When out came the book which the news-monger | But, alas! he had been feasted
With a spiritual collation,
By our frugal mayor,
Who can dine on a prayer,
And sup on an exhortation.
From the preaching ladies letter, [took
Where, in the first place, stood the Conqueror's
Which made it show much the better. [face,
But now without lying, you may paint him flying,
At Bristol they say you may find him,
Great William the Con, so fast he did run,
That he left half his name behind him.
'Twas mere impulse of spirit,
Though he us'd the weapon carnal:
"Filly foal," quoth he,
"My bride thou shalt be,
And now came the post, save all that was lost, And how this is lawful, learn all.
But alas, we are past deceiving
By a trick so stale, or else such a tale
Might amount to a new Thanksgiving.
"For if no respect of persons
Be due 'mongst sons of Adam,
In a large extent,
Thereby may be meant
That a mare 's as good as a madam."
A SONG.
MORPHEUS, the humble god, that dwells
In cottages and sinoaky cells,
Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;
And though he fears no prince's frown,
Flies from the circle of a crown.
3 The Jesuits.
Come, I say, thou powerful god,
And thy leaden charming rod,
Dipt in the Lethéan lake,
O'er his wakefui temples shake,
Lest he should sleep, and never wake.
Nature (alas!) why art thou so
Obliged to thy greatest foc?
Sleep that is thy best repast,
Yet of death it bears a taste,
And both are the same thing at last.
ON
MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS.
So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms
Have turu'd to their own substances and forms:
Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to
fire,
We shall behold more than at first entire ;
As now we do, to see all thine thy own
In this my Muse's resurrection,
Hath suffer'd, than Acteon from his hounds;
Which first their brains, and then their belly
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
To make translations and translators too.
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
Whose scatter'd parts from thy own race, more True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
wounds
Fording his current, where thou find'st it low,
Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow;
Wisely restoring whatsoever grace
It lost by change of times, or tongues, or place.
Nor fetter'd to his numbers and his times,
Betray'st his music to unhappy rhymes.
Nor are the nerves of his compacted strength
Stretch'd and dissolv'd into unsinew'd length:
Yet after all, (lest we should think it thine)
Thy spirit to his circle dost confine.
New names, new dressings, and the modern cast,
Some scenes, some persons alter'd, and out-
fac'd
[known
The world, it were thy work for we have
Some thank'd and prais'd for what was less their
fed,
And from their excrements new poets bred.
But now thy Muse enraged, from her urn,
Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, does return
T'accuse the murderers, to right the stage,
And undeceive the long-abused age,
Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy
wit
Gives not more gold than they give dross to it:
Who, not content, like felons, to purloin,
Add treason to it, and debase the coin.
But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt
Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
Then was Wit's empire at the fatal height,
When labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Jonson, Shakespeare, and thyself did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit-
Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow,
Or what more easy Nature did bestow
On Shakespeare's gentler Muse, in thee full
grown
But what in them is want of art or voice,
In thee is either modesty or choice.
While this great piece, restor'd by thee, doth
TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAW,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF
PASTOR FIDO.
Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.
stand
Free from the blemish of an artless hand,
Secure of fame, thou justly dost esteem
Less honour to create, than to redeem.
Nor ought a genius less than his that writ,
Attempt translation; for transplanted wit,
All the defects of air and soil doth share,
And colder brains like colder climates are;
In vain they toil, since nothing can beget
A vital spirit but a vital heat.
That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains,
Not the effect of poetry, but pains;
Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords
No flight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at
words.
own.
That master's hand which to the life can trace
The airs, the lines, and features of the face,
May with a free and bolder stroke express
A vary'd posture or a flattering dress;
He could have made those like, who made the
rest,
But that he knew his own design was best.
Their graces both appear, yet so that none
Can say, here Nature ends, and Art begins,
But mixt like th' elements, and born like twins,
So interwove, so like, so much the same,
None, this mere Nature, that mere Art can name :
MR. THOMAS KILLIGREW.
'Twas this the ancients meant ; Nature and Skill POOL. To thee dear Tom, myself addressing,
Are the two tops of their Parnassus' hill.
Most queremoniously confessing,
That I of late have been compressing.
Destitute of my wonted gravity,
I perpetrated arts of pravity,
In a contagious concavity.
