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he frowns of a capricious jilt you mourn,
Who's thine or mine, and ev'ry man's by turn:
Were Fortune constant, she's no more the same,
But, chang'd in species, takes another name.
Say, when that prodigy of falsehood smil'd,
And all the sorceress thy heart beguil'd;
When ev'ry joy that full possession gave
Rose to the highest relish man can crave;
Wast thou then happy to thy soul's desire ?-
Something to seek, and something to require,
Still, still perplex'd thee, unforeseen before.-
Thy draughts were mighty, but thy dropsy more30.
'Tis granted, Fortune's vanish'd-and what then?
Thou'rt still as truly rich as all good men:
Thy mind's thy own; (if that be calm and
ev'n!)-

Thy faith in Providence, thy funds in Heav'n.
The Indian only took her jingling bells,
Her rags of silk, and trumpery of shells:
Virtue's a plunder of a cumb'rous make,
She cannot, and she does not chuse to take31.—
Accept the inconstant, if she deigns to stay;
And, if she leaves thee, speed her on the way:
For where's the diff'rence, mighty reas'ner, say,
When man by death of all things is bereft,
If he leaves Fortune, or by Fortune's left??
Fortune to Galba's door the diadem brought;
The door was clos'd, and other sons she sought:
Fortune's a woman, over fond or blind;
A step-dame now, and now a mother kind.

"A farther weakness in thy heart I read;
Thy prison shocks thee with unusual dread:
Dark solitude thy wav'ring mind appalls,
Damp floors, and low hung roofs, and naked
walls.

Yet here the mind of Socrates could soar;
And, being less than man, he rose to more.
Wish not to see new hosts of clients wait
In rows submissive through vast rooms of state;
Nor, on the litter of coarse rushes spread,
Lament the absence of thy downy bed:
Nor grieve thou, that thy plunder'd books afford
No consolation to their exil'd lord:
Read thy own heart35; its motions nicely scan;
There's a sufficient library for man36.
And yet a nobler volume still remains ;
The book of Providence all truths contains:
For ever useful, and for ever clear,

To all men open, and to all men near:
By tyrants unsuppress'd, untouch'd by fire;
Old as mankind, and with mankind t' expire37.
"Next, what aggrieves thee most, is loss of

fame,

And the chaste pride of a once spotless name:
But mark, my son, the truths I shall impart,
And grave them on the tablets of thy heart:
The first keen stroke th' unfortunate shall find,
Is losing the opinion of mankind 3:
Slander and accusation take their rise
From thy declining fortunes, not thy vice.
a poor man highly deem'd;
Or a rich upstart villain dis-esteem'd ?-
From chilly shades the gnats of fortune run
To buz in heat and twinkle in the sun;
Till Heav'n (at Heav'n's appointed season kind,)
Sweeps off th' Egyptian plague with such a wind,
That not one blood sucker is left behind.

"Eschew the lust of pow'r, and pride of How rarely

life;

One jarring mass of counter-working strife!
Vain hopes, which only idiot minds employ;
And fancy builds for fancy to destroy!
All must be wretched who expect too much ;.
Life's chymic gold proves recreant to the touch.
"The man who fears, nor hopes for earthly
things,

Disarms the tyrant, and looks down on kings:
Whilst the depending, craving, flatt'ring slave,
Makes his own chain that drags him to the
grave 33"

The goddess now, with mild and sober grace
Inclining, look'd me stedfast in the face.

"Thy exile next sits heavy on thy mind;
Thy pomp, thy wealth, thy villas, left behind,
Ah, quit these nothings to the hungry tribe;
States cannot banish thee; they may proscribe.
The good man's country is in ev'ry clime,
His God in ev'ry place, at ev'ry time;
In civiliz'd, or in barbarian lands,
Wherever Virtue breathes, an altar stands34!

