Miscellany Poems, By Mr. DENNIS: WITH Select Translations OF HORACE. JUVENAL, Mons. BOILEAU's Epistles, Satyrs, etc. And AESOP's FABLES, in Burlesque Verse.  
To which is added, The PASSION of BYBLIS: WITH SOME Critical Reflections on Mr. OLDHAM, and his Writings.  
With LETTERS and POEMS.  
The Second Edition with large Additions.  
LONDON, Printed for Sam. Briscoe in Covent-Garden, M DC XC VII.   

TO THE Right Honourable, etc.  
My Lord,  
I Presume to Dedicate the following Trifles to you; which, if you were one, who judged by the Volume, would yet have more the appearance of Trifles. Let them be what they will, they are the most valuable things that I have to offer: and the Obligations which I have to your Lordship are so extraordinary, that to endeavour to make no return, would be down right Ingratitude. Your Lordship will be inclined to think me bold to excess, when you hear me boasting of Favours received from you, though perhaps you have never so much as heard of me. Yet, I desire leave to repeat it, the Obligations which I have to you are altogether Extraordinary. For it is owing to your Lordship that I have passed some moments of a melancholy Life with inexpressible pleasure. For as reading has always been my chief diversion, your Lordship's admirable Writings have been able to give me joy in spite of ill Fate. Your happy and commanding Genius never failed to control my evil weaker one, and seemed still to cry out to it, Whilst I am by, he must not be unhappy.  
Nor have I only the obligation to your Lordship of your own incomparable Writings, but of most of the productions of the best Writers of our Age. 'Tis from your Generous Approbation, that they have derived that spirit which renders their Works Immortal. For when ever a Man who is so truly great as your Lordship, shall vouchsafe to look with a favourable aspect on Poetry, it will not fail to flourish, though all the Stars look malignantly. Even I, My Lord, who am no Poet, have notwithstanding found that the desire of pleasing so accomplished a judge, has more than once inspired me with that noble warmth, which Heaven and Nature denied me. When Heaven sent Maecenas into the World to be first Minister to the Commonwealth of Rome and of Learning, than arose Virgil and Horace, and the rest of those extraordinary Men, whose very single Names are grown to be entire and glorious Panegyrics. When several Ages after him, Cardinal Richlieu was established in France in his double Capacity, the Muses were invited to pass the Mountains, and breathe the sweetness of the gallic Air. After Maecenas and Cardinal Richlieu, your Lordship will stand eternally recorded by Fame, as the last in succession of that Illustrious Triumvirate, and it will always stand recorded together by the same everlasting Register, That in your Lordship's time England had more good Poets, than it could boast from the Conquest to You before. By animating and exciting the very best of which, you will for ever oblige all those who are to receive Delight and Instruction, from them. Thus is your goodness grown so diffusive, that its influence extends to thousands whom you never heard of. Titus was the Delight and joy of mankind, but your Lordship is, and for ever will be so. You have found out a better way than either Maecenas or Richlieu, to oblige not only the present Age, but even remotest Posterity. For if we cherish Maecenas his Memory, though we know that he endeavoured at the same time to polish and enslave the World; if the Memory of Richlieu be dear to us, though at the same time that he treated the Muses magnificently, he laid the cursed design of Europe's Captivity: with what blessings must not we mention your Lordship, when we consider that we owe at once our Delight and our Safety to you? For at the very time that you are the Delight and joy of your Age, and Ornament of your Country, at the very time that you exalt the Honour of England by your own admirable Writings, and the Labours of those Excellent Men, whom your authentic applause inspires; at the same time by giving wholesome Counsels to our August Monarch, you become instrumental in the defence of our Liberties, and the general security of the Christian World. Maecenas and Richlieu protected the Muses, but their Protection was partly at least political, and necessary for the gaining or softening some unruly Spirits, who would have been else too turbulent for the New Yoke. But your Lordship's Patronage proceeds from no sinister end, no unjust design on our Liberties; but purely from the greatness of your noble Mind, and a Godlike principle of inbred Beneficence.  
Thus, My Lord, have I been guilty of a fault which is common to all the most supportable Dedications. For I have hitherto told the Public nothing concerning you, but what I learned from the Public before. There is no Man but knows that of all the Nobility your Lordship has been always the most true and most candid Friend to the Muses. Whilst others are employed in finding their faults, it is your prerogative to pardon them, and approve their Beauties. This is what is known to every one. But every one does not know that to find faults requires but common Sense; but to discern rare Beauties, requires a rare Genius. Thus if your Lordship will pardon so poetical a Similitude, when one of the glories of the fairer Sex, one who was framed and designed by Providence to bless some Man who is greatly good, and give an earnest of Heaven below to him; when such a one is at any time seen amongst us, the vulgar Spectators, those Critics in Beauty, are busy in censuring some Mole or some Blemish, or some inconsiderable Irregularity, which Nature industriously perhaps contrived with intention to set off her great Masterpiece. But when a Man who has a Soul that in creating was formed to be moved by Beauty, that is, a beautiful Soul, when he contemplates her, he gazes, admires, and loves in a Moment; then follow transporting impatient wishes to return that happiness he receives from the lovely Object. Your Lordship could never be the Muse's best Friend, if you were not the Man who understood them best. If you had not height of Genius, and largeness of Soul to comprehend all their Excellencies: If you did not sensibly feel their elevation of thought with all its warmth, its force and its delicacy; which you could never fully discern, if you did not throughly understand their Tongues, if you had not skill to judge of its finest Grace, its Vigour, its Purity, its judicious Boldness, its comprehensive Energy, and all its glorious attractive ornaments. Your Lordship could never be completely skilled in those ornaments, if you had not a piercing and a delicate Eye; an Eye that can readily judge betwixt tawdry Trimming and proper, that can discern betwixt gay and curious Colours, and can distinguish vain gaudy Pageantry, from pompous richness and true Magnificence. You could never converse with the Muses so freely as to understand them fully, if you did not perfectly speak that language of the Gods, in all its Sweetness, all its Abundance, in all the power of its various Numbers, and in all its harmonious Majesty. No, My Lord, you could never be pleased to a height with the Writings of others, if in writing, yourself you had not felt those happy Enthusiasms, those violent Emotions, those supernatural transports which exalt a mortal above mortality, give delight and admiration to all the World, but shake and ravish a Poet's Soul with insupportable pleasure.  
But it is high time to take leave of a Subject which throws me into a heat, which is very inconsistent with the respect that is due to your Lordship's Character.  
Otherwise it would be no hard matter to prove from the same affection which you bear to the Muses, that your Lordship's Virtue shines as bright as your Genius. 
Carmen amat quisquis Carmine digna gerit.   
But there is small need of proving that Virtue which all men discover by its own light. Your Lordship's Genius shines but to a few, to none but those happy few, who have some particles in their breasts of the same eternal Fire. For inspiation alone can capacitate a Mortal to behold Celestial Beauties. The Vulgar discern it as they do a fixed Star, they see that it is, they see that it shines: but the Rays that it casts at that infinite distance, can but just reach their benighted Souls thro' the horrid gloom that surrounds them; and it is with pleasing wonder that they hear the Sons of Art proclaiming its prodigious Grandeur, its amazing Glory. But all men have a clear Idea of Virtue, though few have a just notion of Genius. Your Virtue, My Lord, like the Sun, is nearer to them, though that too is at a mighty distance, yet not so remote but that at the time that it cherishes them, it casts more light upon them, than their Souls can directly bear.  
Who does not admire your Goodness, your Charity, your generous Condescension, your greatness of Mind, your noblest Friendship; and to crown all, your Passionate Concern for your Country's welfare? These are the qualities which have caused your Lordship to be beloved universally, nay, and beloved too with as much warmth as if you were neither much esteemed nor respected, yet at the same time so profoundly esteemed, and in that awful manner respected, as if you were not beloved. The news of your late Promotion was received with the universal acknowledgement, That your Lordship was an honour to that most noble Order, which is an honour to Kings; and we all cried out unanimously with your own Horace, 
Maecenas equitum decus!   
But I must be forced to stop short in this full career, lest proceeding I should please all Readers but you, whom of all Readers I would least displease. Before I conclude, I think fit to acquaint your Lordship, that I omitted the prefixing your name to this bold Epistle for several reasons: the chief of which is that. I might not be liable to the accusation which one of our greatest Wits has some time since brought against dedicating Authors; which is, that they paint so grossly, that it were impossible to know for whom the Dawbers designed their Pictures, if they did not; to inform us, set their names on the Top. I appeal to all those who shall happen to read this, if before they found you named, they did not conclude that what has been said all along could be addressed to no man, and justly applied to no man; but my Lord Dorset alone. I am,  
My Lord, Your Lordship's most Humble, Most Obedient, and most faithful Servant, JOHN DENNIS.   

THE PREFACE.  
THE Verses composing this little Volume, were Writ on such various Subjects, that many of them required quite different Spirits, and quite oppose Characters. Some of them demanded the Enthusiastic Spirit; and all that others were capapable of was a little good Sense, and an air of gaiety. The first were the most difficult to handle by much; which yet, if they should chance to be managed aright, would make me an ample a mends for my toil. For though mear Enthusiasm is but Madness, nothing can be more noble than that which is rightly regulated; and nothing can come nearer that which I fancy to be a true description of Wit; which is a just mixture of Reason and Extravagance, that is such a mixture as reason may always be sure to predominate, and make its mortal Enemy subservient to its grand design of discovering and illustrating sacred Truth. When I writ the Pindaric Ode, the high Idea that I had of the Subject and of the way of writing, made me resolve to spare for no Pains before I set Pen to Paper, that I might form a design which might have something great and Pindarical. For the skilful Reader will easily discern, that the disorder in that Ode is studied, and that the Transitions which appear so wild and so foreign, tend directly to show what I designed to prove, viz. That the happiness of England, and the Success of the Confederacy depended on the King's Person. How I have succeeded I must leave to the Readers to judge; yet not to every Reader. For the Pindaric why, if you'll give credit to a great Master, is dangerous both to Writer and Reader. The first must have some qualities at the time of writing, which are rarely to be found together, as Precipitation and Address, Boldness and Decency, Sublimeness and Clearness, Fury and Sense; the last must have Fancy to see his flights, and Skill to judge of their Art He who mounts the Pindaric Pegasus may be compared to a man a Hawking, who rides at all upon a headlong Hunter, with his Eye still fixed on a towering Game, so that he must not only have something of Art, but of Happiness besides, to escape a Fall. Let my Fortune be what it will, my comfort is this, That England, since Mr. Cowle is time, has not seen many Pindaric Odes, whose Authors have reason to boast of their kind reception.  
I should now say something of the Verses upon the Sea-Fight, and one or two Copies more. But though they have something in them that seems bold to presumption; yet they have already met with such kind entertainment in the World, that the consideration of that in some measure assures me.  
But since almost a third of this little Book consists of Burlesque Composures, and since Burlesque, at present, lies under the disadvantage of having two great Authorities against it; viz. Boileau's, and Mr. Dryden's: I think myself obliged not only upon that account, but upon consideration too of that wonderful pleasure which I have so often received from Butler, to vindicate Burlesque from the scandal that is brought upon it, by the Censures of two such extraordinary Men.  
The charge of Boileau is in his Art of Poetry, Chant pray in these Lines. 
Quoyque vous ecriviez, evitez la bassesse  
Le style, le moins noble, a pourtant sa noblesse,  
Au mepris du bon sens le Burlesque effronté.  
Trompa les yeux d' aboard, pleut parsa noveaute,  
On ne vid plus en vers que points triviales;  
Le Parnasse parla le language des Hales.   
Which in English paraphrastick Prose, is thus: Whatever you write, let a Gentleman's manner appear in it; The lowest stile of the man, who knows how to write, will still have a noble Air with it. But rightly to observe this rule, you must be sure to decline Burlesque, which not long since insolently appeared in contempt of Reason, and pleased at the expense of good Sense: it pleased indeed a while, but pleased only as it was a fantastic novelty: It debased the dignity of Verse by its trivial Points, and taught Parnassus a Billingsgate Dialect.  
This indeed is a violent charge, and may hold very good against Scaron, and the French Burlesque; but there is not one Article of it but what will fall to the Ground, if it comes to be applied to Butler. Scaron's Burlesque has nothing of a Gentleman in it, little of good Sense, and consequently little of true Wit. For though there may be good Sense found without Wit, there can be no true Wit, where there is no good Sense. For a Thought that is really witty, must necessarily be true, and have something in it that's Solid; So that Quibbles and all Equivocals can have little or nothing of true Wit in them. Wit is a just mixture of Reason and Extravagance, and the Extravagance must be there, only in order to give the Reason the more lustre. Now that there is little of Reason and good Sense in Scaron's Burlesque, all who are acquainted with him, very well know; Instead of it there are equivocals and trivial points in abundance. His language is so very mean that it may well be called le language des Hales. Scaron therefore pleased but a while (by his Burlesque, I mean, for his Novels will certainly please eternally) and I do not remember that he has been imitated by any one of the famous French Wits. It is no wonder if his manner with all these ill qualities, has been rejected by the French Court, and condemned by this judicious Poet and Critic.  
But the contrary of whatever has been said of Scaron, is certainly true of Butler: There is seen much of a Gentleman in his Burlesque; There is so much Wit and Goodsense to be found in him, and so much true observation on mankind, that I do not believe there is more, take Volume for Volume in any one Author we have, the Plain-Dealer only excepted; Besides, there is a vivacity and purity in his Language, wherever it was fit it should be pure, that could proceed from nothing but from a generous Education, and from a happy Nature. And further Butler's Burlesque was certainly writ with a just design, which was to expose Hypocrisy. Scaron's Burlesque, was writ either with no design, or but with a very scurvy one. For the only design that can be imagined of his Virgil Travesty, was to ridicule Heroick Poetry, which is the noblest invention of human Wit. Since then, Butler excelled in so many things in which Seakon is defective, we may very well conclude, That Boilean's accusation reaches not our English Poet. Which Sir William Soames saw very well, when he translated this Art of Poetry, for he was so far from declaring against Burlesque, that he ventured, though it was foreign from his Author, to propound Butler as a model to those who had a mind to write it. The late Lord Rochester, who was very well acquainted with Boileau, and who deferred very much to his Judgement, did not at all believe that the censure of Boileau extended to Butler: For if he had, he would never have followed his fashion in several of his masterly Copies. Nor would a noble Wit, who is a living Honour to his Country, and the English Court, have condescended to write Burlesque, if he had not discerned that there was in Butler's manner something extremely fine, as well as something extremely sensible in very many of his Thoughts.  
I now come to examine Mr. Dryden's objections to Butler, which I shall do with all the submission and deference that is due to the judgement of that extraordinary Man. And therefore I have reason to hope that I shall give no offence to him nor to any Man, by undertaking my own defence. For to plead the Cause of Butler is at present to maintain my own. For if he who is so admirable an Original, is rightly reprehended for writing in Burlesque: I who am but his follower, and can never pretend to come near his excellence, ought much more severely to be censured. I must confess that in Mr. Dryden's accusation of Burlesque, there are no such murdering Articles, as there are in that of Boilean against Scaron; For Mr. Dryden allows Butler to have shown a great deal of good Sense in that way of writing; so that we have here gained one considerable Point, which Boileau seemed not to allow us, which is that good Sense is consistent with Burlesque. Mr. Dryden's quarrel is to the numbers of Butler: he says that he might have chosen a better sort, affirming that he would equally have excelled in all.  
Whether he would have practised all sorts of Numbers with equal felicity, is what I have not now time to examine. But granting that, it is more than probable that he chose aright. For I would fain ask any man one question; Whether he thinks Nature had given Butler a Talon to treat of the adventures of Hudibras? For if any one grants that she had given him such a Talon, I will not stick to affirm that it could not fail to suggest to him the properest means for the carrying on his design.  
Mr. Dryden's objections to the Numbers of Butler are two, the first is to the Measure, the second to the Rhymes. The Verse of eight Syllables he says is too scanty, and there is not room enough for the Thought to turn itself with ease in it. But how vain a thing is it to argue against experience? For Butler has not only as many and as beautiful thoughts as most Authors, but he is as clear a Writer. Besides, Mr. Dryden may be pleased to remember that the most sensible Copy of Verses in all Waller, is in the measure of eight Syllables, which is that which begins, 
Anger in hasty words or blows.   
Mr. Dryden himself in his Preface to the second part of the Sylvae, advises all who attempt the Pindaric way, to confine themselves chiefly to Lyrical Numbers: and Numbers which are truly Lyrical are seldom to be extended beyond the eight syllable. His practice too is very agreeable to his precept in his incomparble Translation of Tyrrhena Regum Progenies. Now it is plain that in the Pindaric way the Thoughts rise, and the Soul swells more, if I may have leave to use that expression, than in any other sort of writing. Whereas in satire the thoughts ought to be more simple, and the expressions less magnificent. It follows from what has been said, that if the measure of eight syllables is agreeable in Pindaric Verse; it is much more agreeable to Burlesque, which is a kind of satire. Besides it is apparent that in Burlesque, the measure is often extended to the ninth and sometimes to the tenth syllable.  
But it is high time to say something of the Rhymes. Mr. Dryden complains that they return too thick upon us: but then the thoughts have the quicker turns, and I never can be persuaded that succinctness can be a fault in writing, unless it be destructive of perspicuity. It is objected that double and treble Rhymes are effeminate, and debase the dignity of Veise below manly satire. But this objection will be in force too against Tassone, whose manner Mr. Dryden seems to approve of: For he has writ his satire in double and treble Rhymes too, but with this difference from Butler, that Butler makes use of them but sometimes, and Tassone does it perpetually. Nay the great Tasso has written his Heroic Poem in them. I shall find another time to speak at large of the Gierusalemme: but this I can say at present, which is remarkably to the purpose, That some parts of that Poem are so far from being effeminate, that they have incomparably more gravity than any long wound Poem which has been writ by the Moderns, if you only except some passages of the Paradise lost of Milton.  
Mr. Dryden himself in his own Satyrs has sometimes made use of double and treble Rhymes, even in Heroic Verse. And in the Character of Zimri, which Mr. Dryden prefers to any part of Absalon and Achitophel, there are two couplets in the space of eight Lines, which are writ in double Rhymes, and those two couplets are two of the very best in all that admirable Character.  
There is more than one considerable advantage that we have by our Burlesque Rhymes. For first, they show the power and plenty of the English Tongue. For neither Italian nor French have a sort of Rhymes for their Burlesque, which is different from those which they have for their other kinds of Verse. Nor have they in either of those Tongues any of those odd Rhymes, to the making up of which two or three words conspire. These Rhymes thus constituted (which is another advantage of our English Burlesque) seem to me to be as peculiarly becoming of a Jest, as a roguish Leer, or a comical tone of a Voice; and that it may plainly appear that this is no Whimsy, let the best Versifier in England turn these two Lines of Butler. 
And Pulpit drum Ecclesiastic  
Was beat with Fist instead of a Stick;   
Let any one I say turn these two Lines into other Rhymes and other Measures, and I dare engage that the Jest shall lose considerably.  
Before I take my leave of Burlesque & Butler, I think fit to say something of the latter, which has not so direct a reference to his way of writing (though that too is indirectly commended by it) as to the incomparable genius of the Man. It is this that if any one would set the Common places of Tassone and Boileau's Lutrin against those of Butler, it would appear for the Honour of England, that neither the French man nor Italian could stand before us. The most diverting thing in all the Lutrin is the Battle at Barbin's Shop. Chant. 5. Yet that, if it is compared with the Battle in the second Canto of the first part of Hudibras, though it is so diverting when we read it alone, will appear to be perfectly insipid.  
Before I conclude I have two things to say farther. The one is, that the Verses to Flavia were writ by a Friend of mine and only Corrected by me, and it is by my friends leave that they are here inserted. The other thing is this, that though I may expect to have this little Book severely examined, because I have attacked several great men, who are all of them many degrees above me, yet I shall not at all repent of any thing I have writ by way of Criticism, if I do but in any measure obtain what I designed by it, which was nothing but to advance Polite Learning amongst us. Not that I believe myself capable of performing it, but I thought that the consideration of my impotency might excite some generous spirits whom Nature and Education have capacitated for so noble a work. There is no man should be more glad to see it carried on than myself. I love my Country very well, and therefore should be ravished to see that we out did the French in Arts, at the same time that we contend for Empire with them. For Arts and Empire in Civilised Nations have generally flourished together.   

