Like mighty missioner you come "Ad Partes Infidelium."

A work of wondrous merit sure,
So far to go, so much t'endure;
And all to preach to German dame,
Where sound of Cupid never came.
Less had you done, had you been sent,
As far as Drake or Pinto went,
For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a,
Or e'en for oranges to China.
That had indeed been charity;
Where love-sick ladies helpless lie,
Chapp'd, and for want of liquor dry.
But you have made your zeal appear
Within the circle of the Bear.
What region of the earth's so dull,
That is not of your labours full ?
Triptolemus (so sung the Nine)
Strew'd plenty from his cart divine.
But 'spite of all these fable-makers,
He never sow'd on Almain acres:
No, that was left by fate's decree,
To be perform'd and sung by thee.
Thou break'st through forms with as much

ease

As the French king through articles.
In grand affairs thy days are spent,
In waging weighty compliment,
With such as monarchs represent.
They, whom such vast fatigues attend,
Want some soft minutes to unbend,
To show the world that now and then
Great ministers are mortal men.
Then Rhenish rummers walk the round;
In bumpers every king is crown'd;
Besides three holy mitred Hectors,
And the whole college of Electors.
No health of potentate is sunk,
That pays to make his envoy drunk.
These Dutch delights, I mention'd last,
Suit not, I know, your English taste:
For wine to leave a whore or play
Was ne'er your Excellency's way.
Nor need this title give offence,
For here you were your Excellence,
For gaming, writing, speaking, keeping,
His Excellence for all but sleeping.
Now if you tope in form, and treat,
"Tis the sour sauce to the sweet meat,
The fine you pay for being great.

Nay, here's a harder imposition,

TO MR. SOUTHERNE,

ON HIS COMEDY CALLED, "THE WIVES' EXCUSE.'

SURE there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain
To write while these malignant planets reign.
Some very foolish influence rules the pit,
Not always kind to sense, or just to wit:
And whilst it lasts, let buffoon'ry succeed,
To make us laugh; for never was more need.
Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;

But the gain smells not of the excrement.
The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,
With all her charms, bore but a single show:
But let a monster Muscovite appear,

10

15

He draws a crowded audience round the year.
May be thou hast not pleased the box and pit;
Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit:
So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ.
Like his thy thoughts are true. thy language clean;
E'en lewdness is made moral in thy scene.
The hearers may for want of Nokes repine;

But rest secure, the readers will be thine.
Nor was thy labour'd drama damn'd or hiss'd,
But with a kind civility dismiss'd;

With such good manners, as the Wife did use,
Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
There was a glance at parting; such a look,
As bids thee not give o'er, for one rebuke.
But if thou would'st be seen, as well as read,
Copy one living author, and one dead:
The standard of thy style let Etherege be;
For wit, the immortal spring of Wycherley:
Learn, after both, to draw some just design,
And the next age will learn to copy thine.

2

TO HENRY HIGDEN, Esq.,+

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE Grecian wits, who Satire first began, Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man;

The success of this play was but indifferent; but so high was our author's opinion of its merit, that, on this very account, he bequeathed to this poet the writing of the last act of his Cleomenes; which, Southerne says, "when it comes into the world, will appear so considerable a trust, that all the town will pardon me for defending this play, that preferred me to it." DERRICK.

Ver. 1. Sure there's a fate] No two writers were ever of more dissimilar geniuses than Southerne and Dryden, the latter having no turn for, nor idea of the pathetic, of which the former was so perfect a master, and of which his Oronooko and Isabella will remain lasting and striking examples. But Dryden used to confess that he had no relish for Euripides, and affected to despise Otway. Of all our poets, Southerne was distinguished by three remarkable circumstances, for the purity of his morals and irreproachable conduct, for the length of his life, and for gaining more by his dramatic labours than certainly any of his predecessors, or perhaps of his successors. Dr. J. WARTON.

†This gentleman brought a comedy on the stage in 1693, called The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot, which was damned, and he complains hardly of the ill usage; for the

Ver. 1. The Grecian wits,] The first edition of this imitation, dedicated to Lord Lumley, in quarto, 1690, is a

10

A fop within the reach of common law;
For posture, dress, grimace and affectation,
Though foes to sense, are harmless to the nation.
Our last redress is dint of verse to try,

And Satire is our court of Chancery.
This way took Horace to reform an age,
Not bad enough to need an author's rage.
But yours, who lived in more degenerate times,
Was forced to fasten deep, and worry crimes.
Yet

you, my friend, have temper'd him so well, You make him smile in spite of all his zeal : An art peculiar to yourself alone,

To join the virtues of two styles in one.