29 Intelligo multiformes illius prodigii fucos.
L. II, Pros. 1.

30 Largis cum potius muneribus fluens Sitis ardescit habendi. L. 11, Metr. 2.

31 L. II, Pros. 1.
32 Quid igitur referre putes, tunè illam mo-
ricendo deseras, an te illa fugiendo?

Lib. II, Pros. 3.
23 Quisquis composito serenus ævo
Nec speres aliquid, nec extimescas,
Exarmaveris impotentis iram.
At quisquis trepidus pavet, vel optat,
Nectit, qua valeat trahi, catenam.

Boet. L. I.

"Boast not, nor grieve at good or evil fame:
Be true to God, and thou art still the same.
Man cannot give thee virtues thou hast not,
Nor steal the virtues thou hast truly got.

"And what's the applause of learning or of
wit?

Critics unwrite whate'er the author writ:

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3 L. I, Pros. 5, Boetius.

Antisthenis Dictum.

To a new fate this second life must yield,
And death will twice be master of the field.
"Nor grieve, nor murmur, nor indulge despair,
To see the villain cloth'd, and good man bare ;
To see impiety with pomp enthron'd ;—
(Virtue unsought for, honesty unown'd:)
Heav'n's dispensations no man can explore;
In this, to fathom God, is to be more!
Meer man but guesses the divine decree ;
The most the Stagyrite himself could see,
Was the faint glimm'ring of contingency.
Yet deem not rich men happy, nor the poor
Unprosp'rous; wait th' event, and judge no more.
True safety to Heav'n's children must belong:
With God the rich are weak, the poor are strong.
Th' irrevocable sanction stands prepar'd;
Vice has its curse, and virtue its reward 41.
Conscience, man's centinel, forbids to stray,
Nor shows us the great gulf for Heav'n's high-

way.

"To serve the great, and aggrandise our pride, We barter honour, and our faith beside : Mindless of future bliss, and heav'nly fame, We strip and sell the Christian to the name. Ambition, like the sea by tempests tost, Still makes new conquests for oid conquests lost : Court-favours lie above the common road By modesty and humble virtue trod; Like trees on precipices, they display Fair fruit, which none can reach but birds of prey.

"All men from want, as from contagion, fly; They weary Earth, and importune the sky; Gain riches, and yet 'scape not poverty: The once mean soul preserves its earthly part, The beggar's flatt'ry, and the beggar's heart. "In spite of titles, glory, kindred, pelf, Lov'st thou an object better than thyself? You answer, No.-If that, my son, be true, Then give to God the thanks to God are due. No man is crown'd the fav'rite of the skies, Till Heav'n his faith by sharp affliction tries: Nor chains, disgrace, nor tyrants can control Th' ability to save th' immortal soul.

How oft did Seneca deplore his fate,

Debarr'd that recollection which you hate!
How often did Papinian waste his breath

Thy life's last hour (nor is it far from thee}
Is the last hour of human misery.
Extremes of grief or joy are rarely giv❜n,
And last as rarely, by the will of Heav'n.”
So spake Philosophy, and upwards flew,
Inspiring confidence as she withdrew.

Here let my just resentments cease to flow,
Here let me close my elegies of woe.

Rusticiana, fairest of the fair,

My present object, and my future care;
Be mindful of my children, and thy vows:-
And ('gainst thy judgment) Odefend thy spouse,
My children are my other self to thee:-
Heav'n you distrust if you lament for me.

Weep not my fate: is man to be deplor'd,
From a dark prison to free air restor❜d?
Admir'd by friends, and envy'd by my foes,
I die, when glory to the highest rose.
I've mounted to the summit of a ball;
If I go further, I descend, or fall.
Hail death, thou lenient cordial of relief;
Preventive of my shame and of my grief!
Kind Nature crops me in full virtue's bloom #4,
Not left to shrink and wither for the tomb.
Shed not a tear, but vindicate thy pow'r,
Enrich'd like Egypt's soil without a show'r.
Fortune, which gave too much, did soon repine,
There was no solstice in a course like mine.
With calmness I my bleeding death behold;
Suns set in crimson-streams to rise in gold.

