men write more correctly, and judge more discreetly: but Horace must be read seriously, or not at all; for else the reader wont be the better for him, and I shall have lost my labour. I have kept as close as I could, both to the meaning and the words of the author, and done nothing but what I believe he would forgive if he were alive; and I have often asked myself that question. I know this is a field,

Per quem magnús equos Auruncæ flexit
Alumnus.

But with all the respect due to the name of Ben Jonson, to which no man pays more veneration than I, it cannot be denied, that the constraint of rhyme, and a literal translation, (to which Horace in this book declares himself an enemy) has made him want a comment in many places.

My chief care has been to write intelligibly;

and where the Latin was obscure, I have added a line or two to explain it.

I am below the envy of the critics; but, if I durst, I would beg them to remember, that Horace

owed his favour and his fortune to the character

given of him by Virgil and Varius; that Fundanius and Pollio are still valued by what Horace says of them, and that, in their golden age, there was a good understanding among the ingenious, and those who were the most esteemed were the best

natured.

Ir in a picture (Piso) you should see
A handsome woman with a fish's tail,
Or a man's head upon a horse's neck,
Or limbs of beasts of the most different kinds,
Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds,
Would you not laugh, and think the painter mad!
Trust me, that book is as ridiculous,
Whose incoherent style (like sick men's dreams)
Varies all shapes, and mixes all extremes.
Painters and poets have been still allow'd
Their pencils, and their fancies unconfin'd.
This privilege we freely give and take;
But Nature, and the common laws of sense,
Forbid to reconcile antipathies,

Or make a snake engender with a dove,
And hungry tigers court the tender lambs.
Some, that at first have promis'd mighty things,
Applaud themselves, when a few florid lines
Shine through th' insipid dulness of the rest;
Here they describe a temple, or a wood,
Or streams that through delightful meadows run,
And there the rainbow, or the rapid Rhine;
But they misplace them all, and crowd them in,
And are as much to seek in other things,
As he, that only can design a tree,
Would be to draw a shipwreck or a storm.

Printed from Dr. Rawlinson's copy, corrected by the earl of Roscommon's own hand.

When you begin with so much pomp and show,
Why is the end so little and so low?

Be what you will, so you be still the same.
Most poets fall into the grossest faults,
Deluded by a seeming excellence:

By

striving to be short, they grow obscure, And when they would write smoothly, they want Their spirits sink; while others, that affect strength, A lofty style, swell to a tympany.

Some timorous wretches start at every blast,

And, fearing tempests, dare not leave the shore;
Others, in love with wild variety,
Thus fear of erring, join'd with want of skill,
Draw boars in waves, and dolphins in a wood:
Is a most certain way of erring still.

The meanest workman in th' Æmilian square,
May grave the nails, or imitate the hair,
But cannot finish what he hath begun:
What can be more ridiculous than he?
Where all the rest are scandalously ill,
For one or two good features in a face,
Make it but more remarkably deform'd.

And often try what weight they can support,
Let poets match their subject to their strength,
And what their shoulders are too weak to bear.
Method and eloquence will never fail.
After a serious and judicious choice,

As well the force as ornament of verse
And knowing when a Muse may be indulg'd
Consists in choosing a fit time for things,
In her full flight, and when she should be curb'd.
You gain your point, when by the noble art
Words must be chosen, and be plac'd with skill:
Of good connection, an unusual word
Is made at first familiar to our ear.

But if you write of things abstruse or new,
Some of your own inventing may be us'd,
So it be seldom and discreetly done:
But he, that hopes to have new words allow'd,
Must so derive them from the Grecian spring,
As they may seem to flow without constraint.
Can an impartial reader discommend
In Varius, or in Virgil, what he likes
In Plautus or Cæcilius? Why should I
Be envy'd for the little I invent,
When Ennius and Cato's copious style
Have so enrich'd, and so adorn'd our tongue?
Men ever had, and ever will have, leave
To cojn new words well suited to the age.
Words are like leaves, some wither every year,
And every year a younger race succeeds.
Death is a tribute all things owe to Fate;
The Lucrine mole (Cæsar's stupendous work)
Protects our navies from the raging north;
And (since Cethegus drain'd the Pontine lake)
We plough and reap where former ages row'd.
See how the Tiber (whose licentious waves
So often overflow'd the neighbouring fields)
Now runs a smooth and inoffensive course,
Confin'd by our great emperor's command:
Yet this, and they, and all, will be forgot.
Why then should words challenge eternity,
When greatest men and greatest actions die?
Use may revive the obsoletest words,

And banish those that now are most in vogue;
Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech.
Homer first taught the world in epic verse
To write of great commanders and of kings.
Elegies were at first design'd for grief,

Though now we use them to express our joy: But to whose Muse we owe that sort of verse, Is undecided by the men of skill.

Rage with iambics arm'd Archilochus, Numbers for dialogue and action fit, And favourites of the dramatic Muse: Fierce, lofty, rapid, whose commanding sound Awes the tumultuous noises of the pit, And whose peculiar province is the stage.