15

20

25

Oh! were your author's principle received,
Half of the labouring world would be relieved:
For not to wish is not to be deceived.
Revenge would into charity be changed,
Because it costs too dear to be revenged:
It costs our quiet and content of mind,
And when 'tis compass'd leaves a sting behind.
Suppose I had the better end o'the staff,
Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh?
"Tis all alike to them, who get the day;
They love the spite and mischief of the fray.
No; I have cured myself of that disease;
Nor will I be provoked, but when I please:
But let me half that cure to you restore;
You give the salve, I laid it to the sore.
Our kind relief against a rainy day,
Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play,

We take your book, and laugh our spleen away.
If all your tribe, too studious of debate,
Would cease false hopes and titles to create,
Led by the rare example you begun,
Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND,
MR. CONGREVE,

ON HIS COMEDY CALLED, "THE DOUBLE dealer.'

WELL then, the promised hour is come at last, The present age of wit obscures the past:

31

35

40

10

15

20

Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured,
With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude;
And boisterous English wit with art indued.
Our age was cultivated thus at length;
But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength.
Our builders were with want of genius cursed;
The second temple was not like the first:
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length;
Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
Firm Doric pillars found your solid base:
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space :
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;
He moved the mind, but had not power to raise.
Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please;
Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.
In differing talents both adorn'd their age;
One for the study, t'other for the stage.
But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatch'd in wit.
In him all beauties of this age we see,
Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity,
The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherley.
All this in blooming youth you have achieved:
Nor are your foil'd contemporaries grieved.
So much the sweetness of your manners move,
We cannot envy you, because we love.
Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
A beardless consul made against the law,
And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome;
Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
Thus old Romano bow'd to Raphael's fame,
And scholar to the youth he taught became.

Oh that your brows my laurel had sustain'd!
Well had I been deposed, if you had reign'd:
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose.
But now, not I, but poetry is cursed;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.

25

29

35

40

45

real life and living manners, a long commerce with the world, with much experience and observation. To produce, therefore, such a comedy as the Old Bachelor, at only one and twenty years, was an extraordinary phenomenon. Dryden, on its perusal, expressed great astonishment at seeing such a first play. Dr. Johnson thinks the idea of the comic characters might have been caught from a diligent perusal of former writers. The chief fault ascribed to it, as to all his other pieces, is a superabundance and affectation of wit on all subjects and occasions, and the universal confession, that his fools are not fools indeed. In the next year, 1694, he brought out his "Double Dealer," which did not meet with the expected applause; and the year after his fertile pen produced Love for Love, in my humble opinion the most pleasing of all his comedies. His last play, the Way of the World, was so ill received, that in deep disgust he determined to write no more for the theatre. The paucity of Congreve's plays cannot but remind one of the mul titude produced by the most celebrated ancients. Menander wrote one hundred comedies; Philemon ninety-seven; and Sophocles, according to Suidas, one hundred and twentythree tragedies.-There is something very affecting in our old poet entreating his young friend, at verse 72, to be kind to his remains. He earnestly complied with his request, and with equal affection and eloquence placed his character in a very amiable light. Dr. J. WARTON.

L

50

55

But let them not mistake my patron's part,
Nor call his charity their own desert.
Yet this I prophesy; thou shalt be seen,
(Though with some short parenthesis between)
High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,
Not mine, that's little, but thy laurel wear.
Thy first attempt an early promise made;
That early promise this has more than paid.
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
That your least praise is to be regular.
Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought;
But genius must be born, and never can be taught.
This is your portion; this your native store;
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,
To Shakspeare gave as much; she could not give
him more.

61

Maintain your post: that's all the fame you need;

For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence,
I live a rent-charge on his providence :
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you:
And take for tribute what these lines express:
You merit more; nor could my love do less.

ΤΟ

MR. GRANVILLE,

ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY, CALLED, HEROIC LOVE."

65

70

75

AUSPICIOUS poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy, what I must commend!
But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long-contended honours of the field,

Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduced to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town,
And, in despair their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.

5

10

15

20

Ver. 1. Auspicious poet,] Though amiable in his life and manners, Mr. George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, was a very indifferent poet; a faint copier of Waller. The tragedy so much here extolled was acted in 1698, and is in all respects the most un-Homerical of all compositions. Dr. J. WARTON.