Making efforts with all my puissance,
For some venereal rejouissance,
I got (as once may say) a nuysance,
Once in a pit, you did miscarry,'
That danger might have made one wary
This pit is deeper than the quarry.
POOL. Give me not such disconsolation, Having now cur'd my inflammation, To ulcerate my reputation.
Though it may gain the ladies' favour,
Yet it may raise an evil savour
Upon all grave and staid behav'our.
But you that are a man of learning,
So read in Virgil, so discerning,
Methinks towards fifty should take But all in vain he did his plot disguise;
warning.
No art a watchful lover can surprise.
And I will rub my mater pia, To find a rhyme to gonorrheia, And put it in my Litania.
AN OCCASIONAL IMITATION
OF A MODERN AUTHOR UPON THE
GAME OF CHESS.
[nest,
A TABLET Stood of that abstersive tree,
Where Ethiop's swarthy birù did build her
Inlaid it was with Lybian ivory,
Drawn from the jaws of Afric's prudent
beast.
Two kings like Saul, much taller than the rest,
Their equal armies draw into the field:
Till one take th' other prisoner they contest;
Courage and fortune must to conduct yield.
This game the Persian Magi did invent,
The force of Eastern wisdom to express ;
From thence to busy Europeans sent,
And styl'd by modern Lombards pensive Chess Yet some that fled from Troy to Rome report, Penthesilea Priam did oblige;
Her Amazons, his Trojans taught this sport,
To pass the tedious hours of ten years' siege.
There she presents herself, whilst kings and
Hunting near Paris, he and his horse fell into a quarry.
peers
Look gravely on whilst flerce Bellona fights; Yet maiden modesty her motion steers, Nor rudely skips o'er bishops' heads like knights.
THE
PASSION OF DIDO FOR ÆNEAS.
HAVING at large declar'd Jove's embassy,
Cyllenius from Æneas straight doth fly:
He loth to disobey the god's command,
Nor willing to forsake this pleasant land,
Asham'd the kind Eliza to deceive,
But more afraid to take a solemn leave;
He many ways his labouring thoughts revolves,
But fear o'ercoming shame at last resolves
(Instructed by the god of thieves) to steal
Himself away, and his escape conceal.
He calls his captains, bids them rig the fleet,
That at the port they privately should meet;
And some disembled colour to project,
That Dido should not their design suspect:
Into my horders now Iarbus falls,
And my revengeful brother scales my walls;
The wild Numidians will advantage take,
For thee both Tyre and Carthage me forsake.
Hadst thou before thy flight but left with me
A young Æneas, who, resembling thee,
Might in my sight have sported, I had then
Not wholly lost, nor quite deserted been ;
By thee, no more my husband, but my guest,
Betray'd to mischiefs, of which death's the
least."
With fixed looks he stands, and in his breast By Jove's command, his struggling care supprest.
"Great queen, your favours and desert so great,
Though numberless, I never shall forget;
No time, until myself I have forgot,
Out of my heart Eliza's name shall blot :
But my unwilling flight the gods inforce,
And that must justify our sad divorce.
Since I must you forsake, would Fate permit,
To my desires I might my fortune fit;
Troy to her ancient splendour I would raise,
And where I first began, would end my days.
But since the Lycian lots, and Delphic god
Have destin'd Italy for our abode;
Since you proud Carthage (fied from Tyre)
enjoy,
Why should not
Troy?
As for my son, my father's angry ghost
Tells me his hopes by my delays are crost,
And mighty Jove's ambassador appear'd
With the same message, whom I saw and
heard;
Latium us receive from
We both are griev'd when you or I complain, But much the more when all complaints are vain:
I call to witness all the gods, and thy
Beloved head, the coast of Italy
Against my will I seek."
[eyes,
Whilst thus he speaks, she rolls her sparkling
Surveys him round, and thus incens'd replies;
"Thy mother was no goddess, nor thy stock
From Dardanus, but in some horrid rock,
Perfidious wretch, rough Caucasus thee bred,
And with their milk Hyrcanian tigers fed.
Dissimulation I shall now forget,
And my reserves of rage in order set,
Could all my prayers and soft entreaties force
Sighs from his breast, or from h3 look remorse.
