MISCELLANIE S.

THE

мотто,

"Tentanda via eft, &c."

WHAT fhall I do to be for ever known,

And make the age to come my own?

I shall, like beasts or common people, die,
Unless you write my elegy;

Whilft others great, by being born, are grown;
Their mothers' labour, not their own.

In this scale gold, in th' other fame does lie,
The weight of that mounts this fo high.
These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright;
Brought forth with their own fire and light:
If I, her vulgar ftone, for either look,

Out of myself it must be strook.

Yet I must on; What found is 't strikes mine ear? Sure I Fame's trumpet hear :

It founds like the last trumpet; for it can

Raife up the buried man.

Unpaft Alps stop me; but I'll cut through all,

And march, the Mufes' Hannibal.

Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay

Nets of roles in the way!

Hence,

Hence, the defire of honours or eftate,

And all that is not above Fate !

Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days!
Which intercepts my coming praise.

Come, my best friends, my books! and lead me on
'Tis time that I were gone.

Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now

All I was born to know:

Thy scholar's victories thou dost far out-do;

He conquer'd th' earth, the whole world you. Welcome, learn'd-Cicero ! whose bleft tongue and wit Preferves Rome's greatness yet:

Thou art the firft of Orators; only he

Who beft can praise thee, next must be. Welcome the Mantuan fwan, Virgil the wife Whofe verfe walks higheft, but not flies; Who brought green Poefy to her perfect age, And made that Art which was a Rage. Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do To be like one of you ?

But you

have climb'd the mountain's top, there fit
On the calm flourishing head of it,

And, whilft with wearied steps we upward go,
See us, and clouds, below.

ODE.

TEL

ELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is Wit,
Thou who master art of it:

For the first matter loves variety lefs;
Lefs women love 't, either in love or drefs.

A thousand different shapes it bears,

Comely in thousand shapes appears.
Yonder we saw it plain; and here 'tis now,
Like fpirits, in a place we know not how.

London, that vents of falfe ware so much store,
In no ware deceives us more;

For men, led by the colour and the shape,
Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.

Some things do through our judgment pafs
As through a multiplying-glafs;

And fometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

Hence 'tis a Wit, that greatest word of fame,
Grows fuch a common name;

And Wits by our creation they become,
Juft fo as titular bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest

Admir'd with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that title gain; The proofs of Wit for ever muft remain.

VOL. I.

H

'Tis

'Tis not to force fome lifelefs verfes meet

With their five gouty feet.

All, every where, like man's, must be the foul,
And Reafon the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call

The ftones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we fee
No towns or houfes rais'd by poetry.

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part;
That shows more coft than art.

Jewels at nofe and lips but ill appear;
Rather than all things Wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing elfe between.

Men doubt, because they stand fo thick i' th' sky,
If those be stars which paint the Galaxy.

'Tis not when two like words make up one noise
(Jefts for Dutch men and English boys);
In which who finds out Wit, the fame may
In an'grams and acrostick poetry:

Much lefs can that have any place

At which a virgin hides her face;

fee

Such drofs the fire must purge away: 'tis juft
The author blush there, where the reader must.

'Tis not fuch lines as almost crack the stage
When Bajazet begins to rage;

Nor a tail metaphor in the bombast way;
Nor the dry chips of fhort-lung'd Seneca ;

Nor

Nor upon all things to obtrude

And force fome odd fimilitude.

What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,
We only can by negatives define?

In a true piece of Wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree;

As in the ark, join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt; all creatures that had life
Or, as the primitive forms of all

(If we compare great things with small)

Which, without difcord or confufion, lie
In that strange mirror of the Deity.

But Love, that moulds one man up out of two,
Makes me forget, and injure you:

I took you for myself, fure, when I thought
That you in any thing were to be taught.
Correct my error with thý pen;

And, if any ask me then

What thing right Wit and height of Genius is,
I'll only fhew your lines, and fay, 'Tis this.

TO THE LORD FALKLAND.

For his fafe Return from the Northern Expedition against the SCOTS.

GREAT is thy charge, O North! be wife and juft,

England commits her Falkland to thy truft;