Advertisement.  
THE Impartial Critic, or some Observations on Mr. Rymer's late Book Entitled A Short View of Tragedy, by Mr. Dennis.   

ERRATA.  
PAGE 46. In this Verse, like wine delicious, poison they disperse, the comma is to be omitted after delicious: and likewise after fumes in the next verse. p. 61. for within me, r. with in me. p. 63. for grated r. granted. p. 65. for them abundant. r. their abundant. p 76. for the Dog. r. a Dog. p. 70. for Renard jaws r. Renards jaws. p. 71. for may please. r. may't please. p. 98. r. the couplet that begins provoked and thus, 
Provoked and pushed to't by an itching lust,  
To show how sensible we are and just.  p. 116. for these r. those. p. 130. for there appeared something r. there appears something.  

In the Dedication and Preface.  
PAge 8. l. 18. for Tongues r. Tongue. p. 10. l. 19 for shines but to a few r. shines in its full light but to a few. Preface, p. 3. l. 6. for oppose r. opposite. p. 5. l. 19 for Hunter r. Steed.    

THE PASSION OF BYBLIS, Made English.  
From Ovid Metam. Lib. 9  
With some Critical Reflections on Mr. Oldham, by Mr. Dennis.  
The Second Edition.  
LONDON,  
Printed for Sam. Briscoe, in Covent-Garden, M DC XC VII.   

THE PREFACE.  
THE Passion of Byblis seems to be, in the Original, not only of Ovid's most masterly pieces, but a Passion in some places the most happily touched of any that I have seen amongst the Ancients or Moderns. The Sentiments are so tender and yet so delicate, the Expressions so fit and withal so easy, with that facility which is proper to express Love, and peculiar to this charming Poet; the turns of Passion are so surprising and yet so natural, and there seems to be something in the very sound of the Verse so soft and so pathetic, that a man who reads the Original, must have no sense of these Matters if he is not transported with it.  
When I was desired to make it English, I read over the Original to some men of sense, to see whether they would be touched with the same passages with which I had been moved so much. And when I saw that I was not mistaken, I resolved to imitate them in our native Tongue, with as much address as I could.  
Not that I am of the opinion that I have done justice to the admirable Original; but than you must give me leave to do some to myself; and as I would not have my faults imputed to Ovid, so, since I have so many of my own to account for, I do not desire to stand charged with his, which as his Translator I was obliged to copy.  
I will chiefly take notice of two, the one general, and the other particular. The general one is the Inconsistency that appears in the Character of Byblis. For she, who in some places of her Passion appears so reluctant, seems too abandoned in others; which are two or three Passages of her Letter (for from the beginning of the Story to the Letter, every thing seems to me to be just enough) in which she says some things that are by no means consistent with that Modesty, which she ought to have, as a Lady, a Virgin, and a Woman of Honour. I know very well that a Woman of Honour, when once she is seized by a great Passion, has more violent desires than the most abandoned Woman can have. For abandoned Women are consequently weak, and it is a true Observation, that weak People, though they are subject to Passions at every turn, yet are they never throughly agitated by them. But this is most certain, that a Woman of Honour can never break out into immodest Expressions, let her Passion be never so violent. For Immodesty in Expression must show her profligate to the very last degree, and must be utterly inconsistent with any measure of Honour. Now Byblis, who shows in some places so much of Honour, by such sharp remorse, and such furious reluctancy, ought certainly to have contented herself with a bare Confession of her Passion; and not to have behaved herself as if she thought her Brother so very young, that he was to be instructed how to proceed in the Cure of it.  
It may be said perhaps that the relation of the Dream, which precedes the Letter is the most immodest thing in the Story. I will easily grant it, and that that relation is in the original the most alluring description that can be imagined, and almost equally transporting with what it describes. But it must then be considered that what Byblis says there, she only speaks to herself, which amounts to no more than if she but barely thought it. And there is nothing certainly in that Reflection on her Dream, but what is extremely natural.  
The second Fault in this Passion of Byblis, is in the passage that immediately follows the return of the Messenger. For that which ought to be the most moving, is the coldest part of the Story. I speak of the first thirteen Lines of the Latin (for all that follows seems to be sufficiently warm) where Byblis, who can scarce speak for the Violence of her Grief, is yet for speaking in Allegory; which is nothing but an imperfect kind of Similitude.  
Now Simile in this place could not be moving, because it could not be natural; it being by no means the Language of great grief. For to be in a capacity to make a good similitude, the mind must have several qualifications, and two more particularly; which are utterly inconsistent with that Passion. First, The soul must be susceptible of a great many Ideas, and the Imagination capacious of a great many Images. For the Fancy must run through, and compare a great many Objects, before it can start a hint from them, which may carry with it that appearance of likeness, which may afterward by the judgement be improved to an exact resemblance (not but that I know very well, that the Soul on those occasions acts with that prodigious Celerity, that it is its self insensible of the degrees of its own motion.) Now it is the Nature of Grief to confine the Soul, and straiten the Imagination, and extremely to lessen the number of tqeir Objects. And indeed if the Passion is very violent, a man is incessantly thinking of the cause of it. For example, the unfortunate Lover has eternally before his Eyes the Image of his Cruel Fair-one. He thinks Day and Night of her alone, he contemplates nothing but her; and if he complains of her, 'tis only after that simple unaffected way, by which Nature teaches man to discharge his Soul of sorrow. And it is for this very reason that the greater part of Mr. Cowley's amorous Verses, are universally exploded by men of sense, at the same time that they confess, that several of his Miscellaneous Writings, his Pindaric Odes, and his Divine Hymn to Light, will justly deserve the Admiration of our latest Posterity. For in most of those amorous Verses, there appears through the disguise of an affected Passion, a gaiety of Heart, a wantonness of Wit, and a Soul that's at liberty to roam about the Universe, and return home laden with rich, but far fetched Conceits. As merry in this respect as the Madrigals of our amorous Rake-hells; who languish in Simile, whilst they thrive in Carcase; and who eating their Half-Crowns every day thrice, decay and die by Metaphor. In short, no sort of imagery ever can be the Language of Grief. If a Man complains in Simile, I either laugh or sleep. For this is plain, that if a man's affliction will suffer him to divert his mind by one Simile, he may as well do it by twenty, and so on to the end of the Chapter. If such a man therefore is miserable, it is because he is resolved he will be so. Now a man must have an extraordinary stock of good Nature, who can pity a Blockhead, who is a wretch by choice.  
But secondly, For the mind to be capable of making Similitudes, it is necessary it should be serene (unless it be transported with that noble Enthusiasm, which delights, illuminates, and exalts the soul, at the very same time it disturbs it.) For without serenity a man can never have penetration enough to discern the Nature of things, which penetration is absolutely necessary for the making a just Similitude: and it is upon this very account that Aristotle says in his Rhetoric, that to be happy in making similitudes, it is absolutely necessary to be a man of good sense.  
Some of my Friends, to whom I have recited in Conversation, the substance of what I have here repeated in Writing, have advised me to leave out this unseasonable similitude, especially since I have made so bold with Ovid; as to insert here and there a Thought of my own. For it is my Lord Roscommon's opinion, that it is much safer to leave out than add. Tho' no man pays more deference to his judgement than I do, I cannot be of his mind in this. For tho' I am not ignorant that a scurvy present, is but a more civil Affront; I cannot but believe it to be less injurious than a Robbery. And if any man should be caught, ipso facto, stripping another upon the Road, it would be but an impudent excuse in him, to allege that the clothes but ill became their Owner. All that I could do here, was by giving this passage another turn, to make that appear in the Copy to be spoken in a short, but downright Fury, whose fault it was in the Original to seem to be spoken with too much Considerateness, and too much Coolness of Temper.  
The Author of the Satyrs upon the jesuits, who has translated this Passion of Byblis, has not meddled with the Catastrophe. Now the Catastrophe was absolutely necessary, that the Story at ending might make a deeper impression: I have therefore contracted it in the last five Lines, but at the same time I have altered it. For to make it moving it was necessary to make it credible.  
The Transformation of Byblis might do very well in the time of Augustus Caesar. For at that time those Transformations were a part of the Roman Religion, and the Poets may be said to be the secular Priests, who transmitted its Mysteries to the People. But those transubstantiating Doctrines, which were taught in those times by that Harmonious Clergy of the credulous Church of Old Rome, would look as absurdly to us as the Chimerical Metamorphosis, which is pretended to be acted at the very time it is sung in our modern Roman Churches.  
I must beg Pardon for the Liberty which I have taken in the numbers, which is so great that it may well be entitled Licence. But then the Reader will have the greater Variety, and if those Numbers are not harmonious, it is not for want of care about them: I have particularly taken care to be exact in the Rhimes, in which the former Translators of this passage have been very defective. I am not so miserably mistaken, as to think rhyming essential to our English Poetry. I am far better acquainted with Milton, than that comes to. Who without the assistance of Rhyme, is one of the most sublime of our English Poets. Nay, there is something so transcendently sublime in his first, second, and sixth Books, that were the Language as pure as the Images are vast and daring, I do not believe it could be equalled, no, not in all Antiquity. But tho' I know that Rhyming is not absolutely necessary to our Versification, yet I am for having a Man do throughly what he has once pretended to do. Writing in blank Verse looks like a contempt of Rhyme, and a generous disdain of a barbarous Custom; but Writing in such Rhimes as a Boy may laugh at, at Crambo, looks at the best like a fruitless Attempt, and an impotent Affectation.  
My Lord Roscommon who writ in blank Verse with so much Success, yet was nicely exact in Rhyming, whenever he pretended to rhyme. And in the very Essay upon translated Verse in which he exclaims against Rhyme, I defy any Man to show me half a dozen couplets which do not rhyme exactly.  
In short, if rhyming is ever necessary in so strong and masculine a Language as ours, it must be on these tender occasions. For tho' I have heard several maintain, that a thing may be expressed as nobly and vigorously in blank Verse, as in Rhyme; I never yet heard any one pretend that it might be expressed as softly. But granting it could, it is yet very certain, that a thing must be much more tender in perfect Rhimes, than imperfect. For where the Reader expects a Rhyme, there jarring sounds must render that harsh, which agreeing sounds would render easy. But than it is necessary that the Rhimes should be unconstrained, and no word used upon their account in the place where it is not proper.  
But since I have mentioned Mr. Oldham's performance, in this Transiation, I think fit to add farther, that I have been told by some, that a great many will never forgive me the attempting it after him. I desire them to consider, that the same Mr. Oldham undertook Horace's Art of Poetry after my Lord Roscommon. Now my Lord Roscommon was Politeness itself. Never man thought more clearly, more truly, more justly than he did; never man expressed himself more fitly and more becomingly. In every thing that he writ, his Language was as perfect as his Conceptions were often sublime. On every thing that came from him, he has stamped the Character not only of an exalted Wit, but of a Man of a high Condition, and of a courtly Mind.  
If I should affirm that Mr. Oldham had by no means all the good Qualities which are conspicuous in my Lord Roscommon, who is there that must not assent to it? If then I am guilty of presumption in attempting what Mr. Oldham undertook before me, I hope I may be excused by his own Example. But if some People yet can resolve to be angry, I must beg them to consider for what. Is is because I have a desire to please them? That methinks is unnatural. Tho' I should own, I have an Ambition to give them more Delight than the forementioned Gentleman has done before me, I cannot see any thing in such a Confession which can reasonably disoblige them. Such an acknowledgement ought rather to gain me their Favour, or at least to conquer their prejudice, especially since 'tis the Interest of every Reader to be as candid as the Case will let him be. 'Tis true, a man of sense can never be satisfied with a silly thing. But a peevish, unreasonable Caviller, will never be satisfied with any thing. Little considering that by a false delicacy he makes himself pass those moments scurvily, which another, perhaps, has done his part to make him pass agreeably.  
Besides, if I should succeed here, even beyond my wish, I should be very far upon that score, from arrogating Pre-eminence over any man. The following Translation is a Trifle, and can never be conclusive of any such thing. To succeed in it, required neither Force nor Genius, but only a Tenderness of Soul (which Mr. Oldham's Masculine Temper disdained) and an extraordinary propensity to that Humane Frailty, Compassion; and a certain Felicity which usually accompanies the Dictates of the softer Passions. To conclude, I leave it to any one to consider whether a Satirist, as Mr. Oldham was, at the very time that, inspired by a generous Rage, he had assumed a resolution of exposing the Follies, and lashing the Vices of the Age, could be fitly disposed to excite Compassion; by setting before our Eyes an unfortunate Lady, whose Love was at once her Folly and her Crime.   

THE Passion of BYBLIS.  

BRight Nymphs, the Objects of Mankind's Desires,  
From Byblis learn t' avoid incestuous Fires:  
She Caunus loved, with tenderness above  
The cold endearments of a Sister's Love.  
At first she knew it not, unhappy Maid!  
To impious Flames by Piety betrayed.  
She frequently would kiss the beauteous Boy,  
And thought her Duty what she found her Joy.  
Her Love for Duty she mistook with ease,  
Yet was surprised that Duty thus should please.  
Her twining Arms his lovely Neck would clasp,  
Fierce was each Kiss, and furious every Grasp,  
Insensibly her Passion gathers force,  
And has to Female Stratagems recourse.  
About to visit Caunus, ere She goes,  
Her skilful Maids her wanton Dress compose;  
And all the Ornaments of Art prepare  
To set forth all that Heaven has given the Fair,  
Ten thousand Cupids in her Eyes, and Graces in her Air.  
Then in her Glass sh'explores what power there lies,  
In a Majestic easy Mien, and lovely glancing Eyes;  
Practices Smiles, such by which Souls are caught,  
Great, Godlike Spirits to dependence brought,  
The Magic by the great Enchantress Nature taught.  
She envies every Face that's formed to please,  
And wonders why, not knowing her Disease.  
So Men in Hectics, wasting for their Urn,  
Hourly consume, yet feel not that they burn.  
Penned in her inmost Breast the raging Fire,  
Had not as yet flamed up to high desire;  
Her Brother, now her Lord, her Dear she names,  
And Kindred, Love thus tenderly disclaims,  
Her Passion now she doubts, yet does control,  
No guilty thought yet stained her waking Soul,  
On it, with Night, the black pollution stole.  
A pleasing Dream t'her side her Brother brings,  
With panting Breasts she murmuring to him clings.  
Straight in her Face offended Nature flies,  
And Blushes down around her darkened Eyes,  
She wakes, but hushed and rapt in fearful wonder lies.  
Her Dream at once can charm her and torment,  
The airy Omen bodes some dire Event.  
A long time mute she all her Soul surveys,  
And then its grief in these wild words displays.  
What means the Vision of the guilty Night?  
Ah Wretch! What Horror! mixed with what delight!  
Why did that lovely shape break in upon thy sight?  
'Tis true, even Envy no defect can find,  
Or in the Beauties of his Face, or Graces of his mind  
Even Envy can contented on him gaze,  
By liking sullenly itself amaze,  
And learn to speak a foreign Language, Praise.  
The Gods have made him fit to be desired,  
Have made him by themselves to be admired.  
But oh! a Brother's once endearing name  
Is now the Foe that's fatal to my Flame.  
Yet whilst awake I can continue chaste,  
May every golden Dream be like the last.  
For what vain Fop the sport of such a Bed  
Can idly blab? or what dull Libel spread?  
Honour's secure, whilst Pleasure I pursue,  
And this false bliss is surely worth the true.  
Bright Queen of Love, and winged delicious Boy,  
Soft, sweet, and swift, as was my flitting Joy;  
Into what Heaven of Rapture was I caught!  
Too powerful joys for words, too vast for thought!  
By dying Sighs, and broken Murmurs, best  
When absent mourned, and when enjoyed expressed.  
The Vision did such quick delight dispense,  
I sometimes doubt if fancy were not sense.  
I felt, perfectly felt, what I adore,  
The Godlike touch gave bliss unknown before.  
Th' immortal Pleasure ran through all my Frame,  
Tho' all my Bones, and inmost Marrow came,  
That melted and ran pouring down before th' impetuous Flame.  
For ever shall the charming Memory last  
Of Transports, which, alas! too quickly passed!  
For the Malignant Goddess of the Night,  
Envying my Bliss, urged on her Headlong Flight.  
O! could we but dissolve great Nature's tye,  
How well we linked in stricter Bonds might lie?  
Who could be fitlier paired than thou and I?  
As thou no Maid canst e'er transport like me,  
Who such high Happiness can give to thee?  
Ah Caunus! that we every Night like this  
Might lie entranced in vast exstacic Bliss!  
Cursed be the time when my great Father did  
The Deed for me, which I'm with thee forbid;  
Would I had been (derived from some poor Swain)  
But the most lovesome she upon the Plain:  
What Nature must deny me now, the God might then obtain.  
Ah! who must ravished in thy Embraces be?  
Exalted above Goddesses is she,  
Fairest of Men! who must b'embraced by thee.  
I never can that full content enjoy,  
Thou, Brother! Thou! too dear, too charming Boy!  
By being thus far mine, dost all my Hopes destroy.  
But what import, or what are then my Dreams,  
The fond Results of Hypochondriack Streams?  
Or do they as divinely inspired presage?  
The Gods forbid! The Gods repel this Rage!  
The Gods this Fever of my Soul assuage!  
Yet Saturn of his Sister made his Bride,  
And in incestuous Fires the Thunderer fried.  
But Gods have high Prerogatives, and they  
Who rule the World with Arbitrary Sway  
Are unconfined by Laws which we obey.  
Laws by those happy Being's are disdained,  
Who would b'imperfect if like us restrained.  
Then from thy Breast expel these impious Fires,  
Tho', with thy Love's, Life's genial Flame expires.  
Yes: If all other Methods fail, I'll die,  
Caunus will kiss me as I panting lie,  
To his sweet Lips, as to its Heaven, my parting Soul will fly.  
Yet say thou shouldst indulge thy wild Desire,  
T' accomplish it does his Consent require.  
What you thus wish, and your chief good esteem,  
To him may black and execrable seem.  
Yet formerly, to quench a Sister's Flame,  
Macareus Conscience did contemn, and Fame.  
Ah Wretch! hast thou resolved upon the Deed!  
Whence can these Thoughts? these cursed Remarks proceed?  
Oh, whither am I driven! O whither tossed!  
How in tempestuous Thought my Reason's lost?  
Hence ye obscene Flames, ye Furies hence, go dwell  
In your own native Soil, profoundest Hell.  
Love the sweet Youth, but love without a Fault,  
And love him as the kindest Sister ought.  
But yet did he thus rave for Byblis, I  
Could ne'er resolve to see my Caunus die.  
I should Compassion have of him; I sure  
Should him, by humouring his Frenzy, cure.  
Well! if thou shouldst that easy Creature be,  
Canst thou abandoned be to that degree,  
As to speak first? Canst thou for Favour sue?  
Thou art a Virgin, great, and modest too.  
Ah! we are modest, but because we're frail,  
O'er whom does not Almighty Love prevail?   

But yet th'expedient which I mean to try,  
Shall both with Bashfulness and Love comply.  
A Letter shall my troubled thoughts convey,  
And by its black Contents my secret Fires betray.   

This Resolution fixed her doubtful Mind,  
Then, on her Arm, her lovely Head reclined.  
Yes, he shall know what torturing pains I feel,  
I can no more my desperate case conceal,  
Such Frenzy soon would its own cause reveal.  
O what infernal flame! What fury's this!  
Gods! from what height I plange, to what abyss!  
Eternally farewell, O Honour, Virtue, Bliss!  
Then with sad Looks and trembling Hand she indites,  
Begins and doubts, nay damns what scarce she writes.  
Yet to what now she blames, she straight returns;  
With Rapture now sh'invents, what now she burns.  
Then what this moment to the Flames she dooms,  
The next she with a whirl of thought resumes.  
Incessantly she turns her fev'rish mind,  
Too discomposed even her own will to find.   

