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And thou who gap'ft for my eftate, draw near;
For I would whifper fomewhat in thy ear.

Hear'st thou the news, my friend? th' exprefs is come
With laurel'd letters from the camp to Rome :
Cæfar falutes the queen and fenate thus:
My arms are on the Rhine victorious.
From mourning altars fweep the dust away :
Ceafe fafting, and proclaim

thanksgiving-day.

The goodly emprefs, jollily chu'd,

Is to the welcome bearer wondrous kind:
And, fetting her good housewifery afide,
Prepares for all the pageantry of pride.
The captive Germans, of gigantic fize,
Are rank'd in order, and are clad in frize:
The fpoils of kings and conquer'd camps we boast,
Their arms in trophies hang on the triumphal poít.
Now, for fo many glorious actions done

In foreign parts, and mighty battles won :
For peace at home, and for the public wealth,
I mean to crown a bowl to Cæfar's health:
Befides, in gratitude for fuch high matters,
Know I have vow'd two hundred gladiators.
Say, would't thou hinder me from this expence;
I difinherit thee, if thou dar'ft take offence.
Yet more, a public largess I design

Of oil and pics, to make the people dine :
Control me not, for fear I change my will.
And yet methinks I hear thee grumbling ftill,
You give as if you were the Persian king:
Your land does not fo large revenues bring.

Well,

heir?

Well; on my terms thou wilt not be my
If thou car'ft little, lefs fhall be my care:
Were none of all my father's fifters left:
Nay, were I of my mother's kin bereft :
None by an uncle's or a grandame's fide,
Yet I could fome adopted heir provide.
I need but take my journey half a day
From haughty Rome, and at Aricia stay,
Where Fortune throws poor Manius in my way.
Him will I choofe: What! him of humble birth,
Obfcure, a foundling, and a fon of earth?
Obfcure? Why pr'ythee what am I? I know
My father, grandfire, and great-grandfire too.
If farther I derive my pedigree,

I can but guefs beyond the fourth degree.
The reft of my forgotten ancestors

Were fons of earth, like him, or fons of whores.

}

Yet, why would't thou, old covetous wretch, afpire

To be my heir, who might'st have been my fire?
In Nature's race, should't thou demand of me
My torch, when I in courfe run after thee?
Think I approach thee, like the God of gain,
With wings on head and heels, as poets feign:
Thy moderate fortune from my gift receive;
Now fairly take it, or as fairly leave.
But take it as it is, and afk no more.

What, when thou haft embezzled all thy ftore?
Where 's all thy father left? 'Tis true, I grant,

I have mortgag'd, to fupply my want:

The

The legacies of Tadius too are flown;

All spent, and on the self-same errand gone.
How little then to my poor fhare will fall!
Little indeed; but yet that little's all.

Nor tell me, in a dying father's tone,
Be careful ftill of the main chance, my son;
Put out thy principal in trusty hands:

Live on the use; and never dip thy lands:

But yet what's left for me? What 's left, my friend!

Ask that again, and all the rest I spend.

Is not my fortunes at my own command?

Pour oil, and pour it with a plenteous hand,
Upon my fallads, boy: fhall I be fed

With fodden nettles, and a fing'd fow's head?
'Tis holiday; provide me better cheer;
'Tis holiday, and shall be round the year.
Shall I my houfhold gods and genius cheat,
To make him rich, who grudges me my meat?
That he may loll at eafe; and, pamper'd high,
When I am laid, may feed on giblet-pie?
And, when his throbbing luft extends the vein,
Have wherewithal his whores to entertain?
Shall I in homespun cloth be clad, that he
His paunch in triumph may before him see ?
Go, mifer, go; for lucre fell thy foul;

Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to pole:

That men may fay, when thou art dead and gone,

See what a vaft eftate he left his fon!

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

Prologue to the First Satire

Satire the First, in Dialogue betwixt the Poet and

308

his Friend or Monitor

310

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END OF DRYDEN'S POEMS.

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