For hell, and the foul fiend that rules The everlasting fiery gaols, Devis'd by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door, Are fenfelefs ftories, idle tales, Dreams, whimfies, and no more.
RESTORATION in the YEAR 1660.
IRTUE's triumphant fhrine! who doft engage At once three kingdoms in a pilgrimage; Which in extatic duty strive to come
Out of themselves, as well as from their home; Whilft England grows one camp, and London is Itself the nation, not metropolis;
And loyal Kent renews her arts again,'
Fencing her ways with moving groves of men; Forgive this diftant homage, which does meet Your bleft approach on fedentary feet; And though my youth, not patient yet to bear The weight of arms, denies me to appear In fteel before you; yet, great Sir, approve
My manly withes, and more vigorous love; In whom a cold refpect were treason to A father's afhés, greater than to you; Whose one ambition 't is for to be known, By daring loyalty, your Wilmot's fon. Wadh. Coll.
SACRED MAJESTY THE QUEEN-MOTHER,
DEATH of MARY, Princefs of Orange.
ESPITE, great queen, your just and hafty fears: There's no infection lodges in our tears. Though our unhappy air be arm'd with death, Yet fighs have an untainted guiltless breath. Oh! stay a while, and teach your equal skill To understand, and to support our ill. You that in mighty wrongs an age have spent, And feem to have out-liv'd ev'n banishment: Whom traiterous mischief fought its earliest When to most facred blood it made its way; And did thereby its black design impart, To take his head, that wounded firft his heart: You that unmov'd great Charles's ruin stood, When three great nations funk beneath the load; Then a young daughter loft, yet balfam found To ftanch that new and freshly-bleeding wound; And, after this, with fixt and steady eyes Beheld your noble Gloucester's obfequies : And then fuftain'd the royal Princess' fall; You only can lament her funeral.
But you will hence remove, and leave behind Our fad complaints loft in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly roar Destruction, and drive back to the firm fhore Shipwreck to fafety, and the envy fly Of fharing in this fcene of tragedy:
While fickness, from whose rage you post away, Relents, and only now contrives your stay ; The lately fatal and infectious ill Courts the fair princefs, and forgets to kill : In vain on fevers curfes we difpenfe, And vent our paffion's angry eloquence : In vain we blast the minifters of Fate, And the forlorn phyficians imprecate ; Say they to death new poisons add and fire, Murder fecurely for reward and hire; Arts bafilifks, that kill whome'er they fee, And truly write bills of mortality,
Who, left the bleeding corpse should them betray, First drain thofe vital fpeaking ftreams away. And will you, by your flight, take part with these? Become yourself a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our lofs, then fo have you, Who take yourself and the fair princefs too: For we, depriv'd, an equal damage have
When France doth ravish hence, as when the grave: But that your choice th' unkindness doth improve, And dereliction adds to your remove.
ROCHESTER, of Wadham College.
OME few, from wit, have this true maxim got,` "That 't is ftill better to be pleas'd than not;' And therefore never their own torment plot. While the malicious Critics ftill agree
To loath each play they come and pay to fee. The first know 'tis a meaner part of fenfe To find a fault, than taste an excellence : Therefore they praise, and strive to like, while these Are dully vain of being hard to please. Poets and women have an equal right
To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight, Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spight. 'Twas impotence did firft this vice begin; Fools cenfure wit, as old men rail at fin: Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste, And, good for nothing, would be wife at laft. Since therefore to the women it appears, That all the enemies of wit are theirs, Our poet the dull herd no longer fears. Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride To ftand or fall with beauty on his fide.
Tenth Satire of the First Book of HORACE.
WELL, Sir, 't is granted; I faid Dryden's rhymes Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times
What foolish patron is there found of his, So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroider'd up and down With wit and learning, juftly pleas'd the town, In the fame paper I as freely own.
Yet, having this allow'd, the heavy mafs That ftuffs up his loofe volumes, muft not pafs; For by that rule I might as well admit Crown's tedious scenes for poetry and wit. 'Tis therefore not enough, when your falfe fenfe, Hits the falfe judgment of an audience
Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd,
Till the throng'd playhouse crack'd with the dull load; Though ev'n that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court, Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours at in vain : But within due proportion circumfcribe Whate'er you write, that with a flowing tide The style may rife, yet in its rise forbear With useless words t' opprefs the weary'd ear.
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