Your Sister, (Caunus!) thus at first she wrote,  
Ah no! his Lover! Sister thus I blot.  
Your Lover sends that health she wants, for I  
Unless you give me health, must surely die.  
As for my Name, O let it not be told,  
Till promised happiness makes Byblis bold!  
'Tis she who for you hourly wastes away,  
Heeding you might have seen this every day.  
Love every day still languished in my look,  
Which colour, health, and sprightly joy forsaken.  
How often, when no cause of Grief was known,  
Have I some inward, deep disturbance shown?  
How oft did Tears steal from my mournful Eyes,  
And in my Breasts convulsive heaving rise?  
Then on a sudden sadness turned to rage,  
And my wild arms did your soft limbs engage.  
As the luxuriant tendrils of the Vine  
Around the Elm with wanton windings twine,  
My springing arms flew round and locked in thine.  
And when thy Lips to mine they fiercely brought,  
My burning Lips at thine for moisture sought.  
No Sisters faint salute! no tasteless Kiss!  
But piercing like a Dove's, and murmuring at its bliss.  
But yet tho' deep, ah deep! the flaming Dart,  
Piercing my burning breast, transsixed my heart,  
Alarmed, like wretches by nocturnal Fire,  
And trembling at the terrible desire,  
Long time I strove its fury to assuage,  
And long time struggling Virtue stopped its rage.  
This Truth, O all ye chaster Powers attest!  
Ye saw the fearful conflict in my Breast,  
When Honour, Piety, Remorse and Shame,  
My very Vitals tore t' expel my flame.  
In misery grown obstinate, I bore  
What never tender Virgin did before.  
When what I suffered other Maids but hear,  
'Twill wound their gentle hearts, and force a tear.  
Retreating, long I fought th' unequal field,  
But now I turn to conquering Love, and yield.  
I here myself his Slave and yours confess,  
And cry for Mercy in extreme distress;  
But you alone can my sad state redress.  
Her Life who loves you hangs upon your breath,  
And upon that, alas! depends her Death.  
I love to that degree, that neither Gods nor Fate,  
If you pronounce my Doom, have power t'extend my date.  
My Life or Death determine by your Voice,  
Can you deliberate in such a choice?  
Can you be proof against such Words as these!  
These from the person whom you hate might please.  
Me Nature has begun to make your Friend,  
What Nature has begun a God must end.  
Unsatisfied, unblessed by Nature's tye,  
All Night I languish, and all Day I die,  
Till riveted by Love to your dear Breast I lie.  
Let Dotards Slaves to musty Morals be,  
Austerities and Impotence agree.  
But in us two hot Youth and fierce Desire  
To sublime Raptures furiously aspire,  
And into right and wrong want leisure to inquire.  
Thus young we yet may Innocence pretend,  
Or grant we know we Nature's bounds transcend  
By great Examples of our Gods we gloriously offend.  
All Let's the Enjoyment are removed by Fate,  
Unless it be (forbid it Heaven!) thy Hate.  
No rigorous Parents interpose to break  
The Assignations we may hourly make:  
Our frequent Meetings need no scandal fear,  
For intimacy's honourable here.  
What Spy can our delicious Thefts detect?  
Who can disclose what none can e'er suspect?  
Should some bold Censurer our Conduct blame,  
A Brother's and a Sister's awful name,  
Would answ'ring stop the saucy mouths of Fame.  
We in public kiss, embrace, and whispering walk,  
And hand in hand soft melting things we talk.  
When two like us in close embraces kiss,  
Does there not something use to follow this?  
Upon that something (ah how very small!)  
Depends my Happiness, my Life, my All.   

Pity a wretch, who thus much dares express,  
Who wracked by mortal pangs, dares Love confess:  
Which, whilst they all my nobler powers control,  
Tear forth the secret of my tortured Soul.  
If Nature's Law seems broke whilst this you read,  
Think that for Happiness, for life I plead,  
Here Nature's self her Law must supersede.  
You surely kill me if unkind you prove,  
O barbarous return of boundless Love!  
Think how upon my Sepulchre 'twill sound,  
How every Heart through every Ear 'twill wound;  
Here Byblis lies, a tender, wretched Maid,  
By Caunus for her Love with Death repaid.   

Thus all on fire her working Mind indites,  
Till every Page and Margins full, she writes:  
Then she her Crime folds up, and shrowds from Sight,  
And sealing, shuts the monstrous Birth from Light.  
Now she an old Domestic calls by Name,  
With accents more than half suppressed by Shame.  
Thou art my very faithful Servant still,  
With secrecy and speed perform my Will.  
Of this important Letter, here, take care,  
On it my Life and Fame depend, go bear—  
Here grief and conscious shame her accents smother,  
Then after a long sad pause—  
Go, bear it to, said she, Ah Gods!— my Brother.   

Now as she from the fatal Writing parts,  
It falls; she trembling at the Omen, starts:  
Yet fond to destruction on she goes.  
Her trusty Slave a fit conjuncture chose;  
To Caunus his Apartment he repairs,  
And to the noble Youth the dreadful Secret bears.   

Rage, horror, wonder, seized him at the view,  
From him the Letter furiously he threw.  
Storming, his Hand upon his Sword he lays,  
And to the trembling Messenger he says:  
Flagitious Pander to incestuous Fires!  
Slave! thou shouldst die, as thy bold crime requires,  
Did not the honour of my house and name  
Tell me, thy blood, if spilt, would spread our shame.  
But quickly from my just resentment fly,  
Or that shall yet prevail, and thou shalt die.  
This to the Slave, with a stern brow he said;  
He pale at instant death, and shudd'ring, fled,  
And with the mortal News struck dying Byblis dead.   

An Icy damp, cold as the dart of Death,  
Thrilled through her throbbing breast and stopped her breath.  
Life's flames o'er-pow'red in every other part,  
But still Love's fire maintains it at her heart.   

As soon as her returning Spirits gave  
Just strength to mourn, and sense enough to rave,  
With hollow voice the trembling Air she wounds,  
And softly sighs out these afflicting sounds.   

Repelled! disdained! nay, loathed! could worse befall?  
Thy Conduct and thy Crime deserve it all.  
For why hast thou, O wretch, to madness bold!  
Thus rashly thy prodigious Secret told?  
What Fool would Happiness, Life, Fame commit  
To a fond Letter in confusion writ?  
Thou shouldst in doubtful terms have first addressed,  
Th' uncertain depth have sounded of his Breast.  
Fool! thus presumptuously to leave the Shore,  
And not the Winds, nor the new Seas explore.  
Those Winds now roar, and the mad Seas run high,  
And all things round look hideous to my Eye,  
A raging Main, and black tempestuous Sky!  
To Death I through surrounding Horrors go,  
Now, now the Billows on the Rocks the bounding Vessel throw!  
And yet by Omens certain and divine,  
Thou were't forbid to urge thy dire design.  
In the pronouncing how the Message hung,  
Foreboding Ruin on thy faltering Tongue!  
Thy Genius whispered thee within, beware!  
And from without some God cried out, forbear!  
Thy Letter by immortal impulse fell,  
As thou deliverd'st it (thou saw'st it well)  
The Paper, moved by some eternal mind,  
Th' accursed Errand by its flight declined:  
O had thy Hope together fled! but Fate thy Doom designed.  
Thy purpose else, by Portents thus deterred,  
Thou hadst giv●n oe'r: given o'er? ah no! deferred.  
Who knows? upon some happier day perhaps thou hadst been heard.   

Why wouldst thou this uncertain Method take,  
When Life, and Soul, and All thus lay at stake?  
He from thy Lines not half thy sense could know,  
Thy Eyes thy Love in all its Fury show.  
H'had seen them with such piercing glances roll,  
As might have shaken a Barbarian's Soul.  
H'had heard the tenderest things, and in a tone,  
That's fit t'express a dying Lovers moan.  
Round his reluctant Neck my Arms I'd fling,  
And to his Breast with strange Convulsions clung.  
Then prostrate at his Feet h'had seen me lying,  
There groaning, trembling, fainting, swooning, dying.  
If one of these to move his Heart has failed,  
His barbarous Heart, they all had sure prevailed.   

Perhaps thy Servant caused thy ill success,  
By hasty management without address.  
He might absurdly choose some busy hour,  
Too rude and harsh for Love's soft tender power.  
Therefore he failed the noble Youth to move,  
Can one who has those Eyes inexorable prove?  
His Breasts of no impenetrable mould,  
No Adamantine Bars his Heart enfold.  
He did not from a Tygress spring, no he  
Sprung from the same soft yielding Nymph with me.  
Come, he must yet be mine, I'll try once more,  
Once more? a thousand times, I'll ne'er give over.   

True, I could wish, if Actions once begun,  
By empty wishes were to be undone.  
Then could I wish, I never had indulged  
This luckless Love, at least had ne'er divulged.  
But since what's passed even Fate can ne'er recall,  
I now must through, whatever Extremes befall.  
He'll think if I thus lightly could disclaim,  
I lightly entertained th' incestuous Flame,  
Perhaps he may suspect some close design,  
His Interest with his Fame to undermine.  
That specious baits were for his Virtue laid,  
To be to public Infamy betrayed.  
He'll fancy this some common, base desire,  
Whereas the God, the God, these Rave does inspire.  
His wrathful breath incenses thus my Blood,  
Drives on the liquid Fire, and rowls the stormy Flood.   

Shouldst thou desist? the horrid Crime's conceived,  
And Innocence can never, never be retrieved,  
Thy Gild has reached a very dreadful height,  
What? so much Gild? and for it no Delight?  
Advancing, little can thy Gild enhance,  
And to the vast Delight of Gods it Byblis may advance.   

Thus as some ease upon her Bed she sought,  
Her labouring Fancy to Distraction wrought,  
Tossing, she fluctuates in tempestuous thought.  
Her sickly Mind opposed Designs revolves,  
What it reputes of to repeat resolves.  
Her Brother obstinately she pursues,  
Often repulsed, she oft th' Assault renews.  
Her Flame, that found these stops, more fiercely burned,  
But at the last to mere Distraction turned.   

Poor, hapless Beauty! once thy conquering Eyes  
Could boast the noblest Carian Hearts their Prize,  
Mow mad she lies in solitude, on Caunus raves and dies.    

Reflections and Annotations on Mr. Oldham.  P. 5. Would I had been (derived from some poor Swain,) etc. 
The Latin is, Tu me vellem generosior esses.  
Mr. Oldham render it thus. 
Would thou wert noble, I more meanly born,   
He makes her give this Reason for her Wish, vid. 
Then guiltless I'd despaired, and suffered Scorn.   
Whereas the reason that I make her give is just opposite to it, vid. Then I might guiltless have enjoyed my Caunus. Ovid expresses no reason, but implies one; for there is something Pindarical in the sense of this passage, and the Connexion is left to be made by the Reader, as we shall find anon. In the mean while let us see, whither Mr. Oldham ' s reason or mine is that of Ovid. To discover which let us consider, which is most agreeable to good sense, and the nature of her Passion, and most suitable to the Design of the Poet. It does not seem to me to be consistent with good sense, to make Byblis, who so vehemently desired to enjoy her Brother, and who at the same time saw the impossibility of it, and felt the Plague of Despair, wish that she had been of a more obscure Descent, rather than that of her Brother's illustrious Stock; only that with the same vehement desire she might have the same Despair. Nor does this seem to be consistent with the Nature of Love. For they who are throughly seized with that Passion, place all their Felicity in the beloved Object, and even in Despair most ardently desire Possession. And such can no more wish to be in a Condition of Life, that might render them incapable of enjoying what they love, than any Man or Woman can truly wish to be miserable. It had been therefore more consonant to good sense, and the Nature of her Passion, to make her speak thus. Had my Birth been more lowly; and I had been tormented with the same desire, though there had been an improbability of satisfying; yet considering what a Leveller Love is, there had not been then, as there is now, an absolute impossibility of innocently enjoying my Caunus. To discover if this be not Ovid' s sense, I think fit with this passage to cite what immediately precedes and follows. 
O ego, si liceat mutato nomine jungi,  
Quam bene, Caune, tuo poteram nurus esse Parenti!  
Quam bene, Caune, meo poteras gener esse Parenti!  
Omnia Dii facerent essent communia nobis  
Praeter avos, tu me vellem generosier esses,  
Nescio quam facies igitur pulcherrime matrem!   
That is to say, Could we but dissolve the bonds of Nature, how well we might be joined in stricter! I wish that having every thing else in common, we had at least a different Lineage; would I had been inferior to Caunus, rather than thus have been equal to him. But alas! this is but a vain wish, and therefore another must be the happy she who must possess all that I languish for. I believe this will be allowed to be a just explication of Ovid' s sense. For the last verse by the word igitur must necessarily be an inference, from something expressed or implied in the last but one. Now that which is implied can be nothing but this. If you had been of a different Parentage, though you had been more nobly descended, yet there had then been a possibility (such is the force of Love) of my being blest in innocently possessing you; which possibility now is destroyed by Relation. Therefore another, etc. Besides, if we do but consider, that every thing that precedes and follows Byblis ' s wish, that her Brother had been more nobly descended, appears plainly to be spoke out of a furious desire of enjoying him; we need make no doubt but that very wish too proceeds from the same desire.  P. 7. To his sweet Lips as to its Heaven, etc. 
This is not the Thought of Ovid. Mr. Sands has touched upon it, but very faintly. Mr. Oldham has kept wide of it. But because no thought that can ever be substituted, can make amends for that of the Original, I think myself obliged to do Ovid that justice as to insert it here. The Latin is thus then. 
Aut nostro vetitus de corde fugabitur ardour,  
Aut hoc si nequeo, peream precor ipsa toroque  
Mortua componar; positaeque det oscula frater.  That is to say, Either I will expel this incestuous Love from my Breast, or die in the Attempt, and be laid out on the mournful Hearse. One would have thought that there had been an end of her and her Passion, when by an admirable and surprising return of it, she immediately adds, positaeque det oscula Frater. Let my Brother embrace me as I lie senseless there. So that here she seems to make provision for her Passion, against a time when it can be no more, to anticipate the satisfaction of her Brothers embracing her in the moment in which she cannot be sensible of it, and, by imagination in the same sentence, to extend her Love beyond that death by which she propounds to end it. This is indeed lively to paint the extreme disorder of a violent and irregular Passion. But what Hand must give us a Copy of so divine an Original? Who must not despair of imitating successfully the wonderful celerity of this incomparable turn?  P. 12. All Le's t' enjoyment, etc. 
The Latin is, 
Nec nos aut durus Pater aut reverentia famae  
Aut Timor impediet.  Mr. Oldham has rendered it thus. 
Let neither Awe of Father's Frowns, nor Shame  
For aught that can be told by blabbing Fame,  
Nor any ghastlier Fantom Fear can frame  
Frighten or stop us in the way to Bliss.   
So that he makes Byblis start several difficulties enough to frighten her Brother, if he were inclined to compilance; and then exhorts him to go on in spite of them. Whereas the design of Ovid, is to make her answer such Objections as may probably be made by Caunus. The things that can chiefly be objected in such a case are two; viz, The Rigour of Parents, and Apprehension of Infamy. Now neither of these have reason to frighten us. For, says she, Dulcia fraterno sub nomine furta tegemus. That is, we shall conceal our incestuous Love under the disguise of fraternal Affection; and though we appear never so fond to our Parents, and the rest of the World, they will be rather apt to extol our Piety, than to arraign our Incest. But this Verse, Dulcia, etc. which Byblis speaks as a reason for what preceded it, looks in Mr. Oldham like the Introduction of a new Proposition.  P. 19 Come he must yet be mine, etc. 
The Latin is: 
Vincetur: repetendus erit, nec taedia coepti  
Ulla mei capiam, dum spiritus iste manebit.  Mr. Oldham has rendered it thus: 
Alive I'll pray, till Breath in Prayers be lost,  
And after come a kind beseeching Ghost.   
Where he bushes Ovid' s Thought a little too far, and indeed beyond the bounds of good sense. 'Tis true, I have met with some Gentlemen, who admire this passage very much, as something forsooth very soft; But like will to like, says the Proverb. For indeed those Gentlemen may be said to be soft with a Vengeance. I would fain ask them one question: For what should this poor Ghost come a begging? For the Charity of the Flesh? That would be very pleasant. And yet the Charity of the Flesh is certainly the business in question.  P. 20. He'll think if thus, etc. 
The Latin is: 
Vel quia desierim, leviter voluisse videbor.  Which Mr. Oldham renders thus: 
Should I desist, 'twill be believed that I,  
By slightly ask, taught him to deny.   
I wonder that a Man of Mr. Oldham ' s Sense and Learning should mistake leviter voluisse for slightly ask. By which mistake he has run himself upon two absurdities. For first he puts a sentiment into the mouth of Byblis, that is altogether base, and unworthy of a Woman of Honour, as if she were afraid of not being thought impudent enough, or of not being thought in good earnest.— Secondly, He makes her bring that as an argument for persisting in her design, which is directly conclusive of the contrary. For what she says, in Prose, and in plain English, is this: If I should now conquer this Passion, and grow once more the virtuous Byblis, I am afraid the World, who may come to know what a civil Request I made to my Brother, and afterwards took the very first Denial, I am afraid this ill-natured World will believe that I was but in jest. Truly a very pleasant and very reasonable Fear. But what does she call slightly ask? The sending such a Letter as hers? For my part I know but one way she had to put the business more home to him. This cannot be the sense of Ovid. For though Ovid is not the justest Man in the World in his thinking, (for justness is not his Talon) yet he seldom thinks so preposserously. nor could Mr. Oldham have done it, if he had not writ this in a hurry. By leviter voluisse then is meant not slightly to have asked, but lightly to have inclined my Will; and then the meaning has not only something very sensible in it, but very extraordinary and very noble. For thus Byblis is made to assert her Honour, by her very persisting in a most execrable Crime; for now the sense runs thus. If I should now upon this first Repulse give over, than Men will reasonably conclude, that since it was in my power so soon to desist, it was in my power not to have given way to this Passion at first; and that she who could so easily stop its progress, might much more easily have prevented its very beginning; and consequently the advances which I have made to my Brother, will be imputed rather to my natural inclination to such horrible Wickedness, or some strange and base infirmity in me, than the force of a Passion inflicted by an offended God. But if after having shown so much Remorse, and so much Reluctancy, I still persist, notwithstanding that Remorse, notwithstanding that Reluctancy, nay notwithstanding Despair; why then, my Brother, and all the World, must acknowledge that Byblis is not to blame; but that since she does what doing she disapproves, and solicits a Vice, the very thought of which strikes her with Horror, it is demonstrably evident that her Passion is supernatural; and is not actuated by her own Will, but some more sublime, some eternal Principle which Mortals in vain resist.   

Miscellany Poems, etc.  

A Pindaric Ode on the KING, written Aug. 2. 1691.  

I.  
NOw at great Jove's supreme command,  
Fortune, his Slave, with threatening hand,  
Furiously whirls about her wheel,  
Which turning like a vast machine,  
Changes the World's great stage, unseen,  
Whilst with the motion giddy Nations reel.   

II.  
Allecto has been roused from Hell,  
To punish a flagitious age,  
In human Breasts her Serpents dwell,  
And sting the guilty world to rage.  
The Fury stalks about and raves,  
Germany trembles at her horrid yell,  
She rates the backward French, goads on th' abandoned Slaves,  
To execute the black contrivances of Hell.  
On to prodigious villainies they go,  
Till they want sense their monstrous crimes to know  
Thro the Palatinate she with them flies,  
And whilst the native by his murderer dies,  
She her infernal Torch to every house applies.  
A Town she burns for each vast Funeral Pile,  
And, (grinning horribly a ghastly smile)  
Upon the flames, as terribly they blaze,  
Th' abominable fiend with dismal Joy doth gaze.   

