Stunn'd and worn out with endless chat Which Nature, forc'd by Time, must make, O Richard, till that day appears, Which thy own hand had whilom planted, Both pleas'd with all we thought we wanted: Yet then, ev'n then, one cross reflection Would spoil thy grove, and my collection: Thy son, and his, ere that may die, And Time some uncouth heir supply, And my coz Tom, or his coz Mary, Those who could never read the grammar, The coin may mend a tinker's kettle- Yet, let the goddess smile or frown, Drink fine champagne or muddled port. Come on, friend; broach the pleasing notion: For Plato's fancies what care I? To heathens in his native Greek. I do most heartily despise Dear Drift,2 to set our matters right, 1 Humphrey Wanley, librarian to the Earl of Oxford. 2 Mr. Prior's Secretary and Executor. SOLOMON ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD. A POEM. IN THREE BOOKS. Ὁ Βίος γὰρ ὄνομ' ἔχει, πόνος δ' ἔργῳ πέλει. Eurip. Siquis Deus mihi largiatur, ut ex hac ætate repuerascam, et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem. Cic. de Senect. The bewailing of man's miseries hath been elegantly and copiously set forth by many, in the writings as well of philosophers, as of divines. And it both a pleasant and a profitable contemplation. Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning. PREFACE. It is hard for a man to speak of himself with any tolerable satisfaction or success: he can be no more pleased in blaming himself, than in reading a satire made on him by another: and though he may justly desire, that a friend should praise him; yet, if he makes his own panegyric, he will get very few to read it. It is harder for him to speak of his own writings. An author is in the condition of a culprit: the public are his judges: by allowing too much, and condescending too far, he may injure his own cause, and become a kind of felo de se: and by pleading and asserting too boldly, he may displease the court that sits upon him: his apology may only heighten his accusation. I would avoid those extremes; and though, I grant, it would not be very civil to trouble the reader with a long preface, before he enters upon an indifferent poem; I would say something to persuade him to take it as it is, or to excuse it for not being better. The noble images and reflections, the profound reasonings upon human actions, and excellent precepts for the government of life, which are found in the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and other books, commonly attributed to Solomon, afford subjects for finer poems in every kind, than have, I think, yet appeared in the Greek, Latin, or any modern language: how far they were verse in their original, is a dissertation not to be entered into at present. Out of this great treasure, which lies heaped up together, in a confused magnificence, above all order, I had a mind to collect and digest such observations, and apophthegms, as most particularly tend to the proof of that great assertion, laid down in the beginning of the Ecclesiastes, "all is vanity." Upon the subject thus chosen, such various images present themselves to a writer's mind, that he must find it easier to judge what should be rejected, than what ought to be received. The difficulty lies in drawing and disposing; or (as painters term it) in grouping such a multitude of different objects, preserving still the justice and conformity of style and colouring, the simplex duntaxat et unum, which Horace prescribes, as requisite to make the whole pictur beautiful and perfect. As precept, however true in theory, or useful in practice, would be but dry and tedious in verse, especially if the recital be long, I found it necessary to form some story, and give a kind of body to the poem. Under what species it may be comprehended, whether didascalic or heroic, I leave to the judgment of the critics; desiring them to be favourable in their censure; and not solicitous what the poem is called, provided it may be accepted. The chief personage or character in the epic, always proportioned to the design of the work, to carry on the narration and the moral. Homer intended to show us in his Iliad, that dissensions amongst great men obstruct the execution of the noblest enterprises, and tend to the ruin of a state or kingdom. His Achilles, therefore, is haughty and passionate, impatient of any restraint by laws, and arrogant in arms. In his Odysses the same poet endeavours to explain, that the hardest difficulties may be overcome by |