Farewell, and may Heav'n's bounty heap on thee,

(As more deserving) what it takes from me! That peace, which made thy social virtues shine, The peace of conscience, and the peace divine, Be ever, O thou best of women, thine!

Forgive, Almighty Pow'r, this worldly part; These last convulsions of an husband's heart: Give us thy self; and teach our minds to see The Saviour and the Paraclete in thee!

RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY, AN EMBLEMATICAL ELEGY.

T' implore like your's, a pausing time for Shall not every one mourn that dwelleth therein?

death ?

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Amos, ch. viii, v. 8. I did mourn as a dove; mine eyes failed with looking upwards.

Isaiah, ch. xxxviii, v. 14. Fear not thou, my servant, saith the Lord; for I am with thee. I will not make a full end of thee; but correct thee in measure. Jer. ch. xlvi, v. ult.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

Iris to be hoped the reader will pardon me, if I take the liberty of prefixing to this elegy a light advertisement, instead of inserting what might seem too long for a note in the body of the poem.

particular places, where I discover neither boldness nor invention.-I owe also to Fenton the participle meandered; and to Sir W. D'Avenant the latinism of funeral ilicet.

As to compound epithets, those ambitiosa ornamenta 3 of modern poetry, Dryden has devised a few of them, with equal diffidence and caution; but those few are exquisitely beautiMr. Pope seized on them as family diamonds, and added thereto an equal number, dug from his own mines, and heightened by his own polishing.

Having ventured (and I am sure it is licentia sumpta pudenter 1,) to introduce three or four new expressions in a volume of near five thou-ful. sand lines, and one, namely, dew-tinged ray, in the present elegy, I thought myself obliged to make some apology on that subject; since all innovations in poets like me, (who can only pretend to a certain degree of mediocrity) are more or less of an affected cast, and rarely to be excused; inasmuch as we have the vanity to teach others what we do not thoroughly understand

ourselves.

And here permit me to call that language of ours classical English, which is to be found in a few chosen writers inclusively from the times of Spencer till the death of Mr. Pope; for false refinements, after a language has arisen to a certain degree of perfection, give reasons to suspect that a language is upon the decline. The same circumstances have happened formerly, and the event has been almost invariably the same. Compare Statius and Claudian with Virgil and Horace: and yet the former was, if one may so speak, immediate heir at law to the latter.

I have known some of my cotemporary poets (and those not very voluminous writers) who have coined their one or two hundred words a man; whereas Dryden and Pope devised only about threescore words between them; many of which were compound epithets: but most of the words which they introduced into our language proved in the event to be vigorous and perennial plants, being chosen and raised from excellent offsets 2. -Indeed the former author revived also a great number of ancient words and expressions; and this he did (beginning at Chaucer) with so much delicacy of choice, and in a manner so comprehensive, that he left the latter author (who was in that point equally judicious and sagacious) very little to do, or next to nothing.

-

Some few of Dryden's revived words I have presumed to continue; of which take the following instances; as gridéline, filmont, and carmine, (with reference to colours, and mixtures of colours ;) cymar, eygre, trine, EYPHKA, paraclete, panoply, rood, dorp, eglantine, orisons, aspirations, &c. I mention this, lest any one should be angry with me, or pleased with me in

I Horat.

2 I must here make one exception. Dryden showed some weakness, in anglicising common French words, and those not over elegant, when at the same time we had synonymous words of our own growth. Thus, for example, he introduced leveé, coucheé, boutefeu, simagres, fracheur, fougue, &c. Nor was he more lucky in the Italian falsarè:

his shield Was falsify'd, and round with javʼlins fill'd. Dryden's Virg.

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Compound epithets first came into their great vogue about the year 1598. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson both ridiculed the ostentatious and

immoderate use of them, in their prologues to Troilus and Cressida and to Every Man in his Humour. By the above-named prologues it also appears, that bombast grew fashionable about the same era. Now in both instances an affected taste is the same as a false taste. The author of Hiero❤ nimo (who as I may venture to assure the reader, was one John Smith) first led up the dance. Then came the bold and self-sufficient translator of Du Bartas 5, who broke down all the flood-gates of the true stream of eloquence (which formerly preserved the river clear, within due bounds, and full to its banks) and, like the rat in the LowCountry dikes, mischievously or wantonly deluged the whole land.