III.  
As Deluges whole Kingdoms sweep,  
Urged by fierce Tempests and the Deep,  
Wars dreadful inundation swells,  
Raised both by wrath Divine, and Hells.  
Nor Art nor Nature has the force  
To stop its noisy course;  
Nor Alps, nor Pyreneans keep it out,  
Nor fortified Redoubt.   

IV.  
In vain the Irish, Straw-built Huts forsake,  
And to their Bogs in vain they make,  
There soon does Fate her fugitives o'ertake.  
And as with horror and with fear,  
Her grim attendants, she draws near,  
The bogs and men with one Convulsion shake.   

V.  
In vain to the AEtherial Skies,  
Climbing his Alps, th' amazed Savoyard flies,  
The Bloody French the wretch pursue,  
Who pants with toil and terror too;  
And near to Heaven (deaf to his piercing cries)  
By impious hands he dies.   

VI  
In Belgian Plains whilst th' English Lion ramps,  
Terror's diffused thro' gallic Forts and Camps.  
See how his deadly listed paw  
Keeps couchant Luxemburgh in awe!  
At William's mighty name,  
All France, with its exalted Idol shakes;  
William's bright sounding same,  
Like Lightning, when from Heaven it breaks,  
Troubles the great Offender's sight,  
And does his conscious Instruments affright;  
And by its brightness and its noise,  
Confounds them ere his Arm, war's Thunderbolt ' destroys.   

VII.  
Glittering in glorious Arms he shines from far,  
Like the fifth heavens ascendant Star,  
Whose very aspect gives success in War:  
Whose influential power decides,  
And over fatal fields presides,  
Just like the Moon's o're-raging Tides:  
Till by conjunction deadlier grown,  
By its confederate force some mighty State's overthrown.   

VIII.  
To William's Virtue stiff Rebellion yields  
In Aghrim's purple Fields.  
William, when at the Boyne he fought,  
The Shannon and the Suc to pass his fierce Battalions taught  
His bravery kindled in their breasts the fire,  
Which does to glory by great acts aspire,  
And on to Aghrim hurried them, unknowing to retire.   

IX.  
Should fear in wretched man prevail,  
Who could condemn it in a thing so frail?  
The Universe has not a creature  
Which the condition of its nature,  
Subjects to more internal accidents,  
Or outward casual events.  
The least of which has often power  
To antedate his fatal hour.  
William not only subject is to those,  
High power, vast worth, him every hour expose  
To the perfidiousness & strength of all his Gallic foes▪  
Domestic Villains who surround him too,  
In his Destruction wish the World t'undo:  
Yet see him in this dangerous state  
Dauntless as Gods secured by Fate.   

X.  
The numerous Squadrons of his foes,  
Th' accursed troublers of the World's repose,  
He with heroic rage defies;  
Surveying them, his sparkling eyes  
With Godlike transports roll;  
And his brave Warriors second his great Soul.  
And (though retrenched old wary Bouteville lies)  
Each for the onset cries.  
He, wise in fury, keeps them back,  
Conduct profound desers the wished attack.  
Thus often when some desperate offence  
Does heavens almighty power incense,  
Its vengeance it delays, expecting fatal times,  
By high foreknowledge preordained to punish mighty crimes.   

XI.  
When, William, the predestined hour  
T' o'erthrow that formidable power,  
Struck by the dire alarm comes,  
Struck by loud Cannon and tempestuous Drums:  
When Gods the business of the World forego,  
To be spectators of the fierce debate,  
Pleased to behold the Sanguinary show,  
The tragic play of Fortune and of Fate:  
In that great hour, that wondrous hour, control thy noble fire,  
Which does to bright eternal Fame too suriously aspire.  
Ah! let not the transporting Rage,  
The Christian World's sole hope too dangerously engage!  
On thee depend thy Country and thy Friends,  
On thee the dreadsul day and vast event depends.   

XII.  
Think on the Boyne, on that great action think,  
Where can that man who thinks not on't be found?  
That action thro' both Indies does resound,  
And as the golden Ganges, makes the wretched Boyne renowned.  
Think how exposed thou mad'st its banks the brink  
Of ruin, into which we all were like to sink.  
Its banks, more famous for the threatened blow,  
Than for the signal overthrow.  
Canst thou one cursed moment there forget?  
Europe remembers it with horror yet.  
Tho on those banks victorious Troops you led,  
And half the Rebels were already fled:  
Yet when the fatal shot approached thy sacred head,  
(But Schomberg destiny atoned)  
Fair Liberty shrieked out aloud, aloud Religion groaned.  
How did they on their Champion's danger look!  
Even England's genius was with terror struck,  
And of the whole Confederate power the guardian Angel shook.   

XIII.  
Manage thy Royal Life, by Heaven designed  
T' ensure Great Britain and Mankind:  
Thy safety for their own all necessary find.  
Had Heaven thy death made necessary too,  
Does not thy former conduct show,  
That thou wouldst, ravished with thy glorious doom  
Do for the World what Curtius did for Rome?   

XIV.  
Ye British Muses celebrate his fame,  
Where can you find a nobler theme  
T' illustrate yours or Britain's name?  
In valour sovereign, and in sense supreme.  
He's over all his Subjects found,  
His Subjects thro' the World renowned,  
For lofty Spirit, and for Thought profound.  
To him your Britain owes,  
That nothing but the sound of War she knows.  
Every where else death and destruction reign,  
Our happy Isle does Peace within retain,  
Defended by a double guard, its Monarch & the Main.    

Upon our Victory at Sea.  

I Sing the Naval Fight, whose Triumph, Fame  
More loudly than our Cannon, shall proclaim.  
Which with Heroic Force burst Europe's Chain,  
And made fair Britain's Empress of the Main.  
O Britain's mighty Genius, who were't by,  
Who with new Warmth didst thy brave Sons supply,  
And drive the Gallic Doemon trembling through the Sky!  
My Breast with that immortal Fury fire,  
Which did thy Godlike Combatants inspire.  
Bold as their Fight, and happy be my Song,  
As fierce, as great, as sounding, and as strong.  
Then might my Verse be heard on every Shoar,  
And in its sound Express the thundering Cannons roar.   

Now whilst their Line th' impatient English form,  
On comes proud Tourvile, rattling like a Storm  
Sent by some Devil, to dissolve (in vain)  
The two vast Empires of the Land and Main.  
Whose transitory Rage the Globe annoys,  
And to disturb Mankind, itself destroys.  
With deafening Shouts the English rend the Skies,  
Whilst Victory hovering o'er their Pendants flies.  
The Lust of Empire, and the Lust of Praise,  
Does vulgar Men to Godlike Courage raise:  
All bravely bend the last Extremes to try,  
And Conquer, or magnanimously Dye.   

Now the Fleets join, and with their horrid shocks  
Make England's Shores resound, and Gallia's Rocks,  
Ship against Ship with dire Encounter knocks.  
The more Resistance the brave English meet,  
They their Broadsides more furiously repeat.  
As th' Elm, which of its Arms the Axe bereaves,  
New strength and vigour from its Wounds receives;  
Their Rage, by loss of Blood, is kindled more,  
And with their Guns, like Hurricanes they roar:  
Like Hurricanes the knotted Oak they tear,  
Scourge the vexed Ocean, and torment the Air.  
Whilst Earth, Air, Sea, in wild Confusion hurled,  
With universal Wreck, and Chaos threat the World.   

Such would the Noise be, should this mighty All  
Crushed and confounded into Atoms fall.  
Bullets amain, unseen by mortal Eye,  
Fly in whole Legions through the darkened Sky,  
And kill and wound, like Parthians, as they fly.   

Here a Granada falls, and blazing burns,  
Whilst pale as Death th' amazed Spectator turns.  
And now it bursts, and with a mortal sound  
Deals horrible Destruction all around.   

There a red Bullet from our Cannon blown,  
Into a First-Rate's Powder-Room is thrown.  
Tossed by a Whirlwind of tempestuous Fire,  
A thousand Wretches in the Air expire,  
Howling, an impious Colony they go  
At once transported to the World below.  
There a Chained Shot with whirling Rage deprives  
More than one Ship of Entrails, Limbs and Lives.  
Death, who set out with it, does lagging stay,  
Or limps behind it, panting in its way.   

And now from the Britannia, in a Crowd,  
Huge Bolts with Fury rend their nitrous Cloud,  
Not mighty Jove's could pass more fierce or loud,  
When brandished by the God, in dust they laid  
Those Sons of Earth who durst his Heaven invade.  
Enceladus on Ossa Pelion casts,  
When lo! all Three th' avenging Thunder blasts.  
And the Britannia like Destruction hurled  
On the Invaders of its floating World.  
By her they with their moving Mountains sell,  
Like vast Typheous flaming sent to Hell.   

Great Russel does their Admiral's assail  
With Thunder, Lightning, and with Iron Hail.  
That desperate fight t'have seen, one would have sworn  
Vulcanian Islands from their Seats were torn:  
That Strombolo afloat did thundering rush,  
And the inferior Isles—  
With inextinguishable Fury crush.   

O would that Fury animate my Verse,  
That Godlike Rage, which is both wise and fierce;  
That Rage which in the Fight inspired thy Breast!  
Then might thy Praise be gloriously expressed;  
Thy Noble Acts in equal Numbers shown,  
Which thou mightst then, Triumphant Russel! own:  
But who could ere command celestial Fire?  
The God does whom and when he lists inspire:  
Now down he rushes, and my Breast he shakes,  
And now to Heaven his towering Flight he takes.  
Then e'er he leaves me, and my Blood grows cold,  
The Battles vast Event in haste be told.—   

The French, at last, of treacherous Aid deceived,  
By loudest Storms would gladly be relieved.  
Their Ships, which in magnificent Array  
But just before did their proud Flags display,  
And seemed with War and Destiny to play;  
Now from our Rage, despoiled of Rigging, Tow,  
Or Burn, or up into the Air they blow.   

Thus a large Row of Oaks does long remain  
The Ornament and Shelter of the Plain:  
With their aspiring Heads they reach the Sky,  
Their huge extended Arms the Winds defy,  
The Tempest fees their strength, & sighs, & passes by.  
When jove, concerned that they so high aspire,  
Amongst them sends his own revenging Fire,  
Which does with dismal Havoc on them fall,  
Burns some, and tears up some, but rends them all:  
From their dead Trunks their mangled Arms are torn,  
And from their Heads their scattered Glories born;  
Upon the Heath they blassed stand and bare,  
And those whom once they sheltered, now they scare.    

Wish for the King's Safety, in the Summer's Expedition of 1692.  

YE Powers who watch o'er sublunary Things,  
Ye guardian Powers of Empires and of Kings,  
Angels and Genii of Empyreal kind,  
Who Christendom so near destruction find,  
Each trembling for the Crown to his high charge assigned;  
Now leave your Posts, to WILLIAM all repair,  
Him guard alone, guard him with all your Care,  
Whilst He by your Protection stands secure,  
His Conduct and His Bravery will the Christian  
World ensure.    

To Flavia who feared she was too kind.  

AH! Flavia, still be gentle, let not fear,  
That makes all others mild, make thee severe.  
How canst thou be too kind, who dost but use  
That Freedom, which I die if you refuse.  
There are, who think by Frowns Mankind to fire,  
As if Deformity could Love inspire.  
There are, who by their Coldness think t' inflame,  
Or, Parthian-like, by flying hope to tame.  
Others affect intolerable State,  
And think that Pomp becomes a Conqueror's Fate.  
But they who conquer in Love's beauteous Field,  
Must, if they would pursue their Victory, yield.  
Minds, from each others motions take their bent,  
In Love, Joy, Rage, and even in Hate consent.  
The Angry urge us, and the Fearful fright,  
The Sad disturb us, and the Gay delight;  
The Proud and Scornful, our Aversion prove,  
As all the Tender our Affections move.  
'tis true indeed some monstrous Fops are sound,  
Whom God did sure of the worst Dirt compound;  
Who Homage pay to Pride and fierce Disdain,  
The wretched Subjects of a Tyrant's Reign.  
Just as enervate Eastern Climes obey  
Th' imperious Dictates of Despotic Sway.  
Let arbitrary Power mean Souls enslave,  
The sovereign must be good who rules the Brave.  
The Monarch of my Heart can't prove too kind;  
None e'er too much obliged a generous Mind.  
Too kind thou canst not be on the blessed Night,  
When Heaven itself procures for our Delight.  
When wanton on the Wings of Love I flee,  
To roll and revel in full Joys, and Thee.  
When o'er thy panting Breasts dissolved I lie,  
And burn, and bleed, and sigh, and groan, and die:  
And by that Death at Happiness arrive,  
At perfect Bliss which none enjoys alive.  
Even by that Bliss which thus transports my Mind,  
Then, when thuo grantest me all, thou canst not prove too kind.  
For full Fruition will but raise Desire,  
As Heaven possessed exalts the Zealots' fire.  
And every Rapture but improve my Love,  
As earthly Charity's refined above.  
There mighty Love, amidst ambrosial Plains,  
With uncontrolled, and boundless Empire reigns.  
AEtherial Minds eternally enjoy,  
Still plunge themselves in Bliss, and never cloy,  
Their mental Eyes upon each other fix;  
Then greedily they rush, and totally they mix:  
Then by delightful turns fly off and gaze,  
Then lose themselves again in Love's mysterious maze:  
Unite their Sustances', confound their Powers,  
And every Virtue knit as we must ours.  
Like theirs, my Flavia! shall our Joys endure,  
Like generous Wines, the older the more pure,  
Or Nectar from devouring time secure.  
They through eternal Life, eternal Day,  
Mingling their Souls, pursue their amorous Play,  
When we our bodies mingle for Delight,  
Were we both doomed to an eternal Night.  
Through that with thee I hourly could expire,  
Nor light the joy of Life, nor Life would I desire.    

The Tenth Ode of the Second Book of Horace.  

I.  
IF you thro' Lise's uncertain Tide,  
Yourself, dear Friend, would safely guide,  
Do not the boundless Main explore,  
Where Boreas rages unconsined:  
Nor to get underneath the Wind,  
Venture the Rocks too near the Shore.   

II.  
The man stands equally exempt  
From dangerous envy and contempt,  
Who loves the middle golden state:  
He neither sordidly doth lie  
In dust, nor stands exalted nigh  
Some ghastly precipice of Fate.   

III.  
Tempests the lofty Cedar rend,  
And on the ground its trunk extend,  
Whilst safe the humbler Plants are found.  
The Tower which insolently shrowds  
Its stately head amongst the Clouds,  
Its fall does into Atoms pound.   

IV.  
At Heads of Giant Hills which rise  
With horrid Brows t' affront the Skies,  
jove the impetuous Thunder whirls;  
The hillocks it flies grumbling o'er,  
But raving mad, with hideous roar,  
Confusion on the Alps it hurls.   

V.  
He hopes when Fortune proves adverse,  
He, when she's kind, fears a reverse;  
Whom sacred wisdom doth direct;  
Since jove so oft makes Tempests rise,  
Whose Fury shakes his native Skies,  
Can man a settled state expect?   

VI  
But if the gods prove angry now,  
They'll one day with unclouded brow  
Dart joys into thy Soul again:  
Those gods as wretched were as we,  
If they should always angry be,  
And always hear their Slaves complain.   

VII.  
By bearing bravely the worst state,  
Show thou deserv'st a better sat:  
But if the wind comes fair about,  
Why then suspect the flattering gale;  
When it seems merriest, reef your Sail,  
And for the Sands look sharply out.    

FABLE in Burlesque. The Pig, the Goat, and the Sheep.  

A Goat, a Fat Pig and a Weather,  
To Fair in Tumbril jogged together:  
They were not thus to Smithfield jumbled,  
To see how jacob danced or tumbled.  
No, story tells us that the Carter  
Went with design all three to barter.  
The Pig screamed out, as he were just  
By Talgol going to be trussed,  
Tore all their Ears and his own Throat;  
Mean while the Weather and the Goat,  
Two very quiet harmless wretches,  
Astonished at Don Porker's screiches;  
Wondered from whence should come his fear,  
For they perceived no danger near.  
Then says the Carter, what a Murrain  
Ails thee? what makes three keep this stir in  
Such civil company as thou'rt in?  
Do thy two Comrades make this din?  
What a meek person is that Weather!  
And how demure the Goat! has either  
Opened his mouth once? no I warrant  
They are both wiser. They are errand  
Dolts, says the Pig, both stark stone blind;  
Could they but see, like me, the Wind,  
Sheehead would set up such a alarm,  
As would, were twenty Wolves here, scare 'em:  
And that grave Booby with the Beard,  
Would further than myself be heard.  
For Talgol's wheeson scraping whittle  
Will soon convert them both to victual:  
They're lean, you'll say, and I'm mistaken:  
But how shall I man save my Bacon?  
Whom Wastcoateer has made a Fat Pig,  
For some Cits ravenous Spouse, with Brat big.  
'Tis for her maw I'm grown this Squab bit;  
May the Jade choke with the first gobbet.  
Thus did the Pig his point maintain  
With subtle argument, but vain:  
Nor griefs, nor fears, change fates decrees,  
Then he's most wise who least foresees.   

Moral.  
IN vain by foresight we would mischiefs shun,  
What Fate has once determined must be done.  
The present with a dauntless mind enjoy:  
What wretched Fool would his own bliss destroy!  
Who lives in apprehension urges Fate;  
Too soon 'twill come, and he'll repent too late.  
Better to hope for what we most desire,  
Than vainly into future ills inquire.  
Yet Man perhaps unjustly we accuse,  
Who ne'er inquires but when he can't refuse.  
For as when Fate would undiscovered lie,  
What it designs no Mortal can descry;  
So when it pleases to be understood,  
Mankind cannot be ignorant if it would.  
Urged on by Destiny we headlong go,  
Forced to seek that which most we fear to know.  
But ah! how cursed is he whom that decree,  
Which makes his doom obliges to foresee.    

The Second Epistle of the first Book of Horace. To a Friend.  

WHilst Philosophic studies you pursue,  
My acquaintance here with Homer I renew;  
Who rules of moral Life to man prescribes,  
Beyond the Stoic or Platonic Tribes.  
Why this is my opinion, hear—  
That part which the protracted war relates,  
Between the Grecian and Barbarian States,  
Instructively of the commotions sings,  
Of empty crowds, and their resembling Kings.  
By voting to restore the beauteous Prize,  
Peace to restore at once Antenor tries,  
Paris to be compelled to happiness denies.  
Nestor makes haste the difference to compose,  
Which in the General, and Achilles rose.  
Whose injured Love in both strange fury breeds,  
Whilst for the madness of their Kings the Grecian Army bleeds.  
Sedition, Malice, Lust and Rage destroy,  
The Grecian Camp, and Garrison of Troy.  
But how far Wisdom joined with Virtue goes,  
That pattern of them both Ulysses shows.  
He, thro' strange Climes with different customs, tossed,  
After he had taken Troy himself had almost lost.  
Suffering, he sailed the boundless Ocean o'er,  
And up against all Storms of Fate he bore,  
Whilst for himself and Friends he did a safe return explore.  
Why should I here Circoean Cups rehearse?  
Or Sirens singing in harmonious Verse?  
Those Cups if with his greedy Friends he had drunk,  
Down to a Brute transformed with them h'had sunk.  
Young Fops who sleep till noon, then dress till night,  
And make that Life their vanity and delight;  
These are Penelope's Suitors, Rascals born  
Only to plague the Fair, and consume Corn.  
Ciphers, who stand for nought alone, designed  
But to complete the number of Mankind.   

