The Faculties of Intelle&t and Will,
Difpens'd with equal Hand, difpos'd with equal Skill:
Like Liberty indulg'd with Choice of Good or Ill.
Thus born alike, from Virtue firft began
The Diff'rence that diftinguifh'd Man from Man.
He claim'd no Title from Defcent of Blood,
But that which made him Noble, made him Good.
Warm'd with more Particles of heav'nly Flame,
He wing'd his upward Flight and foar'd to Fame;
The reft remain❜d below a Tribe without a Name.
This Law, tho' Cuftom now diverts the Course,
As Nature's Inftitute is yet in Force:
Uncancell'd, tho' difus'd: And he, whofe Mind
Is virtuous, is alone of noble Kind;
Tho' poor in Fortune, of celeftial Race :
And he commits the Crime, who calls him base.
Ev'n Mighty Monarchs oft are meanly born,
And Kings by Birth to lowest Rank return :
All fubject to the Pow'r of giddy Chance;
For Fortune can deprefs, and can advance.
But true Nobility is of the Mind,
Not giv'n by Chance, and not to Chance refign'd. Dryd. Sig. &
No Father can infufe or Wit, or Grace;
A Mother comes acrofs and mars the Race:
A Grandfire or a Grandame taints the Blood;
And feldom Three Defcents continue good.
Were Virtue by Defcent, a noble Name
Could never villanize his Father's Fame:
But as the first, the last of all the Line,
Would, like the Sun, ev'n in defcending, fhine.
Nobility of Blood is but Renown
Of thy great Fathers, by their Virtue known,
And a long Trail of Light to thee defcending down.
If in thy Smoke it ends, their Glories fhine,
But Infamy and Villanage are thine. Dryd. Wife of Bath's Tale.
And ftill more publick Scandal Vice extends,
As he is Great and Noble who offends.
Fairest Piece of well-form'd Earth,
Urge not thus your haughty Birth.
The Pow'r, which you have o'er us, lies
Not in your Race, but in your Eyes.
The Sap which at the Root is bred
In Trees, thro' all the Boughs is fpread;
But Virtues which in Parents fhine,
Make not like Progrefs thro' the Line.
'Tis Art and Knowledge which draw forth
The hidden Seeds of native Worth:
They blow thofe Sparks, and make 'em rife
Into fuch Flames as touch the Skies.
To the old Heroes hence was giv'n
A Pedigree that reach'd to Heav'n.
Of mortal Seed they were nor held,
Who other Mortals fo excell'd:
And Beauty too in fuch Excess
As yours, Zelinda, claims no lefs.
Smile but on me, and you fhall scorn
Henceforth to be of Princes born.
I can defcribe the fhady Grove,
Where your lov'd Mother flept with Jove;
And yet excufe the faultlefs Dame,
Caught with her Spouse's Shape and Name.
Thy matchlefs Form will Credit bring
To all the Wonders I fhall fing.
The fiery Sun has finifh'd half his Race.
And the dry Herbage thirfts for Dews in vain;
And Sheep in Shades avoid the parching Plain.
The fouthing Sun inflames the Day,
Does now fit high in his meridian Tow'r.
Shoots down direct his fervid Rays, to warm
Earth's inmoft Womb.
The Sun with fultry Beams began to play.
Not Syrius fhoots a fiercer Flame from high,
When with his pois'nous Breath he blafts the Sky.
Then droop'd the fading Flow'rs, their Beauty fled,
They clos'd their fickly Eyes, and hung the Head,
And, rivell'd up with Heat, lay dying in the Bed.
The Ladies gafp'd and fcarcely could refpire,
The Breath they drew, no longer Air, but Fire.
The fainty Knights were fcorch'd. Dryd. The Flower and the Leaf.
NOTHING.
Nothing, thou Elder-Brother ev'n to Shade!
Thou had it a Being e'er the World was made,
And, well-fix'd, art alone of ending hot afraid.
E'er Time and Place were, Time and Place were not;
When primitive Nothing Something ftrait begot:
Then all proceeded from the great united-What?
Something, the gen'ral Attribute of all,
Sever'd from thee, its fole Original,
Into thy boundless Self muft undiftinguish'd fall,
Yet Something did thy mighty Pow'r command,
And from thy fruitful Emptiness's Hand
Snatch'd Men, Beafts, Birds, Fire, Air, and Land.
Matter the wicked'ft Off-fpring of thy Race,
By Form affifted, flew from thy Embrace,
And Rebel Light obfcur'd thy rev'rend dusky Face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did joyn;
Body, thy Foe, with thefe did Leagues combine,
To spoil thy peaceful Realm, and ruin all thy Line.
Yet turn-coat Time affifts the Foe in vain,
But brib'd by thee affifts thy fhort-liv'd Reign;
And to thy hungry Womb drives back thy Slaves again.
Tho' Myfteries are barr'd from Laick Eyes,
And the Divine alone with Warrant pries
Into thy Bofom, where the Truth in private lies;
Yet this of thee the Wife may freely fay,
Thou from the Virtuous nothing tak'ft away,
And to be Part of thee the Wicked wifely pray.
Great Negative! how vainly would the Wife
Enquire, define, diftinguish, teach, devife,
Didft thou not ftand to point their dull Philofophies.
