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nature did not consent to it, without the greatest reluctance and difficulty. Let me give one instance of this amongst many. When, as Lord Chamberlain, he was obliged to take the king's pension from Mr Dryden, who had long before put himself out of a possibility of receiving any favour from the Court, my Lord allowed him an equivalent out of his own estate. However displeased with the conduct of his old acquaintance, he relieved his necessi ties; and while he gave him his assistance in private, in public he extenuated and pitied his error.

The foundation indeed of these excellent qualities, and the perfection of my Lord Dorset's character, was that unbounded charity which ran through the whole tenor of his life, and sat as visibly predominant over the other faculties of his soul, as she is said to do in Heaven, above her sister virtues.

Crowds of poor daily thronged his gates, expecting thence their bread; and were still lessened by his sending the most proper objects of his bounty to apprenticeships, or hospitals. The lazar and the sick, as he accidentally saw them, were removed from the street to the physician; and many of them not only restored to health, but supplied with what might enable them to resume their former callings, and make their future lives happy. The prisoner has often been released, by my Lord's paying the debt; and the condemned has been saved by his intercession with the sovereign, where he thought the letter of the law too rigid. To those whose circumstances were such as made them ashamed of their poverty, he knew how to bestow his munificence without offending their modesty; and under the notion of frequent presents, gave them what amounted to a subsistence. Many yet alive know this to be true, though he told it to none, nor ever was more uneasy than when any one mentioned it to him.

We may find among the Greeks and Latins, Tibullus and Gallus, the noblemen that writ poetry; Augustus and Mæcenas, the protectors of learning; Aristides, the good citizen; and Atticus, the well bred friend; and bring them in, as examples of my Lord Dorset's wit, his judgment, his justice, and his civility. But for his charity, my Lord, we can scarce find a parallel in history itself.

Titus was not more the delicia humani generis, on this account, than my Lord Dorset was; and, without any exaggeration, that prince did not do more good in proportion out of the revenue of the Roman empire, than your father out of the income of a private estate. Let this, my Lord, remain to you and your posterity a possession for ever; to be imitated, and, if possible, to be excelled.

As to my own particular, I scarce knew what life was, sooner than I found myself obliged to his favour; nor have had reason to feel any sorrow so sensibly as that of his death.

"Ille dies-quem semper acerbum

Semper honoratum (sic Dî voluistis) habebo."

Eneas could not reflect upon the loss of his own father with greater piety, my Lord, than I must recall the memory of yours; and when I think whose son I am writing to, the least I promise myself from your goodness is an uninterrupted continuance of favour, and a friendship for life. To which, that I may with some justice entitle myself, I send your Lordship a dedication,

not filled with a long detail of your praises, but with my sincerest wishes that you may deserve them. That you may employ those extraordinary parts and abilities with which heaven has blessed you, to the honour of your family, the benefit of your friends, and the good of your country; that all your actions may be great, open, and noble, such as may tell the world whose son and whose successor you are.

What I now offer to your Lordship is a collection of poetry, a kind of garland of good-will. If any verses of my writing should appear in print, under another name and patronage, than that of an Earl of Dorset, people might suspect them not to be genuine. I have attained my present end, if these poems prove the diversion of some of your youthful hours, as they have been occasionally the amusement of some of mine; and I humbly hope, that as I may hereafter bind up my fuller sheaf, and lay some pieces of a very different nature (the product of my severer studies) at your Lordship's feet, I shall engage your more serious reflection: happy, if in all my endeavours I may contribute to your delight or to your instruction. I am, with all duty and respect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient, and
Most humble Servant,

MAT. PRIOR.

PREFACE.

THE greatest part of what I have written having been already published, either singly or in some of the miscellanies, it would be too late for me to make any excuse for appearing in print. But a collection of poems has lately appeared under my name, though without my knowledge, in which the publisher has given me the honour of some things that did not belong to me; and has transcribed others so imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine. This has obliged me, in my own defence, to look back upon some of those lighter studies, which I ought long since to have quitted, and to publish an indifferent collection of poems, for fear of being thought the author of a worse.

Thus I beg pardon of the public for reprinting some pieces, which as they came singly from their first impression, have (I fancy) lain long and quietly in Mr Tonson's shop; and adding others to them, which were never before printed, and might have lain as quietly, and perhaps more safely, in a corner of my own study.

The reader will, I hope, make allowance for their having been written at very distant times, and on very different occasions, and take them as they happen to come: public panegyrics, amorous odes, serious reflections, or idle tales, the product of his leisure hours, who had business enough upon his hands, and was only a poet by accident.

I take this occasion to thank my good friend and school-fellow, Mr Dibben,1 for his excellent version of the Carmen Seculare, though my gratitude may justly carry a little envy with it; for, I believe, the most accurate judges will find the translation exceed the original.