Where shall I first complain? can mighty Jove
Or Juno such impieties approve?
The just Astræa sure is fled to Hell;
Nor more in Earth, nor Heaven itself will dwell.
Oh Faith! him on my coasts by tempest cast,
Receiving madly, on my throne I plac'd;
His men from famine, and his fleet from fire
I rescued: Now the Lycian lots conspire
With Phoebus; now Jove's envoy though the
air
Brings dismal tidings; as if such low care Could reach their thoughts, or their repose disturb!
Thou art a false impostor, and a fourbe;
Go, go, pursue thy kingdom through the main,
I hope, if Heaven her justice still retain,
Thou shalt be wreck'd, or cast upon some rock,
Where thou the name of Dido shalt invoke:
I'll follow thee in funeral flames, when dead
My ghost shall thee attend at board and bed,
And when the gods on thee their vengeance
show,
That welcome news shall comfort me below.”
This saying, from his hated sight she fled,
Conducted by her damsels to her bed;
Yet restless she arose, and, looking out,
Beholds the fleet and hears the seamen shout,
When great Æneas pass'd before the guard,
To make a view how all things were prepar'd.
Ah, cruel Love, to what dost thou inforce
Poor mortal breasts! Again she hath recourse
To tears and prayers, again she feels the smart
Of a fresh wound from his tyrannic dart.
That she no ways nor means may leave untry'd,
Thus to her sister she herself apply'd;
"Dear sister, my resentiment had no been
So moving, if this fate I had foreseen;
Therefore to me this last kind office do,
Thou hast some interest in our scornful foe,
He trusts to thee the counsels of his mind,
Thou his soft hours, and free access canst find
Tell him I sent not to the Ilian coast
My fleet to aid the Greeks; his father's ghost
I never did disturb; ask him to lend
To this, the last request that I shall send,
A gentle ear; I wish that he may find
A happy passage, and a prosperous wind.
The contract I don't plead, which he betray'd,
Nor that his promis'd conquest be delay'd;
All that I ask is but a short reprieve,
Till I forget to love, and learn to grieve;
Some pause and respite only I require,
Till with my tears I shall have quench'd my fire.
If thy address can but obtain one day
Or two, my death that service shall repay."
Thus she entreats; such messages with tears
Condoling Anne to him, and from him, bears,
But him no prayers, nor arguments can move;
The Fates resist, his ears are stopt by Jove.
As when fierce northern b'asts from th' Alps
descend,
From his firm roots with struggling gusts to
An aged sturdy oak, the rattling sound [rend
Grows loud, with leaves and scatter'd arms the
Is over-laid; yet he stands fixt, as high [ground
As his proud head is rais'd towards the sky,
So low towards Hell his roots descend. With
prayers
And tears the hero thus assail'd, great cares
He smothers in his breast, yet keeps his post,
All their addresses and their labour lost.
Then she deceives her sister with a smile:
"Anne, in the inner court erect a pile;
Thereon his arms and once-lov'd portrait lay,
Thither our fatal marriage-bed convey;
All cursed monuments of him with fire
We must abolish (so the gods require.");
She gives her credit for no worse effect
Than from Sichæus' death she did suspect,
And her commands obeys.
Aurora now had left Tithonus' bed,
And o'er the world her blushing rays did spread;
The queen beheld, as soon as day appear'd,
The navy under sail, the haven clear'd;
Thrice with her hand her naked breast she'
knocks,
And from her forehead tears her golden locks,
"O Jove," she cry'd, "and shall he thus delude
Me and my realm! why is he not pursued?
Arm, arm," she cry'd," and let our Tyrians board
With ours his fleet, and carry fire and sword;
Leave nothing unattempted to destroy
That perjur'd race, then let us die with joy.
What if th' event of war uncertain were ?
Nor death, nor danger, can the desperate fear.
But, oh, too late! this thing I should have done,
When first I plac'd the traitor on my throne,
Behold the faith of him who sav'd from fire
His honour'd household gods, his aged sire
His pious shoulders from Troy's flames did bear;
Why did I not his carcase piece-meal tear,
And cast it in the sea? why not destroy
All his companions, and beloved boy
Ascanius; and his tender limbs have drest,
And made the father on the son to feast?