Is, or is not! the Two great Ends of Fate;
And true or falfe, the Subject of Debate,
That perfect or deftroy the vaft Designs of Fate;
When they have rack'd the Politician's Breaft,
Within thy Bofom moft fecurely reft,
And when reduc'd to thee, are leaft unfafe and best.
Nothing, who dwell'ft with Fools in grave Difguife,
For whom they rev'rend Shapes and Forms devise,
Lawn Sleeves, and Furs, and Gowns, when they, like thee,
(look wife.
French Truth, Dutch Prowess, British Policy,
Hybernian Learning, Scotch Civility,
Spaniards Difpatch, Danes Wit, are mainly feen in thee.
The great Man's Gratitude to his best Friend,
Kings Promifes, Whores Vows, to thee they tend,
Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.
When good, our Envy; and when bad, Negle&.
All Novelties muft this Succefs expect,
Actions of the laft Age, are like Almanacks of the laft Year.
And when remote in Time, like Objects
Remote in Place, are not beheld at half their Greatness.
And what is new finds better Acceptation,
Than what is good and great.
Some folitary Cloifter will I chufe,
And there with holy Virgins live immur'd':
Coarse my Attire, and short shall be my Sleep,
Broke by the melancholy midnight Bell:
There hoard up ev'ry Moment of my Life,
To lengthen out the Payment of my Tears.
Fafting, and Tears, and Penitence, and Pray'r,
Shall do dead Sancho Justice ev'ry Hour:
Till ev'n fierce Raymond at the laft fhall fay,
Now let her die, for fhe has griv'd enough.
Oh fhut me in a Cloifter: There well-pleas'd,
Religious Hardships I will learn to bear,
To faft and freeze at midnight Hours of Pray'r :
Nor think it hard within a lonely Cell,
With melancholy fpeechless Saints to dwell;
But blefs the Day I to that Refuge ran,
(Row. Fair Peng Free from the Marriage-Chain, and from that Tyrant, Man. OAK. See Fighting at Sea, Trees.
The Monarch Oak, the Patriarch of Trees,
Shoots rifing up, and spreads by flow Degrees:
Three Centuries he grows, and Three he stays,
Supreme in State; and in Three more decays.
Jove's own Tree,
That holds the Woods in awful Sov'raignty,
Requires a Depth of Lodging in the Ground,
Ahd, next the lower Skies, a Bed profound:
High as his topmoft Boughs to Heav'n afcend,
So low his Roots to Hell's Dominion tend :
Therefore nor Winds, nor Winter's Rage o'erthrows
His bulky Body, but unmov'd he grows:
For length of Ages lafts his happy Reign,
And Lives of mortal Man contend with his in vain.
Full in the Midft of his own Strength he ftands,
Stretching his brawny Arms and leafy Hands,
His Shade protects the Plains, his Head the Hills commands.
As a tall Oak, that young and verdant ftood
Above the Grove, it felf a nobler Wood:
His wide extended Limbs the Foreft drown'd,
Shading its Trees, as much as they the Ground.
Young murm'ring Tempefts in his Boughs are bred,
And gath'ring Clouds frown round his lofty Head:
Outragious Thunder, ftormy Winds, and Rain
Difcharge their Fury on his Head in vain:
Earthquakes below, and Lightning from above
Rend not his Trunk, nor his fix'd Root remove.
But then his Strength worn by deftructive Age,
He can no more his angry Foes engage:
He spreads to Heav'n his naked wither'd Arms,
As Aid imploring from invading Harms:
From his dishonour'd Head the lightest Storm
Can tear his Beauties, and his Limbs deform;
He rocks with ev'ry Wind, while on the Ground
Dry Leaves and broken Arms lie fcatter'd round.
As when the Winds their airy Quarrel try,
Juftling from ev'ry Quarter of the Sky,
This way and that the Mountain Oak they bend;
His Boughs they shatter, and his Branches rend
With Leaves and falling Maft they spread the Ground,
The hollow Valleys echo to the Sound:
Unmov'd, the royal Plant their Fury mocks,
Or fhaken, clings more clofely to the Rocks.
For as he shoots his tow'ring Head on high,
So deep in Earth his fix'd Foundations lie.
Thus Two tall Oaks, that Padus Banks adorn, Lift up to Heav'n their leafy Heads unfhorn And over-prefs'd with Nature's heavy Load,
Dance to the whiftling Winds, and at each other nod. Dryd.Virg.
As the ftout Oak, when round his Trunk the Vine
Does in foft Wreaths and am'rous Foldings twine,
Eafy and flight appears: The Winds from far
Summon their noify Forces to the War:
But tho' fo gentle feems his outward Form,
His hidden Strength out-braves the loudest Storm;
Firmer he ftands, and boldly keeps the Field;
Showing ftout Minds when unprovok'd are mild.
So when a noble Oak, that long has ftood
High in the Air, the Beauty of the Wood,
Is fhock'd by Stormy Winds, he either Way
Bends to the Earth his Head with mighty Sway.
His lab'ring Roots disturb the neighb'ring Ground,
And make a heaving Earthquake all around;
Yet faft he ftands, and the loud Storm defies,
His Roots ftill keep the Earth, his Head the Skies.
Oaths are but Words, and Words but Wind;
Too feeble Implements to bind:
And Saints, whom Oaths or Vows oblige,
Know little of their Privilege.
For, if the Devil, to ferve his Turn,
Can tell Truth; why the Saints fhould fcorn,
|