With friendly stars my safety seek,
Within some little winding creek;
And see the storm ashore.

THE SECOND EPODE OF HORACE.

How happy in his low degree,
How rich in humble poverty, is he,
Who leads a quiet country life;
Discharg'd of business, void of strife,
And from the griping scrivener free!
Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,
Liv'd men in better ages born,
Who plough'd, with oxen of their own,
Their small paternal field of corn.
Nor trumpets summon him to war

Nor drums disturb his morning sleep,
Nor knows he merchants' gainful care,

Nor fears the dangers of the deep. The clamours of contentious law,

And court and state, he wisely shuns,

Nor brib'd with hopes, nor dar'd with awe,

To servile salutations runs ;

But either to the clasping vine

Does the supporting poplar wed,

Or with his pruning-hook disjoin

Unbearing branches from their head,

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And grafts more happy in their stead: Or, climbing to a hilly steep,

He views his herds in vales afar,
Or sheers his overburden'd sheep,

Or mead for cooling drink prepares,
Of virgin honey in the jars.

Or, in the now declining year,

When bounteous Autumn rears his head,

He joys to pull the ripen'd pear,

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And clust'ring grapes with purple spread.

The fairest of his fruit he serves,

Priapus, thy rewards: Sylvanus too his part deserves,

Whose care the fences guards. Sometimes beneath an ancient oak, Or on the matted grass he lies: No god of Sleep he need invoke ;

The stream, that o'er the pebbles flies, With gentle slumber crowns his eyes. The wind, that whistles through the sprays Maintains the consort of the song;

And hidden birds, with native lays,

The golden sleep prolong.

But when the blast of winter blows,
And hoary frost inverts the year,
Into the naked woods he goes,

And seeks the tusky boar to rear,

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With well-mouth'd hounds and pointed spear! Or spreads his subtle nets from sight,

With twinkling glasses, to betray

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The larks that in the meshes light,
Or makes the fearful hare his prey.
Amidst his harmless easy joys

No anxious care invades his health,
Nor love his peace of mind destroys,

Nor wicked avarice of wealth. But if a chaste and pleasing wife, To ease the business of his life,

Divides with him his household care,
Such as the Sabine matrons were,

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Such as the swift Apulian's bride,

Sun-burnt and swarthy though she be,

Will fire for winter nights provide,

And without noise will oversee His children and his family; And order all things till he come, Sweaty and overlabour'd, home; If she in pens his flocks will fold,

And then produce her dairy store, With wine to drive away the cold,

And unbought dainties of the Not oysters of the Lucrine lake My sober appetite would wish, Nor turbot, or the foreign fish That rolling tempests overtake,

poor;

And hither waft the costly dish. Not heathpout, or the rarer bird,

Which Phasis or Ionia yields, More pleasing morsels would afford Than the fat olives of my fields;

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Than shards or mallows for the pot,
That keep the loosen'd body sound
Or than the lamb, that falls by lot

To the just guardian of my ground.
Amidst these feasts of happy swains,
The jolly shepherd smiles to see
His flock returning from the plains;
The farmer is as pleas'd as he,
To view his oxen sweating smoke,

Bear on their necks the loosen'd yoke :

That sit around his cheerful hearth,

To look upon his menial crew,

And bodies spent in toil renew

With wholesome food and country mirth.

This Morecraft said within himself,

Resolv'd to leave the wicked town;

And live retir'd upon his own,

He call'd his money in ;

But the prevailing love of pelf

Soon split him on the former shelf, He put it out again.

182

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND.

MY LORD,

Anno 1699.

SOME estates are held in England by paying a fine at the change of every lord. I have enjoyed the patronage of your family, from the time of your excellent grandfather to this present day. I have dedicated the translation of the Lives of Plutarch to the first Duke; and have celebrated the memory of your heroic father. Though I am very short of the age of Nestor, yet I have lived to a third generation of your house; and by your Grace's favour am admitted still to hold from you by the same tenure.

I am not vain enough to boast that I have deserved the value of so illustrious a line; but my fortune is the greater, that for three descents they have been pleased to distinguish my poems from those of other men; and have accordingly made me their peculiar care. May it be permitted me to say, that as your grandfather and father were cherished and adorned with honours by two successive monarchs, so I have been esteemed and patronized by the grandfather, the father, and the son, descended from one of the most ancient, most conspicuous, and most deserving families in Europe.

It is true, that by delaying the payment of my last fine, when it was due by your Grace's accession to the titles and patrimonies of your house, I may seem, in rigour of law, to have made a forfeiture of my claim; yet my heart has always been devoted to your service; and since you have been graciously pleased, by your permission of this address, to accept the tender of my duty, it is not yet too late to lay these poems at your feet.

The world is sensible that you worthily succeed, not only to the honours of your ancestors, but also to their virtues. The long chain of magnanimity, courage, easiness of access, and desire of doing good, even to the prejudice of your fortune, is so far from being broken in your Grace, that the