Villains to cut men's Throats their Beds forsake,  
And wilt not thou to save thyself awake?  
'Tis better now to try preventive arts,  
ere noxious Humours seize the nobler parts;  
Then stay till their contagious influence force,  
The wretched Patient on too late a course.  
Now rouse by Night, watch o'er th'instructive Page▪  
For Love, or Envy, Discontent or Rage;  
Unless this useful gentler way you take,  
The rest you ' indulge will soon by Tortures break  
Why? when malignant Rheums thy sight obscure  
Art thou impatient to dispatch the Cure;  
Yet like a stupid Wretch delayest to find  
A cure for cares that overcast thy mind?  
Dare to tread Wisdoms paths, set forth apace:  
He who sets forth has finished half the race.  
Who till the lets of Lise are past, defers  
That happy minute, like the Peasant errs,  
Who stands expecting by the River's side  
Till running waters leave the Channel dried,  
Which from an unexhausted source eternally's supplied  
Vainly thou spendest too great a part of Life  
In getting an Estate, or a fine Wife.  
With greedy toil thou ploughst vast Forests o'er,  
Let him who has enough expect no more.  
When the Great man lies languishing in State,  
Not all his Pomp and Plenty can abate,  
That Favour, which perhaps they might create.  
Nor Gold, nor Jewels, anxious cares expel,  
T' enjoy all these the Owner must be well.  
He whom Ambition fires, or Dangers fright,  
In Fortune's favours takes no more delight,  
Than men grown impotent, in Woman's find;  
So Lutes the Deaf, so Beauty charms the Blind.  
Th' infected Vessel taints th' infusion too,  
Contemn all joys, which greater griefs pursue.  
The Miser wants the more, the more he acquires,  
Hear this, and bounds prefix to your desires.  
Not witty Cruelty by Revenge refined,  
In old Sicilian Tyrants e'er designed  
Tortures that vexed the Limbs, as Envy wracks the Mind.  
Temperate rising Fury whilst ye have power,  
Who give't a loose, oft curse that Fatal hour.  
'Tis a short madness: your desire restrain,  
That, that betimes confine, betimes enchain,  
Which must b' a Slave, or absolutely reign.   

Th' unmanaged Colt, the skilful Rider tames,  
And forms him to the course or to the battle frames  
Since first they fleshed and entered the young Hound,  
His rattling tongue makes Hills and Dales resound.  
Now, now, these wholesome precepts of the Muse  
Into your young untainted breast infuse.  
Th' unseasoned Cask will long retain the scent,  
Of the rich Wines which in it first ferment.  
Thus my sweet Friend, in whom I most delight;  
To keep my pace in Virtue's ways I'invite.  
But if you ' outrun or lag I give you o'er,  
I'll neither wait for those behind, nor urge on those before.    

FABLE. Of the Aunt and the Grasshopper.  

THe Grasshopper, the merriest Creature  
That ever was produced by Nature:  
Whilst Summer lasted every day,  
Did nought but eat and sing and play.  
When Winter came, and Heaven looked lowering,  
And Boreas thro' the World ran fcowring.  
Grasshopper saw her pleasure past,  
Her banquet's gone, and she must fast.  
Nature, wh' had served, had ta'en away,  
She now can neither sing nor play.  
Nothing that's edible is at home,  
No not a Fly, a Mite, an Atom.  
Then she to neighbour Aunt does trudge,  
A little sneaking Country drudge.  
Gossip, I come t' implore thy ' assistance,  
And borrow something for subsistence:  
Lend me at most but twenty grain,  
I'll pay thee punctually again,  
In August, Gossip, if not sooner,  
As I an Insect am of honour.  
Lend! that's a case requires arguing;  
Two words, good Gossip, to a bargain.  
What! come to borrow of a Miser!  
Gossip! I thought thou hadst been wiser.  
Pray what mightst thou do all the Summer?  
Do, Gossip? why to every comer▪  
I day and night sung oh be joyful!  
And hadst not thou a fine employ fool?  
But hark ye me, the Proverb cries,  
Neighbour be merry and be wise.  
He who is forced to go a borrowing,  
Neighbour, is forced to go a sorrowing,  
Why, as you could till Winter sing,  
I'saith you may go dance till Spring.   

Moral.  
WHo riots out Life's Summer and its Spring,  
He feels in Age of want and scorn the Sting.  
Not that from pleasure we the young would fright,  
For a young Stoic is a monstrous fight.  
That wretch runs counter to what Heaven designs;  
To pleasure Heaven and Nature Youth inclines.  
Youth is from Age distinguished but by joy;  
Which Youth still gives, and Age must still destroy.  
Yet let short joys with moderate Cares be mixed.  
joy will like Mercury die, if once 'tis fixed.  
Oft let it to returning Care give place,  
Oft from thy Breast that Care let Pleasure chase.  
So shall thy care nor anxious be nor long,  
Whilst thy delight is lasting found and strong.  
And thus deliciously you'll pass your Spring,  
And yet provide for ills which Age must bring:  
Who in his Youth is a perpetual Drudge,  
That sordid Sot does his own Genius grudge.  
He must provide for Fourscore Years he cries,  
Then e'er he has arrived to Fifty dyes;  
His Gold bequeathing to the Ass, his Son,  
That he may be more splendidly undone.  
Do not the Grasshopper for pattern take,  
Nor▪ yet the Pismire thy example make;  
Whose▪ foolish Drudgery, so unjustly famed,  
Is like the Sot's, whom just before I blamed.  
She day and night does up for Winter lay,  
Then ere the Fall, takes wings and sties away.    

FABLE The Fox and the Grapes.  

A Fox in Foraging did spy  
Grapes on a Treille some six foot high:  
Th' artractive and the golden sight,  
The Thief did to repast invite;  
He ogles every goodly cluster,  
Judges its liquor by its lustre,  
Which sympathetick liquor draws  
Into his ravenous distant Jaws.  
But when he saw he should lose time,  
Unless he by his craft could climb:  
Why gaze I here, he slav'ring cries,  
On paltry stuff I should despise?  
Is such sour gear for Renard's maw?  
Dost take thyself for a Jack Daw?  
Or for a chattering greedy Pie?  
Foh! leave them for the Mob, say I.   

Moral.  
WHen men to what they wish, aspire in vain,  
To be revenged in rage contempt they feign;  
But true Contempt to Rage is ne'er allied,  
By Rage Esteem is constantly employed,  
And therefore Rage is oft concealed by Pride.  
Fantastic Pride! even base whilst it aspires,  
Which falsely scorns whate'er it most admires.  
The Stoic writing in contempt of Fame,  
To his vainglorious Book, prefixed his Name.  
That lofty Sect does Glory most deride,  
And yet is grounded on dogmatic Pride.  
Declaims against that Vice without whose power,  
It's feeble Virtue could not stand an hour.  
Whilst Heroes in the Field their Love proclaim,  
That rails t' acquire the common Mistress Fame;  
Thus Sparks when other means are tried, lampoon the Dame.    

The Fourth satire of Boileau.  

WHence does it come, dear Friend, that they alone,  
Think they engross all Wisdom, who have none;  
That one Fop lolls his Tongue out at another,  
And shakes his empty Noddle at his Brother.   

A Pedant who has stuffed his brain with reading,  
So full, that there's no room for Wit or Breeding;  
Bristling with Greek, bloated with Pride and Bluff,  
And by long poring, surly grown and gruff.  
Who has by rote a Thousand Authors got,  
And of them all made one prodigious Sot.  
He on his dusty Volumes only dotes,  
Which he in talk, impertinently quotes.  
With him, if Aristotle says the word,  
Reason's ridiculous, and Sense absurd.   

But the old Beau, and every modish Ass,  
Who half the Morning constantly does pass,  
Ogling his ugly Carcase in his Glass:  
(Which frightfully t' adorn three hours are spent,  
As if, like ancient Picts, 'twere his intent,  
To native Ugliness acquired t'impart,  
And hideous grow, by Ornament and Art:)  
Who to the Park or Play rides jingling, where  
By his loud nauseous Chat, and graceless Air,  
He plagues the Sensible, and frights the Fair;  
Whilst all the little Loves that hover nigh,  
Our English Beauties from the Scarecrow fly;  
The Lumber of our Boxes and our Pits,  
And Beauties cursed Encumbrance too, and Wits:  
This Chariot load of Blockhead hates all Science,  
And bids to all the learned World Defiance.  
Damns, as by Privilege, whatever's writ,  
And makes his Ignorance his Claim to Wit.  
Proud Bigots who would all their faults conceal,  
And cheat even God by their affected Zeal;  
With seeming Sanctity, and spiritual Spite,  
Damn all the rest of men with all their Might.   

But th'atheist who towards Hell in Darkness strays,  
Whom want of Sense to want of Faith betrays,  
And whom no Law, but brutal Impulse sways;  
Contemns Gods Wrath, and everlasting Fire,  
By which (he swears the State, and the Church Liar.  
Grey reverend Rogues, to awe bold Fools conspire.  
For his part, who to reason makes pretence,  
He laughs at sham's, which shock all common Sense.   

But he that would this boundless Theme exhaust,  
And not in Crowds of various Fools be lost;  
He I'll maintain as soon might number all  
Whom in a Spring, or Pestilential Fall,  
Fevers, or more malignant Doctors, mawl.  
Or sum up all our Cuckolds on Record,  
From sneaking Cit to the gay strutting Lord.  
But that this matter may t' a point be brought,  
And in two words to sum up my whole thought;  
By leave of those seven Fools, so much renowned  
By Greece for Wisdom, take the Globe around,  
On it no perfect Wisdom e'er was found.  
All Men are Fools, and spite of all their pains,  
Their difference only in their rate remains.  
As in a Wood which numerous paths divide,  
Waysaring men are lost without a Guide;  
One on the right, one on the left hand strays,  
Both by one error rambling different ways:  
So we thro' Life's grand journey blundering run,  
Stumbling at Scandals which we wished to shun,  
By one same error several ways all bubbled and undone.   

Yet some grave Fops for wondrous wise would pass,  
But the grave Ass is an original Ass.  
Yet here let satire publish what it will,  
To Wisdom each exalts his Folly still:  
Does of his frailties as perfections boast,  
As doting Sires love weakly Children most.  
This to the man then who himself would know,  
He is most wise, who thinks he is least so.  
Who others viewing with indulgent thoughts,  
Does cynically censure his own faults:  
With rigour prosecutes them every one,  
And upon all sees strictest Justice done.  
But here let satire what it will divulge,  
His darling vice who is not apt t' indulge?  
A Fool who dotes on, nay adores his Gold,  
Amidst his Heaps enduring Want and Cold,  
His Folly does for a rare Prudence hold.  
His Pleasure, and his Pride's to heap up store,  
Which since 'twas his is guarded from him more,  
And less is in his power than 'twas before.  
But tell me mercenary, fordid Sot,  
Hast thou the plague of Tantalus forgot?  
Who to the very Chin in water set,  
Ne'er with one drop his burning Lips could wet.  
D' you laugh? how ignorant of yourself are you,  
Who your own Image thus with scorn can view?  
The plague of Tantalus does thee destroy;  
Possessing wealth, which thou canst ne'er enjoy.  
Numberless Sums your crowded Coffers burst,  
Yet after Gold eternally you thirst.  
Swimming in plenty still thy drought remains,  
And in thy Soul the Raging Fever reigns.  
Nor Fraud nor Sacrilege you eat for gain,  
Yet from what's yours religiously abstain,  
Thus Avarice but digs the Mine t' enter the Gold again.  
Why faith, the Miser in plain terms is mad,  
cries one whose Frenzy's different, but as bad.  
Who Gold, all day as up and down he wanders,  
On Rooks, cast Captains, Plotters, Parasites, squanders,  
Whores, Horses, Tailors, Hawks, Pimps, Dogs, and Panders.  
Who counter after Happiness does run,  
And to be rectified must be undone.  
From place to place he roams with restless mind,  
In search of Quiet, which he ne'er could find:  
By Fortune's favours rendered discontented;  
So when the Mistress is too fond, the Gallant is tormented   

For which of these d'ye most despair of cure?  
Why their conditions both are dangerous sure.  
An ancient Lord at the Groom Porter's cries,  
With a grave shrug and plaguy politic eyes,  
At the same time the bold adventurer knocks  
At all the Stakes with just Pandora's box.  
Whence the disasters flew that caused his ruin,  
And where his hope lay after his undoing.  
For Lands and Tenements being sold, he's fain,  
His Lackeys and his Strumpets to maintain,  
By a Rend charge, upon the merry Main.  
Should Fortune her inconstant malice show,  
And turn the Dice with one unhappy throw,  
You might behold him straight with bristling Hair,  
Turn up his Eyes to Heaven, and wildly stare;  
And swear like Devils, from some Wretch's Breast  
By croney Priest unkindly dispossessed.  
Bind him, or by his furious up-cast Eyes,  
This modern Monster will invade the Skies:  
Which even already loudly he defies.  
Yet leave him to the storm which tears his Breast,  
For his own Fury will chastise him best.  
Errors there are, which do more pleasing harm,  
Whilst the weak Reason to debauch they charm.  
Like Wine delicious, Poison they dispense,  
And send up Fumes, intoxicating sense.  
Aristus Rhimes, and there his Folly lies,  
But though those Rhimes even Busby's Boys despise;  
Himself he applauds, and in his vain account,  
Takes place of Virgil on th' Aonian Mount.  
But oh! should some bold man, severely kind,  
Dispel the mist, which thus obscures his mind;  
And all the bungling strokes he admires display,  
In the full light of Reason's glittering ray;  
How would he curse that hour, and how be grieved  
Of his sweet Error to be undeceived.   

Once an Enthusiast whom the Spleen did cheat,  
Into an odd and singular conceit:  
(The man concerning every thing beside,  
Discoursed like one whom Sense and Reason guide.)  
Fancied that Angels hover o'er him hung,  
That Cherub played to him, and Seraph sung,  
Whilst in his ravished breast immortal Pleasures sprung.  
A Doctor undertook him with success,  
And cured him by his Art, or else by Guess.  
But when he did at last his Fees require:  
pay you, cries the Enthusiast all on fire,  
You, whose damned Art, in opening thus my Eyes,  
Has lost me Paradise, to make me wise.   

His Rage was just; for man is not so cursed,  
But Reason's yet of all his Plagues the worst:  
'Tis she who fierce in midst of Joys remains,  
And with Remorse our gay Desires restrains:  
Our furious Passions she can never curb,  
And checking all the sprightlier does disturb.  
Her Rule's as troublesome, as 'tis severe,  
The Pedant's always bawling at our Ear.  
Our thoughts she reprimands, our actions blames,  
To make us mad she eternally declaims,  
Till Patience turns to Rage and flings away;  
Then that her barbarous Lectures we may shun,  
Like Husbands forced by Shrews to go astray,  
To Wine, or kinder Mistresses we run.  
In vain, some writers would with sovereign sway,  
Make her command, and every sense obey;  
Set up a God dess with presumptuous pride,  
Who might on Earth and in themselves reside.  
She they affirm can lasting joys bestow,  
Such as are her Votaries can only know,  
Who lead the lives of Demigods below.  
Why faith these things in Books are finely said,  
But hast not thou my Friend, who men hast read,  
Hast not thou found, after a strict survey,  
That your unthinking noisy Rogues are they,  
Who can be always satisfied, who can be always gay?    

The Fifth Epistle of Monsieur Boileau, to Monsieur Guillerague Secretary of the King's Cabinet.  

O Thou whose gallant and sagacious mind,  
The Power which formed it for a Court designed!  
Great Master in the art of pleasing! Who  
knowst how to Speak, and to be silent too!  
What course wouldst thou advise thy Friend to take,  
Say, had I best be silent now or speak?  
Shall I still signalise myself by satire,  
Fruitful in jolly Malice, gay ill Nature?  
And in the Field where I'have so often fought,  
Make Fops still shake at every pointed thought?  
A Field that once with tumult gained me Fame,  
When my rash Youth transported with its flame,  
To wisdom and to ease preferred a noisy name.  
But now since time has ripened my desires,  

* Boileau, when he writ this, was about Six and Forty Years Old; but Poetry admits of no odd Numbers above Nine.  Since Toys my thoughtful Soul no more admires,  
But at its fortieth rolling Year to wiser joys aspires.  
I bid adieu to the diverting Broil,  
And choose repose before the illustrious Toil.  
Then let a thousand of my scribbling Foes  
Vainly Conspire to shake this firm repose.  
I whom each breath blew once into a flame,  
Am an old Lion Tractable and Tame:  
I will no more my blu●●ed Talons arm,  
No more my Roar the Forest shall alarm.  
For as my sprightly rampant days are o'er,  
So my provoking chagrin is no more,  
Nor the sharp Gall which stung me into rage before.  
Again let all the scribbling Herd appear,  
I leave them now a full and free Carrear.  
Error I only hate, and Good esteem,  
Studying myself my own perpetual Theme.  
Let those who list through Tubes the Heavens explore;  
But me such vain inquiries touch no more.  
As vainly let Rohaut grow pale, t' inquire,  
If motion can with plenitu de conspire.  
Moisture and Drought, let Bernier too compound,  
Of bodies wand'ring thro' the Void, of body's hooked and round,  
I who my reasons dreadful Shipwreck fear,  
Whilst on a Sea, thus infamous I steer,  
I to provide the Skiff, use all my care  
To sit its Rudder and its Oars prepare.  
Thus to prevent the storm, and reach the Shore,  
Whilst yet prevention may be used, before  
The Winds run mad, and for their prey the Waves begin to roar.   

What do we aim at all but rest of mind?  
But we, within, that golden rest must find.  
A Blockhead full of faults, pursued by grief,  
To whom nor Town nor Country brings relief,  
In vain takes Horse, with thought t'out-ride his trouble,  
That mounts behind, and with him gallops double.  
What think you Alexander then designed,  
When, hurried by a vast and boundless mind,  
He laid all Asia waste, and plundered half mankind?  
What made him Graecia's gentle Clime forsake?  
What made him War on unknown Monarches make?  
In Tumult, Horror, and in Blood what pleasure could he take?  
Why ' attacked by trouble, which he could not tame,  
And which this Conqueror of the world o'er came,  
Himself his deadliest Foe he sought to shun,  
And from reflecting solitude to run;  
Conquering, he fled before superior Grief:  
This, this transported the Triumphant Thief  
TO Aurora's native regions, those gay shores  
O'er which her purple flood of light she pours,  
Where the burnt Persian the bright Star which scorches him adores.  
Self-Authors of the Plagues by which we groan,  
Far from ourselves we're every moment thrown.  
Why all this hazard, all this mighty toil,  
T' exhaust the Gold of the Peruvian Soil?  
Why are we thro' such various Climates hurled,  
To ransak both the new and ancient World?  
Fatigued by Journeys, or by Tempest tossed?  
Murdered on Land, or on the Ocean lost?  
Surely for happiness we need not roam,  
'Tis easiest had with little and at home.  
He, whom the God's best gift Content does bless,  
Possessing nothing, does the World possess.    

A Letter sent with the following Speech.  
SIR,  
I Have here sent you enclosed, what I promised you by the last Post, and I think myself obliged to give you some account of it. In the late Appendix to the new Observator, I find the Author reasonably complaining of the corruption of History by the French, and giving a very reasonable guess, how false the History of this Age (as far as it is writ by them) is like to come out in the next. And particularly what Mounsieur Pelisson's History of the present King of France is like to be, which he is now writing by that King's own order. Monsieur Boileau, who writ the enclosed, has at least as great a share in that History as Monsieur Pelisson: And therefore you have in the enclosed, in the which he has very artfully inserted a Panegyric of his Prince, a pattern of what his part of the History will be. For having flattered his Master in this small Panegyric, we have all the reason in the world to believe That he will flatter him too in his History. And that he has flattered him here, you will plainly find; not only by exaggerations, which are in some measure to be allowed to an Orator; but in affirming things which are directly contrary to the truth. Such are those two remarkable passages of the French King's offering Peace to the ●●e Confederacy, for the general good of Christendom, (which not so much as a Frenchman who has common Sense, believes) and of his Bombarding Genoa, only to be revenged of its Insolency and of its Perfidiousness, which every man who has heard the Story of Mr. Valdryon, must laugh at. Now since it is to be presumed, that Monsieur Boileau will flatter him in his History, because it is plain that he has flattered him in his Panegyric; What are we to expect from Monsieur Pelisson, whose sincerity is by no means so much talked of as the other's? I thought to have concluded here: but it comes into my mind to make two reflections upon the Panegyrical part of the enclosed. The first is this, that since Monsieur Boileau, who is in the main a man of sincerity, and a lover of truth; could not but flatter Lewis the Fourteenth when he commended him: we may conclude that it is impossible to give him a general commendation without flattery. For, where a Satiric Poet paints what other man must not daub? The second Reflection is this, that since this Panegyric is scarce to be supported, notwithstanding the most admirable genius of the Author, which shines throughout it; and an art to which nothing can be added (remember that I speak of the Original) and beyond which nothing can be desired; you may easily conclude how extremely fulsome the rest of the Panegyrics upon Lewis the Fourteenth must needs be, whose Authors fall infinitely short of Boileau's, either Genius, or Art, or Virtue.   

