a friendship for life. To which that I may with fome justice intitle myself, I send your Lordship a dedication, not filled with a long detail of your praises, but with my fincerest wishes that you may deserve them; that you may employ those extraordinary parts and abilities, with which Heaven has bleffed 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, fuch as may tell the world whofe fon and whose fucceffor you are.

What I now offer to your Lordship is a collection of poetry, a kind of garland of good-will. If any verfes of my writing should appear in print under another name and patronage than that of an Earl of Dorset, people might fufpect them not to be genuine. I have attained my prefent end, if these poems prove the diverfion of fome of your youthful hours, as they have been Occafionally the amusement of fome of mine; and I humbly hope, that, as I may hereafter bind up my fuller fheaf, and lay fome pieces of a very different nature (the product of my feverer ftudies) at your Lordship's feet, I fhall engage your more ferious reflection: happy, if in all my endeavours I may contribute to your delight, or to your inftruction.

I am, with all duty and refpect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's

moft obedient, and

moft humble fervant,

MAT. PRIOR.

TH

PREFA CE.

HE greatest part of what I have written having been already published, either fingly or in fome of the Mifcellanies, it would be too late for me to make any excufe 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 fome things that did not belong to me; and has transcribed others fo imperfectly, that I hardly knew them to be mine. This has obliged me, in my own defence, to look back upon fome of those lighter ftudies, which I ought long fince 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 publick for re-printing fome pieces, which, as they came fingly from their first impreffion, have (I fancy) lain long and quietly in Mr. Tonfon's fhop; and adding others to them, which were never before printed, and might have lain as quietly, and perhaps more fafely, in a corner of my own study.

The reader will, I hope, make allowance for their having been written at very diftant times, and on very different occafions; and take them as they happen to come. Public panegyricks, amorous odes, ferious reflections, or idle tales, the product of his leisure hours,

who

who had business enough upon his hands, and was only a poet by accident.

I own myself much 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 wifh fhe might be prevailed with to publifh fome other pieces of that kind, in which the softness of her fex, and the fineness of her genius, confpire to give her a very diftinguishing character.

POST.

I

POSTSCRIPT.

MUST help my preface by a postscript, to tell the reader that there is ten years distance between my writing one and the other; and that (whatever I thought then, and have fomewhere faid, that I would publish no more poetry) he will find feveral copies of verfes fcatered through this edition, which were not printed in the first Thofe relating to the publick stand in the order they did before, according to the feveral years in which they were written; however the difpofition of our national affairs, the actions or the fortunes of fome men, and the opinions of others, may have changed. Profe and other human things may take what turn they can; but poetry, which pretends to have fomething of divinity in it, is to be more permanent. Odes once printed cannot well be altered, when the author has already faid that he expects his works fhould live for ever and it had been very foolish in my friend Horace, if, fome years after his "Exegi Monumentum," he should have defired to fee his building taken down again.

The Dedication likewise is re-printed, to the earl of Dorfet, in the foregoing leaves, without any alteration; though I had the faireft opportunity, and the strongest inclination, to have added a great deal to it. The -blooming hopes, which I faid the world expected from my then very young patron, have been confirmed by VOL. I.

C

moft

rous,

moft 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 fondnefs of my wifhes could invent in his favour: his equally good and beautiful lady enjoys in him an indulgent and obliging husband; his children, a kind and careful father; and his acquaintance, a faithful, geneand polite friend. His fellow-peers have attended to the perfuafion of his eloquence; and have been con. vinced by the folidity of his reasoning. He has, long fince, deferved and attained the honour of the garter. He has managed fome of the greatest charges of the kingdom with known ability; and laid them down with entire difintereffment. And as he continues the exercises of thefe eminent virtues (which that he may to a very old age, fhall be my perpetual with), he may be one of the greatest men that our age, or poffibly our nation, has bred; and leave materials for a panegyrick, not unworthy the pen of fome future Pliny.

From fo noble a fubject as the earl of Dorset, to fo mean a one as myfelf, is (I confefs) a very pindaric tranfition I fhall only fay one word, and trouble the reader no further. I publifhed my poems formerly, as Monfieur Jourdain fold his filk: he would not be thought a tradefman; but ordered fome pieces to be measured out to his particular friends. Now I give up my fhop, and difpofe of all my poetical goods at once: I must therefore defire, that the publick would please to take them in the grofs; and that every body would turn over what he does not like.

POEMS