1 Thomas Dibben, afterwards doctor of divinity, rector of Great Fontmell, in Dorsetshire, precentor of St Paul's-a man of high literary promise, who afterwards died mad. Dibben's Latin translation is not given in this edition.

I must likewise own myself obliged to Mrs Singer, who has given me leave to print a pastoral of her writing; that poem having produced the verses immediately following it. I wish she might be prevailed with to publish some other pieces of that kind, in which the softness of her sex, and the fineness of her genius, conspire to give her a very distinguishing character. POSTSCRIPT.

I must help my preface by a postscript, to tell the reader, that there are ten years' distance between my writing the one and the other; and that (whatever I thought then, and have somewhere said, that I would publish no more poetry) he will find several copies of verses scattered through this edition, which were not printed in the first. Those relating to the public stand in the order they did before, and according to the several years in which they were written, however the disposition of our national affairs, the actions, or the fortunes of some men, and the opinions of others may have changed. Prose, and other human things may take what turn they can; but poetry, which pretends to have something of divinity in it, is to be more permanent. Odes once printed cannot well be altered, when the author has already said, that he expects his works should live for ever. And it had been very foolish in my friend Horace, if some years after his Exegi Monumentum, he should have desired to see his building taken down again.

The dedication, likewise, is reprinted to the Earl of Dorset, in the foregoing leaves, without any alteration; though I had the fairest opportunity, and the strongest inclination to have added a great deal to it. The blooming hopes, which I said the world expected from my then very young patron, have been confirmed by most noble and distinguished first-fruits; and his life is going on towards a plentiful harvest of all accumulated virtues. He has in fact exceeded whatever the fondness of my wishes could invent in his favour: his equally good and beautiful lady enjoys in him an indul gent and obliging husband; his children, a kind and careful father; and his acquaintance, a faithful, generous, and polite friend. His fellow peers have attended to the persuasion of his eloquence; and have been convinced by the solidity of his reasoning. He has long since deserved and attained the honour of the Garter. He has managed some of the greatest charges of the kingdom with known ability; and laid them down with entire disinterestment. And as he continues the exercises of these eminent virtues (which that he may do to a very old age, shall be my perpetual wish) he may be one of the greatest men that our age, or possibly our nation has bred; and leave materials for a panegyric, not unworthy the pen of some future Pliny.

From so noble a subject as the Earl of Dorset, to so mean a one as myself, is (I confess) a very Pindaric transition. I shall only say one word, and trouble the reader no farther. I published my poems formerly, as Monsieur Jourdain sold his silk: he would not be thought a tradesman, but ordered some pieces to be measured out to his particular friends. Now I give up my shop, and dispose of all my poetical goods at once: I must therefore desire, that the public would please to take them in the gross; and that every body would turn over what he does not like.2

1 Afterwards the celebrated Mrs Elizabeth Rowe. It is said that Mr Prior, about the time this poem was written, made his addresses to this lady.-A list of subscribers, some 2000 in number, precedes the poem in the folio edition of 1718, and appears to include all the most celebrated names of that time.

POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS BY

MATTHEW PRIOR.

1

AN ODE

ON EXOD. III. 14.-I AM THAT I AM.

WRITTEN IN 1688, AS AN EXERCISE AT ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

MAN! foolish man!

Scarce know'st thou how thyself began;

Scarce hast thou thought enough to prove thou art;
Yet steeled with studied boldness, thou darest try
To send thy doubting reason's dazzled eye
Through the mysterious gulf of vast immensity.
Much thou canst there discern, much thence impart.
Vain wretch! suppress thy knowing pride;
Mortify thy learned lust!

Vain are thy thoughts, while thou thyself art dust.

2 Let Wit her sails, her oars let Wisdom lend;
The helm let politic Experience guide:

Yet cease to hope thy short-lived bark shall ride
Down spreading Fate's unnavigable tide.
What, though still it farther tend?

Still 'tis farther from its end;

And, in the bosom of that boundless sea,
Still finds its error lengthen with its way.

With daring pride and insolent delight

Your doubts resolved you boast, your labours crowned; And "ETPHKA! your god, forsooth is found Incomprehensible and infinite.

But is he therefore found? vain searcher! no:
Let your imperfect definition show,

That nothing you, the weak definer, know.

3 Say, why should the collected main Itself within itself contain?

4

Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep,
And with delighted silence sleep

On the loved bosom of its parent deep?
Why should its numerous waters stay

In comely discipline, and fair array,

Till winds and tides exert their high command?
Then prompt and ready to obey,

Why do the rising surges spread

Their opening ranks o'er earth's submissive head, Marching through different paths to different lands?

Why does the constant sun

With measured steps his radiant journeys run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours

To leave earth's other part, and rise on ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and bless the night?
Why does each animated star

Love the just limits of its proper sphere?
Why does each consenting sign
With prudent harmony combine
In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

5 Man does with dangerous curiosity These unfathomed wonders try:

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