The Speech of Monsieur Boileau, upon his admission into the French Academy.  
Gentlemen,  
THE Honour this day conferred upon me is some thing so great, so extraordinary, so little expected; and so many several sorts of reasons ought to have for ever excluded me from it, that at this very moment in which I return my acknowledgements, I am doubtful if I ought to believe it. Is it then possible, can it be true, Gentlemen, that you have in effect judged me worthy to be admitted into this illustrious Society; whose famous Establishment does no less honour to the memory of Cardinal Richlieu, than all the rest of the numerous wonders of his matchless Ministry? And what must be the thoughts of that great man? What must be the thoughts of that wise Chancellor, who after him enjoyed the Dignity of your Protectorship; and after whom it was your opinion, that none but your King had right to be your Protector? What must be their thoughts, Gentlemen, if they should behold me this day, becoming a part of this Glorious Body, the object of their eternal care and esteem; and into which by the Laws, which they have established; by the Maxims which they have maintained, no one ought to be received, who is not of a spotless Merit, an extraordinary Wit, and comparable even to you? But farther, whom do I succeed in the place which you are pleased to afford me here? 
* Monsieur de Besons  Is it not a Man who is equally▪ renowned for his great Employments, and his profound Capacity? Is it not a Magistrate who filled one of the foremost Seats in the Council; and who in so many important Occasions has been Honoured by his Prince, with his strictest Confidence: A Magistrate, no less Wise than Experienced, watchful, laborious; and with whom the more I compare myself, the less Proportion I find.  
I know very well, Gentlemen (and who can be ignorant of it,) that in the choice which you make of men who are proper to supply the vacancies of your learned Assembly, you have no regard either to Place or to Dignity: That Politeness, Learning, and an acquaintance with all the more gentle Arts, have always ushered in naked Merit to you, and that you do not believe it to be unbecoming of you, to substitute in the room of the highest Magistrate, of the most exalted Minister, some famous Poet, or some Writer, whom his Works have rendered Illustrious; and who has very often no other. Dignity, than that which his desert has given him upon Parnassus, But if you barely consider me as a man of Learning, what can I offer you that may be worthy of the favour, with which you have been pleased to honour me? Is it a wretched Collection of Poetry, successful rather by a happy temerity and a dexterous imitation of the Ancients, than by the beauty of its thoughts, or the richness of its expressions? Is it a translation that falls so far short of the great Masterpieces with which you every day supply us; and in the which you so gloriously revive; Thucydidis, Xonophon, Taoitus, and all the rest of the renowned Heroes of the most learned Antiquity? No, Gentlemen, you are too well acquainted with the just value of things, to recompense at a rate so high, such low Productions as mine, and to offer me voluntarily upon so slight a foundation, an Honour, which the knowledge of my want of Merit, has discouragid me still from demanding.  
What can be the reason then, which in my behalf has so happily influenced you upon this occasion? I begin to make some discovery of it, and I dare engage that I shall not make you blush in exposing it. The goodness which the greatest Prince in the World has shown in employing me, together with one of the first of your illustrious Writers, to make one Collection of the infinite number of his Immortal Actions; the permission which he has given me to do this, has supplied all my defects with you.  
Yes, Gentlemen, what ever just reasons ought to have excluded me for ever from your Academy; you believed that you could not with justice suffer, that a man who is destined to speak of such mighty things, should be deprived of the utility of your Lessons, or instructed in any other School than in yours. And by this, you have clearly shown, that when it is to serve your August Protector; whatever consideration might otherwise restrain you, your Zeal will not suffer you to cast your eyes upon any thing but the interest of your Master's Glory.  
Yet suffer me, Gentlemen, to undeceive you, if you believe that that great Prince, at the time when he granted that favour to me, believed that he should meet within me a Writer, who was able to sustain in the least, by the Beauty of Style, or by the magnificent Pomp of Expression, the Grandeur of his Exploits. No, Gentlemen, it belongs to you, and to Pens like yours, to show the World such Masterpieces; and he never conceived so advantageous a thought of me. But as every thing that he has done in his Reign is Wonderful, is Prodigious, he did not think it would be amiss that in the midst of so many renowned Writers, who with emulation describe his Actions in all their Splendour, and with all the Ornaments of the sublimest Eloquence; a man without artifice, and accused rather of too much sincerity than of flattery, should contribute by his labour and by his advice, to set to show in a proper light, and in all the simplicity of the most natural Style; the truth of those Actions, which being of themselves so little probable, have rather need to be faithfully related, than to be strongly exaggerated.  
And indeed, Gentlemen, when Poets and Orators, and Historians who are sometimes as daring as Poets or Orators, shall come to display upon so happy a Subject, all the bold strokes of their Art, all their force of Expression; when they shall say of Lewis the Great, more justly than was said of a famous Captain of old, that he alone has achieved more Exploit sthan other Princes have read; that he alone has taken more Towns, than other Monarches have wished to take: When they shall assure us, that there is no Potentate upon the face of the Earth, no not the most Ambitious, who in the secret prayers that he puts up to Heaven, dares presume to Petition for so much Glory, for so much Prosperity as Heaven has freely grated this Prince: When they shall write that his Conduct is Mistress of Events; That Fortune dares not contradict his designs: When they shall paint him at the Head of his Armies, marching with Gigantic Strides, over great Rivers and highest Mountains; thundering down Ramparts, rending hard Rocks, and tearing into ten thousand pieces every thing that resists his impetuous Shock: These expressions will doubtless appear great, rich, noble, adapted to the lofty Subject; but at the same time that the World shall wonder at them, it will not think itself obliged to believe them, and the Truth may be easily disowned or mistaken, under the disguise of it pompous ornaments.  
But, when Writers without artifice, and who are contented faithfully to relate things; and with all the simplicity of Witnesses who depose, rather than of Historians, who make a Narration, shall rightly set forth, all that has passed in France, ever since the famous Peace of the Pyrences; all that the King has done in his Dominions, to re-establish Order, Discipline, Law: when they shall reckon up all the Provinces which he has added to his Kingdoms in succeeding Wars, all the Advantages, all the Victories which he has gained of his Enemies; Holland, Germany, Spain; all Europe too feeble all against him alone, a War that has been always fruitful in prosperity, and a more glorious Peace. When Pens that are sincere, I say, and a great deal more careful to write the Truth, than to make others admire them, shall rightly articulate all these Actions, disposed in their order of time, and attended with their real circumstances; who is it that can then descent from them, I do not say of our Neighbours, I do not say of our Allies; I say of our mortal Enemies? And tho' they should be unwilling to acknowledge the truth of them, will not their diminished Forces, their States confined within stricter Bounds, their complaints, their jealousies, their furies, their very invectives in spite of themselves convince them? Can they deny that in the very year in which I am speaking, this Prince being resolved to constrain them all to accept of a Peace which he had offered them for the good of Christendom; did all at once, and that at a time, when they had published that he was entirely exhausted of Men and Money: that he did then, I say, all at once in the Low Countries, cause to start up as 'twere out of the ground two mighty Armies, each of them consisting of Forty Thousand Men; and that he provided for them abundant subsistence there, notwithstanding the scarcity of Forage, and the excessive drought of the Season? Can they deny that whilst with one of these Armies, he caused his Lieutenants to Besiege Luxembourgh, himself with the other, keeping as it were blocked all the Towns of Brabant and Hainault; That he did by this most admirable Conduct, or rather by a kind of Enchantment, like that of the Head so renowned in the ancient Fables, whose aspect transformed the beholders to Stones; render the Spaniards unmoved spectators of the taking of that important place, in the which they had reposed their utmost refuge. That by a no less admirable effect of the same prodigious Enchantment, that obstinate Enemy to his Glory, that industrious contriver of Wars and Confederacies, who had laboured so long to stir up all Europe against him, found himself, if I may use the expression, disabled and impotent, tied up on every side, and reduced to the wretched vengeance of dispersing Libels; of sending forth Cries and Reproaches. Our very Enemies, give me leave to repeat it, can they deny all this? Must not they confess that at the time when these wonders were execuing in the Low Countries, our Fleet upon the Mediterranean, after having forced Algiers to be a Suppliant for Peace; Caused Genoa to feel, by an example that will be eternally dreadful, the just chastisement of its Insolence and of its Persidiousness; burying under the ruins of Palaces and stately Houses that proud City, more easy to be Destroyed than be Humbled? No, without doubt, our Enemies dare not give the lie to such known truths, especially when they shall see them writ with that simple and natural Air, & with that character of sincerity and probability, with which whate'er my defects are, I do not absolutely despair to be able at least in part to supply the History.  
But since this very simplicity, all enemy as it is to Ostentation and Pageantry, has yet its Art, its Method, its Beauties; from whence can I better derive that Art, and those Beauties, than from the source of all delicacies, this famed Academy, which has kept possession, for so many years, of all the Treasures, of all the Riches, of our Tongue? These, gentlemans, are the things which I am in hopes to find among you, this is what I come to study with you; this is what I come to learn of you. Happy, if by my assiduity in frequenting you, by my address in bringing you to speak of these matters, I can engage you to conceal nothing of all your most secret skill, from me. Your skill to render Nature decent and chaste at the very time when she is most Alluring; and to make the Colours and Paint of Art, appear to be the genuine Beauties of Nature. Thrice happy! if by my respects and by my sincere submissions, I can perfectly convince you of the extreme acknowledgement, which I shall make all my life time for the unexpected Honour you have done me.   

FABLE. The Fox and the Crow.  

THE Crow sat perched upon a Tree,  
With Cheese in's Beak, and who but He?  
Renard the wind of him had got,  
And after he had smelled the Sot;  
Thus he accosts him, Noble Sir,  
You do, or may I never stir,  
Excel each two and four Legged Creature,  
Both in Complexion and in Feature;  
And sure to such a Shape as thine,  
The Gods have given a voice Divine.  
Oh! could I hear that charming voice,  
How should I, Noble Sir, Rejoice.  
Thus like the Dog, that's sly and pickled,  
Renard the Crow cajoled and tickled.  
Behold the issue, whilst the Crow,  
That he his Charming Voice might show,  
Gave two or three obstreperous Caws,  
His Cheese dropped into Renard Jaws.  
Sir Crow, says Renard, every Flatterer  
Uses his Cully for his Caterer.  
This lessen, or I'm much deceived  
Deserves the Cheese; then be not grieved.  
The Crow, though late, with shame and trouble,  
Swore he'd no more be found a Bubble.   

Moral.  
GRoss Flattery only can by Fools be born:  
For it implies at once Design and Scorn.  
Now though self-love as vain by praise is won,  
Self-love contempt and injury must shun.  
Well managed praise may still expect success;  
Praise shows esteem, when ere it shows address.  
But only Fools gross flattery can brook,  
They love the bait, and can't suspect the Hook.  
Renard knew whom he praised, when he made choice,  
Of that egregious Topick of his Voice.  
To ape the Fox our Parasites think fit,  
To blind their fools, still more they praise their Wit.    

FABLE. The Wolf and the Horse.  

ISgrim had all the Winter fared  
So very ill, his looks Men scared.  
He had (poor Dog!) got an evil habit,  
Of going to Bed with the Devil a bit;  
So that he had contracted a mien,  
Which truly represented Famine.  
A filthy Figure, rude and gruff,  
As hungry Bullies who lie rough.  
Whilst free from Pinching and from Danger,  
The Cattle lay at Rack and Manger.  
When Winter quarter's they forsook,  
And to Encamp, the Field they took;  
Height Isgrim spied a sleek plump Steed,  
Who with that appetite did feed,  
One would have sworn, that his fresh Salad  
Was not distasteful to his Palate.  
At sight of Steed that's one huge bit of Fat,  
Height Isgrim's heart for joy went pit a pat.  
Ah Rogue! have I found thee? how happy  
Would Isgrim be, if he could but nab thee?  
But I had rather now by half,  
Thou wert a Mutton or a Calf.  
Then could I truss thee▪ up as readily,  
As I could after eat thee greedily.  
But thou art such a damned great Beast,  
That I must plot before I feast.  
Come let us plot then, pray why not?  
Sure duller Dogs than I can plot.  
Then Isgrim puts on Phyz of Gravity,  
Phyz, that agrees with deeds of pravity;  
As does with Satan Phyz of Hag.  
Then Isgrim thus accosts the Nag:  
Your Servant, Sir, may, please your Worship,  
To let me inform you, that my Curship  
Is, though I say't, a Beast of Parts,  
And right well skilled in medicinal arts.  
A Doctor who was ne'er yet graveled,  
Who, for experience long has travelled.  
Who has had the luck to have confuted,  
All those with whom he e'er disputed.  
I've had the honour to prescribe,  
Long to your Worship's noble tribe.  
And several worthy generous Horses,  
Are now by my advice in Courses.  
Of which each honourable Palfrey  
Is from his ailings more than half free.  
I speak to your Worship in this fashion,  
Because I've of your Case compassion.  
For says our Art, to see a Steed,  
Thus foully like your Worship feed,  
Betokens great indisposition,  
And calls for a severe Physician.  
Now if you will but only please  
To open to me your Disease;  
I Doctor Isgrim without failing,  
Will gratis cure your Worship's ailing.  
Palfrey gave Isgrim such a cross leer,  
As Horse at's Oats does roguish Ostler.  
Doctor, I have, as you will find;  
An Ulcer in my Foot behind.  
And offer here the part affected,  
To be by your Doctorship inspected.  
Then Palfrey, with his lifted Foot,  
Whilst Isgrim was approaching to't,  
With roguish treacherous intention,  
Wisely thought fit to use prevention:  
And had at's ugly Face a fling,  
Which Teeth from Jobbernoul did ding,  
Made his Eyes stare, and his Ears sing.  
Then to the bloody mangled Elf,  
Phyz, says the Horse, go cure thyself.  
Introth, says Isgrim, wondrous sad,  
What thou hast even deserved thou hast had.  
You must go act the Doctor, Booby!  
Yes you! incorrigible Looby!  
You must go set up for a Leech!  
Tho by thy actions and thy speech,  
The veriest Sots may see with scorn,  
That thou art Butcher bred and born.   

MORAL.  
TO force thy Genius is a thing,  
Will scorn and mischif on thee bring.  
For affectation, Ape of Nature,  
Is soon found out, and then all hate her.  
Wh'as soon as seen no more escapes  
Being laughed at, than your true Apes.  
Who to surrounding Mob rehearse,  
By looks and gestures a dumb Farce.  
Of all affected Fools, the Grave  
A long pre-eminence must have.  
No folly ere can theirs surpass,  
For since gravity in an Ass,  
In whom 'tis natural's so ridiculous?  
How must the affected grave beast tickle us?  
The place for which thou art unfit,  
Thou wilt decline if thou hast wit.  
To which if it should threaten danger,  
Take still more care to prove a Stranger.  
For if in such you'll needs be doing,  
'twill prove your Plague, if not your Ruin.  
You can't keep long in such a Station,  
Without the help of affectation;  
Andaffectation in this case,  
Has something worse than its Grimace;  
Betrays your blind side to your Foes,  
And lays you open to their Blows.  
As in a Stream if you plunge him,  
Who paddles and but half can Swim,  
He straight must in it or be lost, or  
With many an unnatural posture,  
With many a slounce and many a strain,  
Himself on th' adverse Flood sustain:  
And if he's there attacked by Foe,  
At last must to the bottom go.  
(For no Expedient can he try,  
Being neither free to fight nor fly).  
So one in place to which his Talon,  
Compared is not found equivalent;  
T'uphold himself in a wrong station,  
Must use eternal affectation.  
Must be by all Spectators seen,  
With a false Face and a forced Mien.  
By violence done to himself so harrass'd,  
So plagued, so pestered, so embarrassed;  
His puzzled mind ne'er finds Vacation,  
To look before for Preservation;  
Too clogged for dextrous quick evasion,  
On any sudden nice occasion.  
Can such a one himself defend  
From deadliest Enemy, false Friend;  
The Villain with a smiling Face,  
Who stabs and damns with an Embrace?  
No, as the Body, so the Mind  
Can't on its guard be when consigned  
Isgrim might have been quick enouff,  
To have escaped the Steed's Rebuff:  
If the grave Doctor had not been  
Too careful to maintain his mien;  
And too much taken up to heed  
The motion or design of Steed.  
For all who with dissembled mien,  
Fain what they are, not would be seen;  
Possessing but the Forms alone,  
And not the Powers of Gifts they own;  
Have for that reason Forms affected;  
The more, to pass the less suspcted.  
(And therefore Hypocritick Wight  
Seems more devout than the Upright).  
And when their thick and gross disguise  
Has served to hoodwink their own Eyes:  
Like Children when themselves they blind,  
They ' have thought no others could them find.  
Tho their proceeding works effect  
Contrary oft to what they expect:  
As is apparent by our Fable:  
For Isgrim neither Learned nor able,  
Imagined he might fine for Sense,  
Out of his stock of Impudence,  
And positive grave Impertinence.  
And thought t'enjoy a Bliss that's double,  
The privilege on't, without the trouble.  
But he o'reacted so his part,  
That he got nothing by't, but smart.  
Which showed him a confounded Sot,  
When he imagined he could Plot;  
Because he could a Mutton fegue:  
They're Brains, not Teeth that serve t'intregue.  
And there's required much more skill in,  
A speculative than practic Villain.   

Beware by him, and meddle not,  
If thou'rt no Statesman, with a Plot.  
Plots, which are dangerous edge Tools,  
Have always Fatal been to Fools;  
Who after all the Snares they have laid,  
Have only found themselves betrayed.  
And most inextricably hampered,  
Unless they've seasonably scampered.  
As you perhaps have seen a Thrush,  
Fluttering tangled in a Bush,  
To which it has been glued and clung,  
By birdlime made of its own Dung.  
So Treason ill-contrived and dull,  
The very Excrement of Skull,  
Lays by the Heels its plotting Gull.   

The Devil owed Tegue, without all question,  
A spite when Tegue by Devil's suggestion,  
Set up for Souldiering and Plotting,  
Whose only Talon was Bog-trotting.  
What was th' event? at every Battle,  
We took whole thousands mere white Cattle,  
And more were mawl'd in one year i'th' Field,  
Than other Beasts, in three in Smithfield.  
One who was only drubbed i'th' Fray,  
Like Isgrim howling ran a way,  
And as he ran was heard to say;  
Dear joy, thou hast both Killing scaped and Hanging,  
And by my shoul, joy, thou'st deserved thy Banging.    

To Mr. E H Physician and Poet.  

H— the delight of Phoebus, who imparts  
To thee his Darling, both his sacred Arts,  
His healing Virtue, and his Heavenly flame,  
His power to give long Life, and endless Fame  
To a frail Body and an empty name:  
With constancy thy course of Glory run,  
Follow the leading God, as thou'st begun:  
Rise by vast Science and judicious rage,  
Like him t' enlighten and to warm our Age.  
At once his Favourite and his Rival be,  
'Tis he his Daphne comes to share with thee,  
Till all his powers on thee conferred w'admire,  
His vital influence and eternal Fire;  
That Fire though fierce, impetuous, never strays,  
But circling in sublime refulgent ways,  
By its just course spreads o'er the World its Rays.    

