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And spent at laft, and fpeechlefs as he lies,

With looks ftill threatening, mocks their rage and dies.

This is the utmost fretch that Nature can, And all beyond is fulfome, falfe, and vain. Beauty's the theme; fome nymph divinely

fair

Excites the Mufe: let truth be even there;
As painters flatter, fo may poets too,

But to refemblance must be ever true.

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(5) The day that fhe was born, the Cyprian

" Queen

"Had like t'have dy'd thro' envy and thro'

"fpleen ;

(5) Le jour qu'elle naquit, Venus bien qu'immortelle,

Penfa mourir de honte, en la voyant fi belle,

Les Graces a l'env: defcendirent des cieux,
Pour avoir l'honeur d'accompagner les yeux;

Et l'Amour, qui ne put entrer dans fon courage,

Voulut obftinément longer fur fon vifage.

This is a lover's defeription of his miftrefs by the great Corneille; civil, to be fure, and polite as any thing can be. Let any body turn over Waller, and he will fee how much more naturally and delicately the English author treats the article of love than this celebrated Frenchman. I would not however be thought, by any derogatory quotation, to take from The merit of a writer whofe reputation is fo univerfally and fo justly

"The Graces in a hurry left the fkics

"To have the honour to attend her eyes; "And Love, despairing in her heart a place, "Would needs take up his lodging in her "face *."

joftly eftablished in all nations; but, as I said before, I rather chufe, where any failings are to be found, to correct my own countrymen by foreign examples, than to provoke them by inflances drawn from their own writings; bumanum eft errare. I cannot forbear one quotation more from another celebrated French author. It is an epigram upon a monument for Francis 1. King of France, by way of queftion and answer, which in English is verbatim thus:

Under this marble who lies buried here?
Francis the Great, a king beyond compare.
Why has fo great a king to fmall a flone?
Of that great king here's but the heart alone.
Then of this conqueror here lies but part?
No-here he lies all-for he was all heart.

The author was a Gafcon, to whom I can properly oppofe nobody fo well as a Welchman; for which purpofe I am farther furuifhed, from the fore-mentioned collection of Oxford Verfes, with an epigram by Martin Luellin upon the famne fubje&t, which I remember to have heard often repeated to me when I was a boy. Befides, from whence can we draw better examples than from the very feat and nurtery of the Mufes ?

*Corneille.

D 2

Thus

Tho' wrote by great Corneille, fuch lines as

thefe,

Such civil nonfenfe, fure could never please.
Waller, the best of all th' inspired train,
To melt the fair inftructs the dying swain.

Thus flain, thy valiant ancestor✶ did lie,
When his one bark a navy did defy;

When now encompass'd round he victor stood,
And bath'd his pinnace in his conquering blood,
Till, all the purple current dry'd and spent,
He fell, and made the waves his monument.
Where fhall the next fam'd Granville's athes ftand?
Thy grandfire's fill the fea, and thine the land.

I cannot fay the two laft lines, in which confift the sting or point of the epigram, are ftrictly conformable to the rule herein fet down the word afpes, metaphorically, can fignify nothing but fame, which is mere found, and can fill no space either of land or fea: the Welchman however must be allowed to have outdone the Gafcon. The fallacy of the French epigram appears at firft fight; but the English ftrikes the fancy, fufpends and dazzles the judgment, and may perhaps be allowed to pass under the shelter of those daring hyperboles which, by prefenting an obvious meaning, make their way, according to Seneca, through the incredible to true.

Sir Richard Granville, Vice-admiral of England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintained a fight with his fingle thip against the whole armada of Spain, confifting of fiftythree of their beft men of war.

The

(6) The Roman wit *, who impiously divides His hero and his gods to different fides, I would condemn, but that, in spite of fenfe, Th' admiring world ftill ftands in his defence. How oft', alas! the best of men in vain Contend for bleffings which the worst obtain !

(6) Victrix caufa Deis placuit, fed victa Catoni.

The confent of fo many ages having established the reputation of this line, it may perhaps be prefumption to attack it; but it is not to be fuppofed that Cato, who is defcribed to have been a man of rigid morals and strict devotion, more refembling the gods than men, would have chofen any party in oppofition to those gods whom he profeffed to adore. The poet would give us to understand, that his hero was too righteous: a perfon to accompany the divinities themselves in an unjuft caufe; but to reprefent a mortal man to be either wifer or juster than the Deity, may fhew the impiety of the writer, but add nothing to the merit of the hero; neither reafon nor religion will allow it; and it is impoffible for a corrupt being to be more excellent than a divine; fuccefs implies permifon, and not approbation; to place the gods always on the thriving fide, is to make them partakers of all fuccefsful wickednefs to judge right, we must wait for the conclufion of the action; the catastrophe will beft decide on which fide is Providence; and the violent death of Cæfar acquits the gods from being companions of his ufurpation.

Lucan was a determined Republican, no wonder he was a Free-thinker.

* Lucan.

The

The gods, permitting traitors to fucceed,
Become not parties in an impious deed ;
And by the tyrant's murder we may find,
That Cato and the gods were of a mind.
Thus forcing truth with fach prepofterous
praife,

Our characters we leffen when we'd raise ;
Like caftles built by magic art in air,

That vanish at approach, fuch thoughts appear;
But rais'd on truth by fome judicious hand,

As on a rock, they fhall for ages ftand.

(7) Our King return'd, and banish'd Peace restor❜d,

The Mufe ran mad to fee her exil'd lord;

(7) Mr. Dryden in one of his prologues has thefe two lines: He's bound to pleafe, not to write well, and knows

There is a mode in plays as well as clothes.

From whence it is plain, where he has expofed himself to the critics, he was forced to follow the fathion to humour an audience, and not to pleate himfeif: a hard facrifice to make for prefent fubfidence, efpecially for fach as would have their writings live as well as themfelves. Nor can the poet whole labours are his daily bread be delivered from this cul neceffity, lefs fome more certain encouragemneut can be rovided than the bare uncertain profits of a third day, and the theatre be put under fome more impartial management than the jurifdiction of players. Who write to live muit uravoidKing Charles II.

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