Gods, heroes, conquerors, Olympic crowns, Love's pleasing cares, and the free joys of wine, Are proper subjects for the lyric song.

Why is he honour'd with a poet's name,
Who neither knows nor would observe a rule;
And chooses to be ignorant and proud,
Rather than own his ignorance, and learn?
Let every thing have its due place and time.
A comic subject loves an humble verse,
Thyestes scorns a low and comic style.
Yet Comedy sometimes may raise her voice,
And Chremes be allow'd to foam and rail:
Tragedians too lay by their state to grieve;
Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor,
Forget their swelling and gigantic words.
He that would have spectators share his grief,
Must write not only well, but movingly,
And raise men's passions to what height he will.
We weep and laugh, as we see others do:
He only makes me sad who shows the way,
And first is sad himself; then, Telephus,
I feel the weight of your calamities,
And fancy all your miseries my own:
But, if you act them ill, I sleep or laugh;
Your looks must alter, as your subject does,
From kind to fierce, from wanton to severe:
For Nature forms, and softens us within,
And writes our fortune's changes in our face.
Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports,
And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul,
And these are all interpreted by speech;
But he whose words and fortunes disagree,
Absurd, unpity'd, grows a public jest.
Observe the characters of those that speak,'
Whether an honest servant, or a cheat,

Or one whose blood boils in his youthful veins,
Or a grave matron, or a busy nurse,
Extorting merchants, careful husbandmen,
Argives or Thebans, Asians or Greeks.

Follow report, or feign coherent things;
Describe Achilles, as Achilles was,
Impatient, rash, inexorable, proud,
Scorning all judges, and all law but arms;
Medea must be all revenge and blood,
Ino all tears, Ixion all deceit,

lo must wander, and Orestes mourn.

If your bold Muse dare tread unbeaten paths,
And bring new characters upon the stage,
Be sure you keep them up to their first height.
New subjects are not easily explain'd,

And you had better choose a well-known theme
Than trust to an invention of your own:
For what originally others writ,

May be so well disguis'd, and so improv'd,
That with some justice it may pass for yours;
But then you must not copy trivial things,
Nor word for word too faithfully translate,
Nor (as some servile imitators do)
Prescribe at first such strict uneasy rules,
As you must ever slavishly observe,
Or all the laws of decency renounce.
VOL VIII.

Begin not as th' old poetaster did, "Troy's famous war, and Priam's fate, I sing." In what will all this ostentation end? The labouring mountain scarce brings forth a mouse: How far is this from the Mæonian style?

Muse, speak the man, who, since the siege of Troy, So many towns, such change of manners saw." One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke, The other out of smoke brings glorious light. And (without raising expectation high) Surprises us with daring miracles, The bloody Lestrygons, Charybdis' gulf, And frighted Greeks, who near the Etna shore, Hear Scylla bark, and Polyphemus roar. He doth not trouble us with Leda's eggs, When he begins to write the Trojan war; Nor, writing the return of Diomed, Go back as far as Meleager's death: Nothing is idle, each judicious line Insensibly acquaints us with the plot; He chooses only what he can improve, And truth and fiction are so aptly mix'd, That all seems uniform, and of a piece.

Now hear what every auditor expects;
If you intend that he should stay to hear
The epilogue, and see the curtain fall,
Mind how our tempers alter in our years,
And by that rule form all your characters.
One that hath newly learn'd to speak and go,
Loves childish plays, is soon provok'd and pleas'd,
And changes every hour his wavering mind.
A youth, that first casts off his tutor's yoke,
Loves horses, hounds, and sports, and exercise,
Prone to all vice, impatient of reproof,
Proud, careless, fond, inconstant, and profuse.
Gain and ambition rule our riper years,
And make us slaves to interest and power.
Old men are only walking hospitals,
Where all defects and all diseases crowd
With restless pain, and more tormenting fear,
Lazy, morose, full of delays and hopes,
Oppress'd with riches which they dare not use;
Ill-natur'd censors of the present age,
And fond of all the follies of the past.
Thus all the treasure of our flowing years,
Our ebb of life for ever takes away.
Boys must not have th' ambitious care of men,
Nor men the weak anxieties of age.

Some things are acted, others only told;
But what we hear moves less than what we see;
Spectators only have their eyes to trust,
But auditors must trust their ears and you;
Yet there are things improper for a scene,
Which men of judgment only will relate.
Medea must not draw her murdering knife,
And spill her childrens' blood upon the stage,
Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare.
Cadmus and Progné's metamorphosis,
(She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake)
And whatsoever contradicts my sense,

I hate to see, and never can believe.
Five acts are the just measure of a play.
Never presume to make a god appear,
But for a business worthy of a god;

And in one scene no more than three should speak.
A chorus should supply what action wants,
And hath a generous and manly part;
Bridles wild rage, loves rigid honesty,
And strict observance of impartial laws,
Sobriety, security, and peace,

Ꭲ