To a Young Gentleman, who was blamed for marrying. Young.  

Censured for being Happy made too Young!  
'Tis by a foolish or an envious Tongue.  
'Tis to be happy to be early joined  
To a loved Nymph as charming as she's kind.  
Can Heaven itself bestow a greater Blessing,  
Than early mutual love, and long possessing?  
Tell those who blame thee that till Thirty they  
The noon of Life, for Love's chief meal may stay.  
So plagued by pinching hungry formal fools  
Stay for a Clock, and are enslaved to Rules.  
Most to fall to that usual season wait;  
The Beasts, when half life's journey's over, bait.  
But tired by the bad way, and ill at ease,  
What they in misery taste, but half can please.  
He who at once is fresh, sharp set and gay,  
With perfect pleasure does about him lay.    

Upon the same Subject, in imitation of Anacreon's Manner.  

AS young Sylvander did one day  
Wantonly with Celia play;  
The Boy, called Love, a third to make,  
Did his Bow and Quiver take.  
His Bow with golden Wire he strings,  
And with Feathers from his Wings;  
Imping a never failing Dart,  
Strikes at once, with wondrous art,  
Celia's and Sylvander's heart.  
The Dart in both their Breasts remained,  
Down they fell together Chained.  
Love clapped his purple Wings for joy,  
'tis by Styx, like me a Boy!  
Joined to a Nymph Young, Lovely, Kind;  
Look how by my Dart they're joined!  
The golden bearded Dart, to wrest  
Out from either Lover's breast,  
Both Gods and Men shall strive in vain;  
They shall ne'er be two again.  
For see how riveted they lie!  
How they Bleed, and how they Dye!  
As my Psyche does and I.  
ay, though a God, with her expire,  
And reviving Death desire.  
Again I die, by death more blest,  
Than by Heaven before possessed.  
I would not be immortal I,  
But for ever thus to die.    

Advice to Women, against Female Pride.  

I.  
THE Gods because they're good, we ' invoke  
With their own gifts their Altars smoke;  
'Tis not the pain and smart we feel  
Which makes their suppliant Creatures kneel;  
'Tis not their Arbitrary sway  
Makes us implore what we obey.  
For were I sure that what I want,  
They would not hear, or would not grant,  
No not to them I would not pray.   

II.  
Much less to you, whom to beguile,  
We Goddesses or Angels style;  
Whom to Debauch Divine we call,  
And make you proud, to make you fall.  
Titles which we on you bestow,  
Oar own Despotic power may show.  
The very names that make you vain,  
Prove your subjection and our reign;  
For 'tis from Kings that Honours flow.   

III.  
Your glory upon us depends,  
Begun by us, by us it ends.  
Woman by nature's law's a slave,  
Man may resume what e'er he gave.  
Your power, to which our wills give date,  
We can confound who could create.  
Hear this, and laugh at your own Pride,  
Which all but easy Fops deride;  
Be humble, if you would be Great.    

Upon a Lady's Picture.  

AFter each skilful touch, and every Grace,  
The genuine form excels the painted Face.  
What wondrous Artist e'er could draw so well,  
As charming Nature, where she strives t' excel?  
Heaven's work, before the Painter's we prefer,  
Since it designed its Masterpiece in her.  
God, whose resemblance in each Face we view,  
Ne'er his own Picture more exactly drew.    

To a Painter Drawing a Lady's Picture.  

HE who Great Ioves Artillery aped so well,  
By real Thunder and true Lightning fell.  
How then dar'st thou with equal danger try,  
To Counterfeit the lightning of her Eye?  
Painter, desist, or soon the event may prove,  
That Love's as jealous of his Arms as jove.    

FABLE. The Lion and the Ass a Hunting.  

THE Lion would a Hunting go,  
His Game Wild Boar, Stag, Buck and Do  
For his Assistant he made choice  
Of th' Ass, who had a Stentor's voice.  
Oft silliest Creatures make most noise.  
Hid under boughs, he made him lie,  
And then commanded him to cry.  
The Ass thus bid, began to Thunder,  
And struck the Beasts with fear and Wonder.  
The Tempest of his Voice to shun,  
Upon the Lion's Toils they run.  
After that Prey enough was taken,  
Says the Ass, his Ambuscade forsaking,  
What feats have I performed to day?  
Have not I here done Wonders pray?  
I marry didst thou bravely bray.  
Had I not known thyself and Kindred,  
Even I myself should have been in dread.  
This to the Ass was no way pleasing;  
Although he rallied was with Reason.  
For what a devil! an Ass turn Bully!  
That is not fair, though, frequent truly.   

Moral.  

I.  
ne'er boast thyself, of thy own Merit,  
For those who hear thee cannot bear it;  
Besides, it shows a little spirit.   

II.  
To Praise to which you may aspire,  
If you deserve it, you are nigher,  
The less you show your fond desire.   

III.  
But if a Man deserves it not,  
The Fame that is by vanity got,  
Is that of a vainglorious Sot.   

IV.  
Then we your known defects of mind,  
Which t'excuse before we inclined,  
Expose and new ones strive to find.   

V.  
Thus whilst with vanity you take aim,  
Recoiling, it to flight puts fame,  
You hurt yourself, and miss your Game.     

Some Moral Reflections concerning Vanity, Written upon the occasion of Burlesquing the Fable of the Ass and the Lyon.  

THOUGH vanity in all we do not see,  
Yet a Vice 'tis from which no mortal's free.  
For Heaven with sovereign Wisdom did ordain,  
The thing it made so wretched, should be vain.  
The happiest has of misery such a share,  
As without Vanity he could not bear.  
But that into content our minds can cheat,  
Pleased to be wretched, whilst they dream they're great.  
Virtue to that, and Learning too we owe,  
For from our Pride our goodliest actions flow,  
And all that curious searching minds can know.  
For when we watch the livelong night to poor,  
And tedious Volumes are content t' explore:  
'tis not to know our duty and do well,  
'tis with aspiring thoughts and hope to excel.  
By Vanity we know ourselves; who'd dare  
To look within, if Vanity were not there?  
For all the rest so gloomy is and sad,  
The ghastly fight would make the wisest mad.  
But Vanity makes gay the ghastly sight,  
(As Cynthia guilds the dusky face of Night,)  
By its false light, a man his faults o'resees,  
Or it such Colours gives them that they please.  
Since we're obliged to't then, and to't allied,  
Why do we hate it still, and still deride?  
Indeed we hate it, when 'tis seen abroad;  
At home 'tis constantly caressed and clawed,  
The Vanity which is by others shown,  
We therefore hate, because it shocks our own,  
We would be upper-most, which they who boast  
Seem not t' allow; themselves esteeming most.  
To Sift them then, we're angrily inclined  
To weigh their Virtues, and their faults to find:  
Whilst all our Pride grows furious in our mind,  
Which till their faults are shown, is ne'er appeased;  
But fancying we're above them then, we're eased.  
Therefore the Wise, who would their Faults conceal,  
Never themselves their Merit will reveal.  
Praise, though their due, they never care to claim,  
But by their Modesty advance their Fame.  
Praise claimed our vanity will not pay, they know,  
Which of itself profusely 'twill bestow.  
For when we celebrate another's praise,  
'Tis not his Glory, but our own to raise,  
Provoked and pushed t't by an itching lust,  
To show how Sensible and Just.  
Great Wits extremely vain are sometimes found;  
They with fermenting Choler much abound:  
Thransported by whose rage they can't control  
Th'impetuous saillies of th'aspiring Soul.  
For they must own, who most admire great Wits,  
Tho still ingenious, they're but wise by fits.  
Even them when vain, as Fools, we must despise;  
As we count Fools, as far as modest, wise.  
But Fools ne'er modest are but by Complexion,  
They're vain and noisy Rogues still by Election;  
For modesty by choice implies profound reflection.  
Nature, who acts by admirable rules;  
Wisdom with vanity supplies in Fools.  
As she the Wise, (who mad with pride would grow,  
Could they know others and themselves not know.)  
By self-reflection humble keeps and low.  
So she those Fools who nothing know, and Bliss  
Owe only to their ignorance of this.  
Those Fools, who if they could their inside spy,  
At the sad view, would straight despair and die;  
Those she to make them drag dull Life can cheat,  
By monstrous vanity into self-conceit.  
As empty Bodies most are puffed with wind;  
So vanity most swells an empty Mind.  
From a Fool's inside breaks with filthy sound,  
And does their Senses who are near him wound.  
Vain Rogues are pleased with vile noise they make  
As Brutal Sots brag of the wind they break.  
Fools like the Ass, first frightfully are loud,  
Then of that very noise the Beasts are proud.  
He sat at Council boasts himself most able,  
Who loudest blasts discharges at the Table.    

FABLE. The Wolf and the Crane.  

A Wolf once eating at a Club,  
To eat his Brethren out did sup  
Something too greedily on Mutton,  
(Wols soon convertible to Glutton);  
Yet though he made enormous haste,  
He was resolved to make no waist,  
A Bone which in his Throat did stray,  
Took up its lodging by the way.  
The Crane's arrival was opportune,  
Ordered for Isgrim's good by fortune.  
Who is a friend to Fools, and so  
To Rogues she can't be termed a foe.  
Isgrim, no better was than such,  
Or Chronicle has wronged him much.  
And now he to the Crane makes signs,  
And to assist him she inclines.  
Now th' Operatrix falls to work,  
And pulls the Bone out with a Jerk.  
When Isgrim saw the Feat was done,  
Neighbour, says he, I must begun.  
Sir, says the Crane, before we're parted,  
I'd for my labour be rewarded.  
Rewarded, sayst thou, for thy labour?  
hay day! why sure you mock me, Neighbour.  
When in my Jaws I had thy slim Gullet,  
By special grace thou out didst pull it.  
And yet forsooth, before we're parted,  
You'd for your labour be rewarded.  
Go, Gossip, you're impertinent;  
And, let me tell you, impudent.  
Go, I hate such ungrateful wretches,  
'Slife! come no more within my Clutches.   

MORAL.  

I.  
HE who takes care t'oblige th'ungrateful, when  
After much time and pains he's sound a Bubble;  
Bilked in his hopes, mistaken in his men,  
Will be to shame abandoned and to trouble.   

II.  
For we from Pride, or Love, or Interest see,  
That bounteous actions generally spring.  
And disappointment to either of these three,  
Rage, Discontent, or red hot Shame must bring.   

III.  
The brave man's bounties almost always flow,  
From generous pride of doing good to Merit.  
Such a one's highly then concerned to know  
The worthy from the base ungrateful spirit.   

IV.  
For moderate benefits, this Rule may serve,  
If one's obliged, whose Sense and judgement's good;  
From Graitude he'll ne'er be seen to swerve:  
Gratitude's Interest, rightly understood.   

V.  
But if you would oblige to that degree,  
That the obliged must make his fortune by't.  
For something in him besides judgement see,  
Since 'twill not be his interest to requite.   

VI  
He will not probably ungrateful be,  
Whose actions still have Faithful been and Iust.  
Who never unprovok'd did injury,  
And never tho provoked betrayed his Trust.   

VII.  
Favours received are debts, and bounteous acts,  
Tho Bumble-case no Bond or judgement draws;  
Oblige us more to pay when time exacts,  
By frankly leaving us to Honour's Laws.   

VIII.  
Then twice th' ungrateful in one act offends,  
His falsehood and Injustice toodisplays:  
Kind Benefactors basely wrongs and Friends,  
And the most free and generous Trust betrays.     

Upon the Fleet then fitting out. Written in 1682.  

NOW floating towers the Royal Docks prepare,  
To scour the Main, as Tempests purge the Air.  
Not Winds drive Seas with more impetuous rage,  
Nor Seas beat Shores, than they their Foes engage  
Those bold bad men they by their Thunder scare,  
Who heavens dire Thunderbolts blaspheming dare.  
For Heaven (they cry) at Land or in the Deep,  
Does good and bad without distinction sweep.  
jove for diversion Bolts at random throws,  
Or else his rage misguides his erring blows:  
And his own sacred Oak that Thunder rends,  
Which to transfix some impious breast, he sends.  
His gods the Syracusian Tyrant spoiled,  
Yet sailing safe their impotence reviled.  
AEneas in the same Sicilian Seas,  
(His piety the rigid'st powers might please)  
Saw his Ships lost, and his brave men expire;  
Sunk by those Gods they saved from Grecian Fire.  
But in Great Britain's formidable Fleet,  
Justice and Rage, those contradictions, meet.  
Tempests oft sweep the Just, the Just that always spares,  
And always scourges us, whom angry Heaven for, bear's.    

The Prosopoeia of Ostend.  

I.  
SEE the small Stage of a great War,  
On which famed General's fight;  
Whilst wondering Nations from a far  
Oa'ze on the Tragic sight.   

II.  
Like Hydra's Heads my Bastions rise,  
Their fall augments their State:  
Their reascending towers despise  
The Impotence of Fate.   

III.  
The Winter's most inclement Sky,  
On the bleak beach I bear,  
Whilst jarring Winds the War supply,  
In their. vast Field the Air.   

IV.  
Phoebus' returning warms my Shore,  
And with the Plague annoys:  
That God of Physic poisons more,  
Than murdering War destroys.   

V.  
War, Famine, Plague, together go,  
To slay one wretch conspire,  
Just as the fatal three below,  
Each others help require.   

VI  
Here in a heap come all the ills,  
That shorten human breath.  
And 'tis an envied fate that kills  
But by a single Death.   

VII.  
Nor are my Sons consumed alone:  
Every kill trouble,  
With which the Enemy makes him groan,  
He himself feels double.   

VIII.  
Th' impartial Plague sweeps either side,  
One Monument I'm grown;  
Then destiny, if thou canst, decide,  
Who shall call it his own.   

IX.  
Expiring men for Victory strain,  
And like Bellona rave:  
When all the Conqueror can gain,  
Is but the vainer Grave.    

FABLE. Of the Cock and the Fox.  

A Cock stood Sentry on a Tree,  
A shroud experienced creature He,  
A damned arch Bird, as one shall see.  
Him Renard in his rounds espied,  
And near he drew, and thus he cried,  
Why how now, Coz! dost hear the News?  
There's now an universal Truce;  
Which must be followed by a Peace,  
War amongst Animals must cease.  
Come down, and let me hug theè, Dear Rogue.  
Thought Chanticleer, thou art a mere Rogue,  
A damned false Dog as e'er told lie,  
I'll show thee a Dog trick by and by.  
Friend Renard, this is glorious News,  
Who could have hoped for such a Truce.  
And yet I doubt not but its true,  
For look you hitherwards, come two  
Tall hidebound Curs, who doubtless bring  
Expresses to confirm the thing.  
The first with meager mien and Phys-grim,  
Is he who in single fight slew Isgrim:  
The other's he with whom thy Sire  
Did in a close embrace expire.  
Full stretch along the plain they scour,  
And in a minute of an hour,  
Will tell us how th' affair has passed.  
Ah! Plague and Pox upon their haste;  
Cries Renard, who ran scampering thence,  
So scared h▪ has ne'er left stinking since.  
Thus was the wily Beast defeated:  
'Tis just the Cheater should be cheated.   

MORAL.  
THere's no Man more obnoxious to deceit,  
Than an experienced, and successful Cheat;  
For he presuming on his own address,  
Draws deep Security from long Success.  
He's oft too vain, another to suspect,  
Now Caution of suspicion is th' Effect,  
And only Caution can from Fraud protect.  
Those Sharpers who by cheating throve so fast,  
They thought t'have topped upon the World at last;  
Did on the sudden one Tarpawlin meet,  
Who gulled them of their Gold and of their Fleet.    

FABLE. Of the Dunghill Cock.  

A Cock by scraping in a Dungle,  
Raked up by chance a huge Carbuncle.  
To the next Jeweller he met,  
Take it says he, thou canst it set:  
The Stone they say is true and fine,  
Yet for two Barley Corns 'tis thine;  
For to what end should it be mine?  
A learned Manuscript was once,  
By Testament bequeathed t'a Dunce;  
Who to convert it as was fitting,  
Straight trudged with it to Little-Britain.  
Says he t'a Bookseller, pray look,  
I've brought to sell thee here a Book.  
They say 'tis Learned, very Learned;  
But how a plague am I concerned?  
Friend, I am one of those damned Blockheads,  
Who had rather see the Coal in's Pockets.   

MORAL.  
THis Cock we may imagine to be,  
Some scraping or some sensual Booby.  
Moiling to satisfy in vain,  
His Gut, or his desire of gain.  
By th' precious Stone may be meant Wit,  
Which often is compared to it.  
For what comparison can be sitter?  
They're solid both, and they both glitter:  
And when they both are true and sine,  
Eternally they last and shine.  
They're both of mighty value too,  
Although their worth be known to few.  
And they who know them not, contemn  
Both equally the Wit and Gem.  
And when they find them straight forsake 'em,  
For something that's more apt to take 'um.  
When I have been at a new Play,  
Well worth attention the first day;  
Some Fops with loud insipid raillery,  
Have talked to Drabs in the first Gallery.  
These Fops now seemed to me to say,  
Why should we Blockheads mind the Play,  
Our Talents lie another way?  
May not these Beasts now be averred  
To be more awkward than the Bird,  
That its discovery did contemn,  
Yet gave a jeweller the Gem.  
But those Brutes acted by the Play,  
Just as the Dog did by the Hay.    

FABLE. Of the Wolf and the Fox.  

A Fox in a deep Well, one Night  
Spied the full Moon, the goodly Sight  
Whey-coloured, large and round, did appear,  
A swinging Cheese, which made him caper;  
He had a longing wild Distemper,  
Frequent to persons of his Temper.  
By th' learned in medicinal Lore called Canine  
Appetite, by the Mob called Famine.  
The two large Buckets which were there,  
Like Pollux and like Castor were.  
How so pray? For 'tis devilish odd,  
To liken a Bucket to a God;  
When one came up from towards the Centre,  
That in our upper world straight went there.  
These drew by turns the liquid Element;  
Into one got Renard, and towards Hell he went,  
To taste of Tantalus his Feast:  
Which finely Bobbed its gaping Guest.  
Arrived he soon was undeceived,  
But frighted terribly and grieved.  
Bilked of the bait he thought was his'n,  
And for his life he feared in prison.  
Since Renard Fate in Dungeon cast,  
She sentence on him seemed t'have passed.  
He had no way to be repreiv'd,  
Unless by a like Sot relieved,  
Who hoping on his Cheese to feed,  
Might in his place and pain succeed.  
Two days and nights h'had been in Dungeon,  
Water his Breakfast, Dinner, Nuncheon.  
Now in this space old Time did knaw  
From Renard's Cheese with Iron Jaw,  
A pretty handsome lusty Sliver.  
When Sharper Isgrim does arrive there,  
Who makes a shift with his small Sense,  
To live at Country Squires expense.  
Now him as soon as Renard spies,  
What, Bully Isgrim there he cries!  
In faith, dear Rogue, I'm glad to see thee:  
How hast thou fared this long time, prithee?  
Poorly? but set thy heart at rest,  
To night, thou even shalt be my Guest.  
Dost see this Cheese, which I've been munching,  
Of which I've gobbled down this Lunching.  
Odd! 'tis a rare one, a neat Jade,  
Who ever was the Dairy-maid.  
I have on purpose set thee a Tub,  
In which thou mayst come down and Sup;  
Here's special Food and special Bub.  
And thus for want of Sense, was Bully  
Isgrim harangued to Renard's Cully.  
Down he goes swinging in the Bucket,  
Which hoisting Renard's, up does pluck it.  
He towards the top with merry Glee,  
Mounting Sung, hay Boys up go we.    

juvenal's Eighth Satire, Frag.  