Of innovated phrases and words; of words revived; of compound epithets, &c. I may one day or other say more, in a distinct criticism on Dryden's poetry. It shall therefore only suffice to observe here, that our two great poetical masters never thought that the interposition of an hyphen, without just grounds and reasons, made a compound epithet. On the contrary, it was their opinion, (and to this opinion their practice was conformable) that such union should only be made between two nouns, as patriot-king, ideotlaugh, &c.—or between an adjective and noun, or noun and adjective, vice versa, or an adjective and participle; as laughter-loving, cloudcompelling, rosy-fingered, &c.-As also by an adverb used as part of an adjective, as you may see in the words well-concocted, well-digested, &c.-But never by a full real adverb and adjective, as inly-pining, sadly-musing, and, to make free with myself, (though I only did it by way of irony) my expression of simply-marry'd epithets, of which sort of novelties modern poetry chiefly consists. Nor should such compound epithets be looked upon as the poet's making; for they owe their existence to the compositor of the press, and the intervention of an hyphen.

Much of the same analogy by which Dryden and Pope guided themselves in the present case, may be seen in the purer Greek and Roman languages: but all the hyphens in the world, (supposing hyphens had been then known) would not have truly joined together the dulce ridentem, or dulce loquentem, of Horace.

In a word, some few precautions of the pre

3 Horat.

4 John Smith writ also the Hector of Germany. • Joshua Sylvester.

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Lord, has thy hand no mercy, and our woes
No intermission? Gracious Being, please
To calm our fears, and give the body ease!
The poor man, and the slave of ev'ry kind, [find:
Midst pains and toils may gleams of comfort
But who can bear the sickness of the mind?
The pow'r of Melancholy mounts the throne,
And makes the realms of wisdom half her own 2:
Not David's lyre, with David's voice conjoin'd,
Can drive th' oppressive phantom from the
mind?

No more the Sun delights, nor lawns, nor trees;
The vernal blossoms, or the summer's breeze.
No longer Echo makes the dales rejoice
With sportive sounds, and pictures of a voice 4:
Th' aerial choir, which sung so soft and clear,
Now grates harsh music to the froward ear:
The gently murm'ring rills offend from far,
And emulate the clangour of a war:

Books have no wit, the liveliest wits have none;
And hope, the last of ev'ry friend, is gone!
Nor rest nor joy to Virtue's self are giv'n,
Till the discase is rectify'd by Heav'n.
And yet this Iliad of intestine woes
(So frail is man) from seeming nothings rose:
A drop of acrid juice, a blast of air,
Th' obstruction of a tube as fine as hair;
Or spasm within a labyrinth of threads,
More subtile far than those the spider spreads 5.
What sullen planet rul'd our hapless birth,
Averse from joys, and enemy of mirth?
Wat'ry Arcturus in a luckless place
South'd 6, and portended tears to all our race:
With him the weeping Pleiades conjoin,

And Mazzaroth made up the mournful trine 7:

1 The hint of this emblem is taken from our venerable and religious poet F. Quarles, L. III, Embl. 4. Mr. Dryden used to say, that Quarles exceeded him in the facility of rhyming.

Orion added noise to dumb despair,
And rent with hurricanes the driving air;
And last Absinthion his dire influence shed
Full on the heart, and fuller on the head.

Oft have we sought (and fruitless oft) to gain
A short parenthesis 'twixt pain and pain;
But, sick'ning at the cheerfulness of light,
The soul has languish'd for th' approach of night:
Again, immerst in shades, we seem to say,
O day-spring 9! gleam thy promise of a day.
On this side death th' unhappy sure are curst,
Who sigh for change, and think the present

worst:

Who weep unpity'd, groan without relief; "There is no end nor measure of their grief!" The happy have waste twelve-months to bestow ; But those can spare all time, who live in woe! Whose liveliest hours are misery and thrall; Whose food is wormwood, and whose drink is gall ".