Thou Sun, whose lustre all things here below
Surveys; and Juno, conscious of my woe;
Revengeful Furies, and queen Hecate,
Receive and grant my prayer? if he the sea
Must needs escape, and reach th' Ausonian land,
If Jove decree it, Jove's decree must stand;
When landed, may he be with arms opprest
By his rebelling people, be distrest
By exile from his country, be divorc'd
From young Ascanius' sight, and be enforc'd
To implore foreign aids, and lose his friends
By violent and undeserved ends!
When to conditions of unequal peace
He shall submit, then may he not possess
Kingdom nor life, and find his funeral
I' th' sands, when he before his day shall fall!
And ye, oh Tyrians, with immortal hate
Pursue this race, this service dedicate
To my deplored ashes, let there be
'Twixt us and them no league nor amity.
May from my bones a new Achilles rise,
That shall infest the Trojan colonies
With fire, and sword, and famine, when at length
Time to our great attempts contributes strength;
Our seas, our shores, our armies theirs oppose,
And may our children be for ever foes!"
A ghastly paleness death's approach portends,
Then trembling she the fatal pile ascends;
Viewing the Trojan reliques, she unsheath'd
Æneas' sword, not for that use bequeath'd;
Then on the guilty bed she gently lays
Herself, and softly thus lamenting prays:
"Dear reliques, whilst that Gods and Fates give
leave,
Free me from care, and my glad soul receive.
That date which Fortune gave, I now must end;
And to the shades a noble ghost descend.
Sichæus' blood, by his false brother spilt,
I have reveng'd, and a proud city built.
Happy, alas; too happy I had liv'd,
Had not the Trojan on my coast arriv'd.
But shall I die without revenge? yet die
Thus, thus with joy to thy Sichæus fly.
My conscious foe my funeral fire shall view
From sea, and may that omen him pursue !"
Her fainting hand let fall the swor'd besmear'd
With blood, and then the mortal wound ap-
pear'd;
Through all the court the fright and clamours
rise,
Which the whole city fills with fears and cries
6
[ As loud as if her Carthage, or old Tyre
The foe had entered, and had set on fire.
Amazed Anne with speed ascends the stairs
And in her arms her dying sister rears :
"Did you for this, yourself and me beguile?
For such an end did I erect this pile?
Did you so much despise me, in this fate
Myself with you not to associate?
Yourself and me, alas! this fatal wound
The senate, and the people, doth confound.
I'll wash her wound with tears, and at her
death
My lips from hers shall draw her parting breath."
Then with her vest the wound she wipes and dries;
Thrice with her arm the queen attempts to rise,
But her strength failing, falls into a swound,
Life's last efforts yet striving with her wound;
Thrice on her bed she turns, with wandering
sight
Seeking, she groans when she beholds the light.
Then Juno pitying her disastrous fate,
Sends Iris down, her pangs to mitigate.
(Since, if we fall before th' appointed day,
Nature and Death continue long their fray.)
Iris descends; "This fatal lock (says she)
To Pluto I bequeath, and set thee free;"
Then clips her hair: cold numbness straight be
reaves
Her corpse of sense, and th' air her soul re ceives.
OF PRUDENCE.
Going this last summer to visit the Wells, I took an occasion (by the way) to wait upot an ancient and honourable friend of mine, whom I found diverting his (then solitary) retirement with the Latin original of this translation, which (being out of print) I had never seen before when I looked upon it, I saw that it had formerly passed through two learned hands not without approbation; which were Ben Johnson and Sir Kenelm Digby; but I found it (where I shall never find myself) in the service of a better master, the earl of Bristol, of whom I shall say no more; for 1 love not to improve the honour of the living by impairing that of the dead; and my own profession hath taught me not to erect new superstructures upon an old ruin. He was pleased to recommend it to me for my companion at the Wells, where I liked the enter tainment it gave me so well, that I undertook to redeem it from an obsolete English disguise, wherein an old monk had clothed it, and to make as becoming a new vest for it as I could. The author was a person of quality in Italy, his name Mancini, which family matched since with the sister of cardinal Mazarine; he was contemporary to Petrarch and Mantuan, and not long before Torquato Tasso; which shows that the age they lived in was not so unlearned as that which preceded, or that which fol lowed.
The author wrote upon the four cardinal vir
|