HOW vain a thing's descent! How poor the Fame  
Of a derived hereditary Name!  
Or Rooms of State by proud Patricians hung,  
With mighty Conqueror's from whose Loins they sprung?  
Where with the Pageantry of painted Pride,  
Th' AEmilians in triumphant Chariots ride.  
That such prodigious Coxcombs should be found,  
As to be proud of Shadow and of Sound!  
Deformed, half, Headless Heroes to expose  
In Statues rotten, and consumed as those:  
For what Advantage can at last be thine,  
Tho' the wide Arms of thy extended Line  
Renowned old Roman Magistrates embrace,  
If thy vile Life brands thy whole glorious Race?  
If in thy brave Forefathers awful sight,  
Their Offspring drinks all Day, and plays all Night;  
Then at the Dawn lies down, at which they Armed,  
To the dire Field by Glories Trump alarmed.  
Can Fabius value himself with any Face  
On Gallic Trophies, and th' Herculean Race,  
Fabius Rome's Scandal, and his Line's Disgrace.  
The vainest, lewdest Fop about the Town,  
Heavy and soft as Slumbers on the Down,  
Who by the Pumice-stone's preposterous Use,  
His pathic Loins adapting for Abuse,  
Does all his rusty Ancestors traduce.  
Till at the last his poisoning Practice known,  
Defiles their Statues and destroys his own,  
By the just Laws for his high Crimes o'erthrown.  
Tho' your entailed swollen Titles Volumes fill,  
If you want Virtue you're but Rabble still.  
Paulus and Cossus Names set high by Fate,  
May bring some noisy Pomp, some empty State,  
But their rare Virtues make you truly Great.  
Consul, or private Man, let those be shown,  
Let those before your very Rods be known.  
If Noble to be thought by me ye aspire,  
Know 'tis a Noble Mind that I require.  
If you're in Life unblamed, in Practice just,  
True to your Friend, and faithful to your Trust,  
To your high Birth immediately I veil,  
Silan us or Getulicus all Hail!  
Or from whatever Stem thou comest beside,  
It's Glory and thy exulting Country's Pride,  
With Rapture, I have found thee, straight I cry,  
Like the Egyptians when their God they spy.  
Who calls him Great, whose Life his Race belies,  
And want of worth adulterate Blood descries;  
Who calls him Noble does it by Abuse,  
For wicked Ironies are much in use.  
This let Rubellius Plancus ponder well,  
Whom the brave Drusi's lofty Line does swell.  
As if such Virtues did in Plancus shine,  
That (could he yet be got) those Powers Divine,  
Might claim to be incorporate in Rome's imperial Line:  
As if such Things could not in haste be made  
By some lewd Rogue, and some Suburban Jade:  
Had but his sporting Mother known that Thing  
Would from the pleasure which she toiled for spring,  
That very thought had damped her active Flame,  
And of approaching Bliss had bilked the panting Dame.  
Yet with disdain this haughty block head eyes  
Those of a lower Rank, and thus he cries:  
" Base Scoundrels, you of Rome the Lees and Scum,  
" To whom your Father's Countries are unknown,  
" As were your wretched Fathers to their own,  
" Whilst from Crowned Heads and Demigods I come.  
Long may your Honour live, and, whilst you live,  
With joy t' yourself your topping Titles give.  
Yet know amongst these Scoundrels some have Sense  
Adorned with Wit and Manly Eloquence.  
And if you with litigious Foes contend,  
Amongst this Scum a Lord may want a Friend,  
Who can your Sots of Quality defend.  
Even from the Lees of Rome brave Spirits rise,  
Who, searching Glory, Death and Wounds despise;  
Some to the Rhine, and tamed Bavarians run,  
Some to Euphrates, and the rising Sun:  
Whilst thou contented with a borrowed Fame,  
Stickest to thy Father's Statues, like the same,  
A cold dull Mass, and a high sounding Name:  
True; Freakish Action Life in Plancus proves,  
Yet their rare shapes, tho' fixed as stone behoves,  
Express more Soul than thine, whose senseless Figure moves.    

Lions, October 15. 1688. SIR,  
I Do not question but that you have for this month expected a Letter from me, and that perhaps with a little impatience: Since this is a time which may afford variety of News, of which who must not be now desirous? But all the time I was at Paris, I had so much Sickness, that that might well supersede any obligation I lay under. For let a promise be never so binding, and never so much a Debt; who could take care of paying so trifling a one, when a most severe and importunate Creditor, Nature, was calling for hers. Nor now when at length that excuse is wanting to me, are you like to receive such a Letter, as perhaps might be most welcome to you in this Conjuncture. For if I should send you the truth in disguise, perhaps you might not discover her. And is this a time to expose her naked to the World: When her nakedness which is only the effect of her Innocence, by many would be mistaken for Lewdness, and by more for Barbarity. I will then say nothing of the Affairs of Europe nor ours, though I could find much to say of them both. For I now converse with a People who are as full of Talk as they are Inquisitive. But since I am taking my leave of that People, I will confine my Discourse to them. But before I begin, I will use plain dealing with you, (a thing which they never did yet with any one) and tell you that I mortally hate them. Yet neither shall my Native nor acquired Antipathy suborn me to say any thing false of them. I will do like a Painter, who will draw the true resemblance of the Face that is most provoking. But then I must give you this Caution, that what I have to say, though it be true in some measure of all of them; yet it is chiefly to be consigned to the middle sort of the Nation. For besides that I have most conversed with them, as a Stranger must of necessity be supposed to do, the Genius of a Nation most plainly appears in the middle sort of its People. For great Education, which attends high Birth, or high Fortune, very often improves or corrupts or sophisticates Nature, whilst in those of the middle State she remains unmixed and unalter'd. These than I have found in the first place excessively vain. Every Man is here a Narcissus, and in the flattering glass of his own false imagination is eternally gazing upon himself, or at least upon what he takes for himself. For in this their errors are different, for as that melancholy Boy took himself for another, these merry Fools take something else for themselves. For nothing in Nature is more unlike than the Picture which a Frenchman draws of himself. It would be needless to insist longer on this. For they have so long made sport for their neighbouring Nations, by extravagant and absurd commendations of their own, that to endeavour to bring proofs of their Vanity, would be something more ridiculous than that. Now this is certain, that he who abounds in Vanity can want no affectation. For affectation is nothing but a fruitless attempt to counterfeit and falsisie Nature, when a Man impotently endeavours to appear what he really is not, or what he is incapable of being. Nature grows impatient, and struggles to be freed from the constraint that is put upon her, and in the strife there appeared something so odious that all who are lovers of her, cannot but hate that person who endeavours so rudely to force her. Now Nature in man is various. She is Gay in one, and Froward in another: She is Delicate in a third, in a fourth she is Gross; and there is not a Man in a Million whom Heaven made fit for all things: yet how many are there, alas! who by senseless Self-love intoxicated, believe themselves fit for all things, and will be offering at all things. Now such have been always, and will be always affected. And such are the people with whom I have lately conversed; and I have more particularly remarked in some of their Provincial Gentlemen, that in their endeavours to show their admiration mingled with a gentle Passion, they are guilty of affectations so monstrous, that an English Fop is not capable of them. Another necessary effect of their vanity is their assurance, or in our Language, their Impudence. For modesty is nothing but the fear of displeasing, when a man believes or at least, suspects that he is defective; and it naturally includes in it a mistrust of ourselves, and an esteem of others; which is the reason that renders it lovely to all, when ever it is joined with good qualities. For it flatters and soothes our Self-love, of which no Man can wholly divest himself; by assuring us that we are esteemed and preferred. Now how can any one have this fear of displeasing, who imagines himself all Perfection, and who swelled with the venom of Pride, like the Toad in the Fable, believes himself greater than those with whose greatness he holds not the least proportion. The French then are affected and impudent, which are but the necessary effects of that National Vice, their Vanity. But then have they one very good quality, which proceeds from the same vanity. And that is their extraordinary civility to Strangers. For they are civil to us, not for our satisfaction, but their own; not as they imagine it a duty, but an accomplishment. 'Tis to please himself that a Frenchman is officious to me, and 'tis to honour himself that he bows to others. I am pretty confident that I am not deceiyed here. For I have found by some observation, and some thinking, That there is little good Nature amongst them, For they will deceive or betray you at the very same time they oblige you. Thus have I given you an imperfect account of such of their qualities, as are most conspicuous in them. There are some which lie more hidden. But I have said enough to tyre myself and You.  
I am, etc.   

Turin, Octob. 25. 88  
I Have here sent you a Journal of my Journey from Lions hither, in which you will find that account of the Alps, which you so earnestly desired of me, before I came out of England. I have taken no notice of the Towns in Savoy; nor so much as the Rock of Montmelian, but have confined myself to a Subject which you seemed to affect so much.  
On the nineteenth of October, we set out from Lions, and came that night to Venpellier, thro' a fair Plain, which was sometimes Arable, and sometimes Pasture, and bounded with Rows of Hills at that just distance, as gave tho not a large, an agreeable Prospect.  
Octob. 20. We came by Noon thro' the same Plain, which grew to be sometimes a Marsh to a Bourg, called Tour Du Pin. From thence, after Dinner, we continued our way, thro' whole Groves of Walnut and Chestnut. Trees to Pont Beauvoisin, being the Bridge that separates France and Savoy.  
Octob. 21. We entered into Savoy in the Morning, and past over Mount Aiguebellette. The ascent was the more easy, because it wound about the Mountain. But as soon as we had conquered one half of it, the unusual height in which we found ourselves, the impending Rock that hung over us, the dreadful Depth of the Precipice, and the Torrent that roared at the bottom, gave us such a view as was altogether new and amazing. On the other side of that Torrent, was a Mountain that equalled ours, about the distance of thirty Yards from us. It's craggy Cliffs, which we half discerned, thro' the misty gloom of the Clouds that surrounded them, sometimes gave us a horrid Prospect. And sometimes its face appeared Smooth and Beautiful as the most even and fruitful Valleys. So different from themselves were the different parts of it: In the very same place Nature was seen Severe and Wanton. In the mean time we walked upon the very brink, in a literal sense, of Destruction; one Stumble, and both Life and Carcase had been at once destroyed. The sense of all this produced different motions in me, viz. a delightful Horror, a terrible Joy, and at the same time, that I was infinitely, pleased I trembled.  
From thence we went thro' a pleasant Valley bounded with Mountains, whose high but yet verdant Tops seemed at once to forbid and invite Men. After we had marched for a League thro' the Plain, we arrived at the place which they call La Cave; where the late Duke of Savoy in the Year Seventy, struck out a Passage thro' a rocky Mountain that had always before been impassable: Performing that by the force of Gunpowder, which Thunderbolts or Earthquakes could scarce have effected. This Passage is a quarter of an English Mile, made with incredible labour, and the expense of four Millions of Livers. At the Entrance into it is the following pompous Inscription. Carolus Emanuel Secundus, Subaudiae Dux, Pedemontani princeps, Cypri Rex, publicâ felicitate partâ, singulorum commodis intentus, breviorem, securioremque hanc viam regiam, a naturâ occlusam, Romanis intentatam, caeteris desperatam, eversis Scopulorum repagulis, aequatâ Montium iniquitate, quae cervicibus impendebant praecipitia pedibus substernens, eternis populorum Commerciis patefecit.  
At Chambery we dined, the Capital Town of Savoy. In our way from thence to Montmelian, Nature seemed quite to have changed her Face. There craggy Rocks looked horrid to the Eye, and Hills appeared on every side of so stupendous an height, that the Company was divided at a distance, whether they should believe them to be sunny Clouds, or the Snowy tops of Mountains. Here appeared a Hill with its top quite hid in black Clouds, and beyond that Hill, & above those Clouds some higher Mountain showed its hoary Head. With this strange entertainment by the way, we came that Night to Montmelian.  
On the 22. we set forward in the morning. The Mountains appeared to grow still more Lofty. We dined that day at Aiguebelle. In the Afternoon we proceeded on our way, sometimes thro' the Plain, and sometimes on the side of the Alps; with which we were hemmed in on all sides. We than began that day to have the additional diversion, of a Torrent that ran sometimes with fury beneath us, and of the noise of the Cascades, or the down fall of Waters, which sometimes came tumbling a main from the Precipices. We lay that night at La Chambre.  
On the 23. The morning was very cold, which made us have dismal apprehensions of Mount Cenis, since we felt its influence so severely at so great a distance. We arrived by Noon at St. Michael. In the Afternoon we continued our Journey mostly upon the sides of the Mountains, which were sometimes all covered with Pines, and sometimes cultivated, even in places where one would swear the thing were impossible, for they were only not perpendicular. We lay that Night at Modanen.  
Oct. 24. Modane is within a dozen Miles of Mount Cenis, and therefore the next morning we felt the Cold more severely. We went to Dinner at Laneburgh, situate at the foot of Mount Cenis.  
As soon as we had dined, we sent our Horses about, and getting up upon Mules began to ascend the Mountain. I could not forbear looking back now and then to contemplate the Town and the Vale beneath me. When I was arrived within a hundred Yards of the Top, I could still discern Laneburgh at the Bottom, distant Three tedious Miles from me. What an amazing distance? Think what an impression a place must make upon you, which you should see as far under you as 'tis from your House to Hampstead. And here I wish I had force to do right to this renowned Passage of the Alps. 'Tis an easy thing to describe Rome or Naples to you, because you have seen something yourself that holds at least some resemblance with them; but impossible to set a Mountain before your eyes, that is inaccessible almost to the slght, and wearies the very Eye to Climb it. For when I tell you that we were arrived within a hundred yards of the Top: I mean only the Plain, thro' which we afterwards passed, but there is another vast Mountain still upon that. If these Hills were first made with the World, as has been a long time thought, and Nature designed them only as a Mound to enclose her Garden Italy: Then we may well say of her what some affirm of great Wits, that her, careless irregular and boldest Strokes are most admirable. For the Alps are works which she seems to have designed, and executed too in Fury. Yet she moves us less, where she studies to please us more. I am delighted, 'tis true at the prospect of Hills and Valleys, of flowery Meads, and murmuring Streams, yet it is a delight that is consistent with Reason, a delight that creates or improves Meditation. But transporting Pleasures followed the sight of the Alps, and what unusual transports think you were those, that were mingled with horrors, and sometimes almost with despair? But if these Mountains were not a Creation, but formed by universal Destruction, when the Arch with a mighty flaw dissolved and fell into the vast Abyss (which surely is the best opinion) then are these Ruins of the old World the greatest wonders of the New. For they are not only vast, but horrid, hideous, ghastly Ruins. After we had galloped a League over the Plain, and came at last to descend, to descend thro' the very Bowels as it were of the Mountain, for we seemed to be enclosed on all sides: What an astonishing Prospect was there? Ruins upon Ruins in monstrous Heaps, and Heaven and Earth confounded. The uncouth Rocks that were above us, Rocks that were void of all form, but what they had received from Ruin; the frightful view of the Precipices, and the foaming Waters that threw themselves headlong down them, made all such a Consort up for the Eye, as that sort of Music does for the Ear, in which Horror can be joined with Harmony. I am afraid you will think that I have said too much. Yet if you had but seen what I have done, you would surely think that I have said too little. However Hyperboles might easily here be forgiven. The Alps appear to be Nature's extravagancies, and who should blush to be guilty of Extravagancies, in words that make mention of here's. But 'tis time to proceed. We descended in Chairs, the descent was four English Miles. We passed thro' Novalese, situate at the Foot of Mount Cenis on the side of Italy, and lay that Night at Suse. We dined the next day at Villain, and thro' a pleasant Valley came that Night to this place.  
I am, etc.   

Rome Decemb. 1. 1688.  
TO perform the promise which I made you in my last, I venture to say something of the Ancient and Modern Italians, though you do not consider that when you made that request to me, you put me upon a necessity of disobliging my Friend by a refusal, or exposing myself by treating of a Subject for which I am wholly unqualified. It is true, when I was at Lions in compliance with your desire, I ventured to say something of the French. But besides that I had been longer in France than I have in Italy, the French lie so open, that a Man who will observe them, may as well venture to give their Character in a Month's time, as he may in several years. For they who are excessiuly vain, take as much pains to show themselves, as a Stroler at a Fair does a Monster. 'Tis the constant business of their Lives to paint out their Virtues to you; nay, and their Defects which their Vanity mistakes for their Virtues. But the Italians are as reserved to Strangers as the French are open: and one would wonder how they who show much Phlegm before they are very well acquainted, should be able afterwards, in so strange a manner, to animate Conversation. But to come to my business, 'tis wonderful you say, that the Modern Italians should appear so different from the Ancient, since they breathe the same Air, and are nourished by the same Soil. For since the affinity is so near betwixt the Soul and the Body, and they work so strongly upon each other, you say it is but reasonable to believe that the Climate which helps to give the Body its Complexion, should help to give the Mind its Temper. Now since you have reason, you say, to suppose that the Climate of Italy is very near the same at this day, that it was two Thousand Years ago, you cannot but wonder that the Modern Italians should appear so different from the Ancient. The French are the very same now that Caesar described them formerly, excepting that they are grown a more polished sort of Barbarians. The Carthaginians were famed for their Cruelty & their Perfidiousness; and those two Vices are at present, inseparable from the Inhabitants of the Coasts of Barbary. But the Italians, you say, are at present renowned for several extraordinary Vices, which were utterly unknown to the Ancient Romans, to whose Virtues the Modern are utterly Strangers.  
In answer to this, give me leave to tell you that you are mistaken in part of your Assertion. For the Vices which are to be found at this day in Italy, were the Vices of the Ancient Romans. Their Empire owed its Rise to the same Crimes which dissolved it, and there were proportionably as many Villains in the Rome of Romulus, as there are in that of Innocent the Eleventh. Consider the Factions of Marius and Sylla, and the two Triumvirats following, and you will find infinitely more examples of black Revenge than you can amongst Modern Italians. What can be more bloody than those times? Or more treacherous and base than those of Tiberius? 'Tis true from the time of the first Consuls, to the end of the Punic War, there flourished a continual Race of Heroes, with whom if you compare the Modern Italians, they seem to be Men of quite different frames, and Inhabitants of a different part of the World. A capacity to practise those glittering Virtues which the World so much admires, depends very much upon force of mind, which depends in some sort on the Complexion, as that does in some sort on the Climate. But than is it certain that there is the very same force of mind required to be prodigiously wicked, that is required to be heroically Virtuous. Weak people are but wicked by halves, but whenever we hear of high and enormous Crimes, we may conclude, that they proceed from a power of Soul and a reach of Thought, which are altogether extraordinary. So that the Modern Italians, who by your own confession are skilled in all the ways of exquisite wickedness, come into the World with as much natural capacity to exert heroic Virtue, as ever the Ancient Romans did.  
Force of Mind makes a Man capable of great Virtues, or of great Vices; but it determines him to neither. Education, Discipline and Accidents of Life constitute him either a great Philosopher, or an illustrious Libertine.  
As strongest bodies cannot be secure from Infection in pestilential Seasons, so Minds that have most force are apt to be tainted by the Contagion of Epidemic Vices.  
The two most glittering Virtues that shined amongst the ancient Romans, were greatness of Mind and heroic Fortitude: 'Twas that greatness of Mind that made one of their Generals reject with disdain, the offer that was made him to poison the most formidable Enemy to their State: whereas the modern Italians have at every turn recourse to Stiletto and Poison, which are almost their only offensive Weapons.  
Do but compare the happy and flourishing state of the old Commonwealth, with the wretched condition of the modern Italians, and you will soon find the reason why the Romans were Brave and Honourable Enemies; and why the Italians at present are base ones. For this is most certain, That no Man can basely offer violence to another without doing some to himself. From whence it follows that no Man will do it, unless in some measure he believes it necessary. No Man then will take a base revenge of another who believes that he can take an honourable one. No Man will ever have recourse to Treachery who is confident of prevailing by open force. Now great success most commonly infuses great Thoughts, and inspires a noble Presumption, which renders Men Brave and Magnanimous: whereas we frequently see that Men with their Fortunes and Liberties lose their very Spirits and Souls, according to the observation of the Comic Poet. Ut res nostrae sint, ita nos magni atque humiles sumus.   
FINIS.