'Tis hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
As damns, not only poets, but the stage.
That sacred art, by Heaven itself infused,
Which Moses, David, Solomon have used,
Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
Were they content to prune the lavish vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
Who, but a madman, would his thoughts defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
But when to common sense they give the lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
What I have loosely, or profanely writ,
Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
Nor, when accused by me, let them complain:
Their faults, and not their function, I arraign.
Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they pursued;
The pulpit preach'd the crime, the people rued.

15

Peter Motteux, to whom this piece is addressed, was born in Normandy, but settled as a merchant in London very young, and lived in repute. He died in a house of illfame near the Strand, and was supposed to have been murdered, in 1718. He produced eleven dramatic pieces, and his Beauty in Distress is thought much the best of them* it was played in Lincoln's-inn-fields by Betterton's com pany in 1698. DERRICK.

Ver. 1. 'Tis hard, my friend,] No French refugee seems to have made himself so perfect a master of the English language as Peter Motteux. He has given a very good translation of Don Quixote, which my friend, Mr. Bowle, preferred to more modern ones. By trading in a large East India warehouse, and by a place in the post-office, be gained a considerable income. It was supposed he was murdered in a house of ill-fame. He wrote fifteen plays; this of Beauty in Distress was acted in 1698. Dryden seems to have felt a particular regard for him. Dr. J WARTON.

Ver. 19. Rebellion, worse than witchcraft,] From 1 Sam. xv. 23. "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft," Soc. Todd.

The stage was silenced; for the saints would see
In fields perform'd their plotted tragedy.
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive:
Our desk be placed below their lofty chairs;
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part, at least, we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse:
These are the province of a tragic muse.
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice
Has equall'd thy performance with thy choice.
Time, action, place, are so preserved by thee,
That e'en Corneille might with envy see
The alliance of his Tripled Unity.

Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.

At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherley in wit.

25

30

35

Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare;

Contented to be thinly regular:

40

* This poem was written in 1699. The person to whom it is addressed was cousin-german to the poet, and a younger brother of the baronet. DERRICK.

Ver. 1. How bless'd is he,] This is one of the most truly Horatian epistles in our language, comprehending a variety of topics and useful reflections, and sliding from subject to subject with ease and propriety. Writing this note in the year 1799, I am much struck with the lines that follow the 175th, as containing the soundest political truths. Dr. J. WARTON.

55

Ev'n then, industrious of the common good:
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chased even amid the folds; and made to bleed,
Like felons, where they did the murderous deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintain'd,
Not yet by years extinguish'd, though restrain'd
You season still with sports your serious hours: 60
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
The hare in pastures or in plains is found,
Emblem of human life, who runs the round;
And, after all his wandering ways are done,
His circle fills, and ends where he begun,
Just as the setting meets the rising sun.

65

90

95

Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood:
But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught;
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work, for man to mend.
The tree of knowledge, once in Eden placed,
Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:
Oh, had our grandsire walk'd without his wife,
He first had sought the better plant of life!
Now both are lost: yet, wandering in the
dark,

100

130

Were these both wanting, as they both abound, 12
Where could so firm integrity be found?
Well born, and wealthy, wanting no support,
You steer betwixt the country and the court:
Nor gratify whate'er the great desire,
Nor grudging give what public needs require.
Part must be left, a fund when foes invade;
And part employ'd to roll the watery trade:
Ev'n Canaan's happy land, when worn with toil,
Required a sabbath-year to mend the meagre soil.
Good senators (and such as you) so give,
That kings may be supplied, the people thrive.
And he, when want requires, is truly wise,
Who slights not foreign aids, nor over-buys;
But on our native strength, in time of need, re-
lies.

Munster was bought, we boast not the success; 100
Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.
Our foes, compell'd by need, have peace em-
braced :

The peace both parties want, is like to last:
Which if secure, securely we may trade;

Or, not secure, should never have been made. 14
Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,
The sea is ours, and that defends the land.
Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care,
New ships to build, and batter'd to repair.
Observe the war, in every annual course;
What has been done, was done with British
force:

190

While sore of battle, while our wounds are green,
Why should we tempt the doubtful die again?
In wars renew'd, uncertain of success;
Sure of a share, as umpires of the peace.

A patriot both the king and country serves:
Prerogative, and privilege, preserves:
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand;
The barriers of the state on either hand :
May neither overflow, for then they drown the
land.

175

When both are full, they feed our bless'd abode; Like those that water'd once the paradise of God. Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share; 15 In peace the people, and the prince in war:

Ver. 152. Namur subdued, is England's palm &c.] In the year 1695, William III. carried Namur, after a siege of one month. The garrison retired to the citadel, which capitulated upon honourable terms in another month. The courage of our men in this siege was much admired, as was the conduct of the king. DERRICK.