Banish their grief, or ease their irksome load; Ephraim, at length, was favour'd by his God 12.

Ah, what is man, that demi-god on Earth? Proud of his knowledge, glorying in his birth; Profane corrector of th' Almighty's laws, Full of th' effect, forgetful of the cause! Why boast of reason, and yet reason ill? Why talk of choice, yet follow erring will? Why vaunt our liberty, and prove the slave Of all ambition wants, or follies crave? This is the lot of him, surnam❜d the wise, Who lives mistaken, and mistaken dies!

The sick less happy, and yet happier live; For pains and maladies are God's reprieve: This respite, 'twixt the grave and cradle giv'n, Is th' interpos'd parenthesis of Heav'n!

Scripture-astronomy these three were all watery signs, and emblematical of grief. The fourth constellation, named Orion, threatened mankind with hurricanes and tempests. Sandys understood the passage in the same manner as I do. See his excellent Paraphrase on Job, folio, page 49, London 1637. Mention is again made of the Seven Stars, (Pleiades) and of Orion, Amos, ch. v, v. 8-and Job, ch. ix, v. 9.

The star of bitterness, called Wormwood, Rev. ch. viii, v. 10.

9 Job, ch. xxxvii, v. 12. Luke, ch. I, v. 78. 'Avaroan is. This poetical word, dayspring, expressing the dawn of morning, has been never adopted by our poets, as far as we can recollect.

10 Deut. ch. xxviii, v. 66, 67.

"And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and

Quarles's book, and the emblematical prints therein contained, are chiefly taken from the Pia Desideria of Hugo Hermannus. The engravings were originally designed by that cele-shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the brated artist C. Van Sichem.

2 Dan. ch. iv, v. 34.

31 Sam. ch. xvi, v. 25.

morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! For the fear of thine heart wherewith

4 Agreeably to this, is a lovely piece of ima- thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes gery in the holy Scriptures.

The Earth mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed, and hewn down; Sharon is like a wilderness; Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits." Isaiah, ch. xxxiii, v. 9.

5 Isaiah, ch. lix, v. 5.

• South'd, a received term in astrology,

wherewith thou shalt sce." See also Job, ch. iii. v. 8.

11 Jerem. ch. xxiii, v. 15.

12 lbid. ch. xxxi, v. 20. "Ephraim is my dear son;-for, since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have

? Job, ch. xxxviii v. 31, 32. According to mercy upon him, saith the Lord."

J

Too often we complain-but flesh is weak; Silence would waste us, and the heart would break.

Behold yon' rose, the poor despondent cries,
(Pain on his brow, and anguish in his eyes)
What healthy verdure paints its juicy shoots,
What equal circulation feeds the roots!
At morning dawn it feels the dew-ting'd ray,
But opens all its bosom to the day.
No art assists it, and no toil it takes13,
Slumbers at ev'ning, and with morning wakes14.
Why was I born? Or wherefore born a man?
Immense my wish; yet tether'd to a span!
The slave, that groans beneath the toilsome

oar,

"Obtains the sabbath of a welcome shore:" His captive stripes are heal'd; his native soil Sweetens the memory of foreign toil.

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Alas, my sorrows are not half so blest ;" My labours know no end, my pains no rest! Tell me, vain-glorious Newtons, if you can, What heterogeneous mixtures form the man? Pleasure and anguish, ignorance and skill; Nature and spirit, slav'ry and free will; Weakness and strength; old age and youthful Errour and truth; eternity and time!-[prime; What contradictions have for ever ran Betwixt the nether brute and upper man15 ?

Ah! what are men, who God's creation scorn? The worm their brother 16;-brother elder born! Plants live like them, in fairer robes array'd, Alike they flourish, and alike they fade. The lab'ring steer sleeps less disturb'd at night, And eats and drinks with keener appetite,Restrain'd by nature just t' enjoy his fill ; Useful, and yet incapable of ill.

