Thou who haft taught me to forgive the ill,
And recompence as friends the good mifled;
If mercy be a precept of thy will,
Return that mercy on thy fervant's head.
Or if my heedlefs youth has ftept aftray,
Too foon forgetful of thy gracious hand;
On me alone thy juft difpleasure lay,
The daring flames peep'd in, and faw from far
The awful beauties of the facred quire:
But, fince it was prophan'd by civil war,
Heaven thought it fit to have it purg'd by
fire.
Now down the narrow streets it fwiftly came,
And widely opening did on both fides prey:
But take thy judgments from this mourning This benefit we fadly owe the flame,
land.
We all have finn'd, and thou haft laid us low,
As humble earth, from whence at first we came:
Like flying fhades before the clouds we fhew,
And fhrink like parchment to confuming flame.
O let it be enough what thou haft done; [ftreet,
When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every
With poifon'd darts, which not the good could
fhun,
The speedy could outfly, or valiant meet.
The living few, and frequent funerals then,
Proclaim'd thy wrath on this forfaken place:
And now thofe few who are return'd again,
Thy fearching judgments to their dwellings
O país not, Lord, an abfolute decree,
Or bind thy fentence unconditional:
But in thy fentence our remorfe forfee,
And in that forcfight this thy doom recal.
Thy threatenings, Lord, as thine thou may'st re-
But if immutable and fix'd they stand, [voke:
Continue ftill thyself to give the stroke,
And let not foreign foes opprefs thy land.
Th' Eternal heard, and from the heavenly quire
Chofe out the Cherub with the flaming fword;
And bade him swiftly drive th' approaching fire
From where our naval magazines were stor'd,
The bleffed minifter his wings difplay'd,
And like a shooting star he cleft the night: He charg'd the flames, and thofe that disobey'd He lafh'd to duty with his fword of light.
The fugitive flames chaftis'd went forth to prey
On pious ftructures by our fathers rear'd;
By which to heaven they did affect the way,
E'er faith in churchmen without works was
heard.
The wanting orphans faw with watery eyes,
Their founders charity in duft laid low;
And fent to God their ever-anfwer'd cries,
For he protects the poor, who made them fo.
Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long,
Though thou wert facred to thy Maker's praife:
Though made immortal by a poet's fong;
And poets fongs the Theban walks could raife.
If only ruin must enlarge our way.
And now four days the fun had feen our woes:
Four nights, the moon beheld th' inceffant fire:
It feem'd as if the ftars more fickly rofe,
And farther from the feverish north retire.
CCLXXIX.
In th' empyread heaven, the blefs'd abode,
The thrones and the dominions proftrate lie,
Not daring to behold their angry God;
And an hush'd filence damps the tuneful sky.
At length th' Almighty caft a pitying eye,
And mercy foftly touch'd his meiting breast:
He faw the town's one half in rubbish lie,
And eager flames drive on to storm the reft.
An hollow cryftal pyramid he takes,
In firmamental waters dipt above;
Of it a broad extinguisher he makes,
And hoods the flames that to their quarry drove.
The vanquifh'd fires withdraw from every place,
Or full with feeding fink into a fleep:
Each houfehold genius fhews again his face,
And from the hearths the little lares creep.
Our king this more than natural change beholds;
With fober joy his heart and eyes abound:
To the All-good his lifted hands he folds,
And thanks him low on his redeemed ground.
As when sharp frofts had long constraind the
earth,
A kindly thaw unlocks it with cold rain;
And first the tender blade peeps up to birth,
And straight the green fields laugh with pro-
mis'd grain:
By fuch degrees the fpreading gladness grew
In every heart which fear had froze before :
The standing streets with so much joy they view,
That with lefs grief the perifh'd they deplore.
The father of the people open'd wide
His ftores, and all the poor with plenty fed: Thus God's anointed God's own place fupply'd, And fill'd the empty with his daily bread.
This royal bounty brought its own reward,
And in their minds fo deep did print the fenfe;
That if their ruins fadly they regard,
'Tis but with fear the fight might drive him
MR. DRYDEN AND THE EARL OF MULGRAVE.
How dull, and how infenfible a beaft
Is man, who yet would lord it o'er the reft!
Philofophers and poets vainly ftrove
In every age the lumpish mafs to move :
But those were pedants, when compar'd with thefe,
Who know not only to instruct, but please.
Poets alone found the delightful way,
Myfterious morals gently to convey
In charming numbers; fo that as men grew
Pleas'd with their poems, they grew wifer too.
Satire has always fhone among the reft,
And is the boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their fouleft faults;
To laugh at their vain deeds, and vainer thoughts.
In fatire too the wife took different ways,
To each deferving its peculiar praise.
Some did all folly with just sharpness blame,
Whilft others laugh'd, and scorn'd them into
fhame.
But of thefe two, the laft fucceeded beft,
As men aim rightest when they shoot in jeft.
Yet, if we may prefume to blame our guides,
And cenfure those who cenfure all befides,
In other things they justly are preferr'd:
In this alone methinks the ancients err'd;
Against the groffeft follies they declaim;
Hard they pursue, but hunt ignoble game.
Nothing is easier than fuch blots to hit,
And 'tis the talent of each vulgar wit:
Befides 'tis labour loft; for who would preach
Morals to Armstrong, or dull Afton teach?
'Tis being devout at play, wife at a ball,
Or bringing wit and friendfhip to Whitehall.
But with fharp eyes thofe nicer faults to find,
Which lie obfcurely in the wifeft mind;
That little fpeck which all the reft does spoil,
To wash off that would be a noble toil;
Beyond the loofe-writ libels of this age,
Or the forc'd fcenes of our declining stage;
Above all cenfure too, each little wit
Will be fo glad to fee the greater hit;
Who judging better, though concern'd the moft,
Of fuch correction will have cause to boast.
In fuch a fatire all would feek a share,
And every fool will fancy he is there.
Old ftory-tellers too muft pine and die,
To see their antiquated wit laid by ;
Like her, who mifs'd her name in a lampoon,
And griev'd to find herself decay'd fo foon.
No common coxcomb must be mention'd here:
Not the dull train of dancing fparks appear;
Nor fluttering officers who never fight;
Of fuch a wretched rabble who would write?
Much lefs half wits: that's more against our rules;
For they are fops, the other are but fools.
Who would not be as filly as Dunbar?
As dull as Monmouth, rather than Sir Carr?
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