and unblemished integrity, which have fo powerfully recommended you to the moft gracious and amiable Monarch that ever filled a throne. May the franknefs and generofity of your fpirit continue to soften and fubdue your enemies, and gain you many friends, if poffible, as fincere as yourfelf. When you have found fuch, they cannot wish you more true happinefs than I, who am, with the greatest zeal,
Your most entirely affectionate friend,
and faithful obedient fervant,
OW long, great Poet, fhall thy facred lays
Provoke our wonder, and tranfcend our praise?
Can neither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
Not fo thy Ovid in his exile wrote,
Grief chill'd his breaft, and check'd his rifing thought:
Penfive and fad, his drooping Mufe betrays
The Roman genius in its laft decays.
Prevailing warmth has ftill thy mind poffeft,
And fecond youth is kindled in thy breaft;
Thou mak'ft the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own;
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majefty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teacheft Perfius to inform our isle
In fimoother numbers, and a clearer style;
And Juvenal, inftructed in thy page,
Edges his fatire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy cafts a fairer light on all,
And ftill out-fhines the bright original.
Now Ovid boafts th' advantage of thy fong,
And tells his story in the British tongue;
Thy charming verfe, and fair tranflations, fhow
How thy own laurel first began to grow :
How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry gods,
And frighted at himfelf, ran howling through the woods.
may'st thou still the noble task prolong,
Nor age, nor fickness, interrupt thy fong:
Then may we wondering read, how human limbs
Have water'd kingdoms, and diffolv'd in streams;
Of thofe rich fruits that on the fertile mold
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold:
How fome in feathers, or a ragged hide,
Have liv'd a fecond life, and different natures try'd.
Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal
A nobler change than he himself can tell.
Magd. College, Oxon.
June 2, 1693.
The Author's age 22.
F yet your thoughts are loose from state affairs,
Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares ;
If yet your time and actions are your own;
Receive the prefent of a Muse unknown:
A Mufe that, in adventurous numbers, fings
The rout of armies, and the fall of Kings,
Britain advanc'd, and Europe's peace reftor'd,
By Somers' counfels, and by Naffau's fword.
To you, my Lord, thefe daring thoughts belong
Who help'd to raise the subject of my fong;
Το you the hero of my verse reveals
His great defigns, to you in council tells
His inmoft thoughts, determining the doom
Of towns unftorm'd, and battles yet to come.
And well could you, in your immortal strains,
Defcribe his conduct, and reward his pains :
But, fince the ftate has all your cares ingrofs'd,
And poetry in higher thoughts is loft,
Attend to what a lefler Mufe indites,
Pardon her faults, and countenance her flights.
On you, my Lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgement must expect my fate,
Who, free from vulgar paffions, are above
Degrading envy, or misguided love;
If you, well pleas'd, fhall fmile upon my lays,
Secure of fame, my voice I 'll boldly raise,
For next to what you write, is what you praife.
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