Say, man, what vain pre-eminence is thine ?
Each sense impair'd by gluttony and wine17:
Thou art the beast, except thy soaring mind
Aspires to pleasures of immortal kind :

Else, boasted knowledge, hapless is thy curse,
T'approve the better, and embrace the worse!
So Annas owns the miracle, and then
(Wilfully blinded) persecutes agen18.

To minds afflicted ever has been giv'n
A claim upon the patronage of Heav'n :
(Whilst the world's idiots ev'ry thought employ
With hopes to live and die without annoy.)
In the first agonies of heart-struck grief,
Heav'n to our parents typify'd relief19.

13 Matth. ch. vi, v. 28.

14 Concerning the sleep of plants, see an ingenious Latin treatise lately published in Sweden. 15 Poetical definition of a centaur.

16 Job, ch. xvii, v 14.-There is a remarkable passage in the Psalms upon this occasion, where the worm takes place of the monarch: "O praise the Lord, ye mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; worms and feathered fowls; kings of the Earth and all people; princes and judges of the world."

Th' Almighty lent an ear to Hannah's pray 'r20,
And bless'd her with each blessing, in an heir:
Whilst Hezekiah", earnest in his cause,
Gain'd a suspension of great Nature's laws,
And permanence to time;-for lo! the Sun
Retrac'd the journey he had lately run.—

But most th' unhappy wretch, aggriev'd in Rais'd pity in the Saviour of mankind. [mind, He ask'd for peace; Heav'n gave him its own Demons were dumb, and Legion dispossest. [rest, Wither'd with palsy'd blasts, the limbs resume, Thy strength, O manhood; and, O youth, thy Syro-Phenicia's maiden re-enjoy'd [bloom 23! That equal mind, which Satan once destroy'd 24. And, when the heav'nly Ephphatha 25 was spoke, The deaf-born heard, the dumb-born silence broke.

Th' ethereal fluid mov'd, the speech return'd; No spasms were dreaded, no despondence mourn'd.

Then rouse, my soul, and bid the world adieu, Its maxims, wisdom, joys and glory too; The mighty EYPHKA26 appears in view.

Just so, the gen'rous falcon, long immur'd In doleful cell, by osier-bars secur'd, Laments her fate; till, flitting swiftly by, Th' aerial prize attracts her eager eye : Instant she summons all her strength and fire; Her aspect kindles fierce with keen desire; She prunes her tatter'd plumes in conscious [side: And bounds from perch to perch, and side to Impatient of her jail, and long detain'd, She breaks the bounds her liberty restrain'd: Then, having gain'd the point by Heav'n de

pride,

sign'd,

Soars 'midst the clouds, and proves her highhorn kind.

When Adam did his Paradise forego, He earn'd his hard-bought bread with sweating

brow.

Give us the labour, but suppress the woe
Merit we boast not: but Christ's sacred side
Has pour'd for all its sacramental tide.
No sin, no guile, no blemishes had he;
A self-made slave to set the captive free!
Yet pain and anguish still too far presume;
Just are Heav'n's ways, and righteous is its
doom.

All chastisement, before we reach the grave,
Are bitter med'cines, kindly meant to save.
Thus let the rhet'ric of our suff'rings move;
The voice of grief is oft the voice of loves!

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26 See Dryden's Relig. Laici; and Prior's Ode sus-entitled, What is Man? ETPHKA signifies finding out the great point desired.

Psalm cxlviii, v. 10, Septuagint Version. 17" If we pamper the flesh too much, we nourish an enemy; if we defraud it of lawful tenance, we destroy a good citizen." St. Gregor. Homil.

18 Acts, ch. iv, v. 6, 18. 19 Gen. ch. iii, v. 15.

VOL. XVI.

27 The hint of this similie is taken from Quarles. 28There is sometimes a certain pleasure in D d

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