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Like them are good, but from a nobler cause, From your own knowledge, not from nature's laws.

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Your power you never ufe, but for defence,
To guard your own, or other's innocence:
Your foes are fuch, as they, not you, have made,
And virtue may repel, though not invade.
Such courage did the ancient heroes fhow,
Who, when they might prevent, would wait the

blow:

With fuch affurance as they meant to fay, 35
We will o'ercome, but fcorn the safest way.
What further fear of danger can there be?
Beauty, which captives all things, fets me free.
Pofterity will judge by my fuccefs,
I had the Grecian poet's happiness,

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Who, waving plots, found out a better way;
Some God defcended, and preferv'd the play.
When first the triumphs of your fex were fung
By thofe old poets, beauty was but young,
And few admir'd the native red and white, 45
Till poets drefs'd them up to charm the fight;
So beauty took on trust, and did engage
For fums of praises till she came to age.
But this long-growing debt to poetry
You juftly, madam, have discharg'd to me,
When your applaufe and favour did infufe
New life to my condemn'd and dying muse.

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EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

ΤΟ

MR. LEE,

ON HIS

ALEXANDER.

THE blaft of common cenfure could I fear, Before your play my name fhould not appear;

Ver. 1. The blast of common] Every reader of taste muft agree with Addifon, from whofe opinions it is always hazardous to diffent, that none of our poets had a genius more strongly turned for tragedy than Lee. Notwithstanding his many rants and extravagancies, for which Dryden fkilfully and elegantly apologizes in ten admirable lines of this epiftle, from verfe 45, yet are there many beautiful touches of nature and paffion in his Alexander, his Lucius J. Brutus, and Theodofius. So true was what he himself once replied to a puny objector: "It is not an eafy thing to write like a madman, but it is very eafy to write like a fool." When Lord Rochester objected,

"That Lee makes temperate Scipio fret and rave,
And Annibal a whining amorous flave:"

It ought to be remembered, that this is a fault into which the
moft applauded tragedians have frequently fallen, and none
more fo than Corneille and Racine, though the latter was fo
correct a scholar. Lee loft his life in a lamentable manner :
returning home at midnight, in one of his fits of intoxication,
he ftumbled and fell down in the ftreet, and perifhed in a deep
fnow, 1692.
Dr. J. WARTON.

For 'twill be thought, and with fome colour

too,

I pay the bribe I first receiv'd from you;
That mutual vouchers for our fame we ftand, 5
And play the game into each other's hand;
And as cheap pen'orths to ourselves afford,
As Beffus and the brothers of the fword.
Such libels private men may
well endure,
When states and kings themselves are not se-

cure:

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For ill men, conscious of their inward guilt,
Think the beft actions on by-ends are built.
And yet my filence had not 'scap'd their spite;
Then, envy had not fuffer'd me to write;
For, fince I could not ignorance pretend,
Such merit I must envy or commend.
So many candidates there stand for wit,
A place at court is scarce fo hard to get :
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
For e'en reverfions are all begg'd before:
Defert, how known foe'er, is long delay'd;
And then too fools and knaves are better
pay'd:

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Yet, as fome actions bear fo great a name, That courts themselves are juft, for fear of

fhame;

So has the mighty merit of your play
Extorted praise, and forc'd itself away.

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"Tis here as 'tis at fea; who fartheft goes, Or dares the most, makes all the reft his foes. Yet when fome virtue much outgrows the reft,

It shoots too faft, and high, to be expreft; 30 As his heroic worth ftruck envy dumb,

Who took the Dutchman, and who cut the boom.

Such praise is your's, while you the paffions

move,

That 'tis no longer feign'd, 'tis real love,
Where nature triumphs over wretched art; 35
We only warm the head, but you the heart.
Always you warm; and if the rifing year,
As in hot regions, brings the fun too near,
'Tis but to make your fragrant fpices blow,
Which in our cooler climates will not grow. 40
They only think
animate your theme
With too much fire, who are themselves all

phlegm.

you

Prizes would be for lags of flowest pace,

Were cripples made the judges of the race.

Defpife thofe drones, who praife, while they

accufe

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The too much vigour of your youthful mufe. That humble ftyle which they your virtue make,

Is in your power; you need but stoop and

take.

Your beauteous images must be allow'd
By all, but fome vile poets of the crowd.
But how should any fign-post dawber know
The worth of Titian or of Angelo?

Hard features every bungler can command;
To draw true beauty fhews a mafter's hand.

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