With this the doctor's pride began to cool;
For smarting soundly may convince a fool.
But now repentance came too late for grace,
And meagre famine stared him in the face;
Fain would he to the wives be reconciled,
But found no husband left to own a child.
The friends, that got the brats, were poisoned too;
In this sad case what could our vermin do?
Worried with debts and past all hope of bail,
Th' unpitied wretch lies rotting in a jail,
And there with basket-alms, scarce kept alive,
Shows how mistaken talents ought to thrive.

I pity, from my soul, unhappy men
Compelled by want to prostitute their pen;
Who must, like lawyers, either starve or plead,
And follow, right or wrong, where guineas lead.
But you, Pompilian, wealthy, pamper'd heirs,
Who to your country owe your swords and cares,
Let no vain hope your easy mind seduce,
For rich ill poets are without excuse.
'Tis very dangerous, tampering with a Muse,
The profit's small, and you have much to lose :

For though true wit adorns your birth or place,
Degen rate lines degrade th' attainted race.
No poet any passion can excite

But what they feel transport them when they write.

Have you been led through the Cumaan cave,

And heard th' impatient maid divinely rave?

I hear her now; I see her rolling eyes:

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"Tis like a warning piece, which gives the sign To wake your fancy, and prepare your sight

To reach the noble height of some unusual flight.
I lose my patience, when with saucy pride,
By untuned ears I hear his numbers tried.
Reverse of nature! shall such copies then
Arraign th' originals of Maro's pen,
And the rude notions of pedantic schools
Blaspheme the sacred founder of our rules?
The delicacy of the nicest ear
Finds nothing harsh or out of order there.
Sublime or low, unbended or intense,
The sound is still a comment to the sense.

A skilful ear in numbers should preside, And all disputes without appeal decide. This ancient Rome and elder Athens found, Before mistaken stops debauch'd the sound.

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And panting; "Lo! the God, the God!" she cries;
With words not hers, and more than human sound,
She makes th' obedient ghosts peep trembling through the
ground.

But though we must obey when Heaven commands,
And man in vain the sacred call withstands,
Beware what spirit rages in your breast;
For ten inspired, ten thousand are possest.
Thus make the proper use of each extreme,
And write with fury, but correct with phlegm.
As when the cheerful hours too freely pass,
And sparkling wine smiles in the tempting glass,
Your pulse advises, and begins to beat
Through every swelling vein a loud retreat :
So when a Muse propitiously invites,
Improve her favours, and indulge her flights;
But when you find that vigorous heat abate,
Leave off, and for another summons wait.
Before the radiant sun a glimmering lamp,
Adult'rate metals to the sterling stamp,
Appear not meaner than mere human lines
Compar'd with those whose inspiration shines:
These, nervous, bold; those, languid and remiss ;

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True poets are the guardians of a state,
And when they fail, portend approaching fate.
For that which Rome to conquest did inspire,
Was not the Vestal, but the Muse's fire;
Heaven joins the blessings: no declining age
E'er felt the raptures of poetic rage.

Of many faults, rhyme is perhaps the cause;
Too strict to rhyme, we slight more useful laws,
For that in Greece or Rome was never known,
Till by barbarian deluges o'erflown:
Subdued, undone, they did at last obey,
And change their own for their invaders' way.

I grant that from some mossy idol oak
In double rhymes our Thor and Woden spoke;
And by succession of unlearned times,

As bards began, so monks rung on the chimes.
But now that Phoebus and the sacred Nine
With all their beams on our blest island shine,
Why should not we their ancient rites restore,
And be what Rome or Athens were before?

Have we forgot how Raphael's numerous prose
Led our exalted souls through heavenly camps,
And marked the ground where proud apostate thrones
Defy'd Jehovah! Here, 'twixt host and host,
(A narrow but a dreadful interval)
Portentous sight! before the cloudy van

Satan with vast and haughty strides advanced,
Came tow'ring arm'd in adamant and gold.
There bellowing engines, with their fiery tubes,
Dispers'd æthereal forms, and down they fell
By thousands, angels on archangels rolled;

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380

1 Lord Roscommon here, changing his own rhyme to blank verse, honours himself by appreciating Milton when his "Paradise Lost," published in 1667, was little understood by men of fashion.

Recovered, to the hills they ran, they flew,

Which with their pond'rous load, rocks, waters, woods
From their firm seats torn by the shaggy tops,
They bore like shields before them through the air,
'Til more incens'd they hurled 'em at their foes.
All was confusion, heaven's foundations shook,
Threatening no less than universal wreck,
For Michael's arm main promontories flung,
And over-prest whole legions weak with sin:
Yet they blasphem'd and struggled as they lay,
'Til the great ensign of Messiah blaz'd,

And, arm'd with vengeance, God's victorious son,
Effulgence of paternal Deity,

Grasping ten thousand thunders in his hand
Drove th' old original rebels headlong down,
And sent them flaming to the vast abyss.

O may I live to hail the glorious day,
And sing loud paans through the crowded way,
When in triumphant state the British Muse,
True to herself, shall barb'rous aid refuse,
And in the Roman majesty appear,

Which none know better, and none come so near.

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But how absurdly, we may see with shame.
Reason, that solemn trifle! light as air,
Driv'n up and down, by censure or applause:
By partial love away 'tis blown,

Or the least prejudice can weigh it down:
Thus our high privilege becomes our snare,
In any nice and weighty cause.
How weak, at best, is reason! yet the grave
Impose on that small judgment which we have.

In all those wits, whose names have spread so wide,

And ev'n the force of time defied,

Some failings yet may be descried. Among the rest, with wonder be it told

That Brutus is admired for Cæsar's death,

By which he yet survives in Fame's immortal breath:
Brutus, ev'n he, of all the rest,

In whom we should that deed the most detest,
Is of mankind esteem'd the best.

As snow descending from some lofty hill,
Is by its rolling course augmenting still;
So from illustrious authors down have roll'd
Those great encomiums he receiv'd of old:

Republic orators still show them esteem,
And gild their eloquence with praise of him;
But Truth unveil'd like a bright sun appears,
To shine away this heap of sev'nteen hundred years.

In vain 'tis urg'd by an illustrious wit
(To whom in all besides I willingly submit),
That Cæsar's life no pity could deserve
From one who killed himself, rather than serve,
Had Brutus chose rather himself to slay,
Than any master to obey,

Happy for Rome had been that noble pride;

The world had then remain'd in peace, and only Br

died.

For he, whose soul disdains to own

Subjection to a tyrant's frown,

And his own life would rather end;

10

Would, sure, much rather kill himself, than only b

his friend.

To his own sword in the Philippian field
Brutus indeed at last did yield;

But in those times self-killing was not rare,
And his proceeded only from despair :

He might have chosen else to live,
In hopes another Cæsar would forgive;
Then for the good of Rome he could once more
Conspire against a life which had spared his before.

Our country challenges our utmost care,

And in our thoughts deserves the tender'st share.
Her to a thousand friends we should prefer:
Yet not betray 'em tho' it be for her.

Hard is his heart whom no desert can move

A mistress or a friend to love,

Above whate'er he does besides enjoy;

But may he for their sakes his sire or sons destroy For sacred justice, or for public good,

Scorn'd be our wealth, our honour, and our blood.
In such a cause, want is a happy state,

Ev'n low disgrace would be a glorious fate;
And death itself, when noble fame survives,
More to be valu'd than a thousand lives.
But 'tis not, surely, of so fair renown,
To spill another's blood, as to expose our own;

O fall that's ours we cannot give too much; But what belongs to friendship, oh, 'tis sacrilege to touch.

Can we stand by unmov'd, and see
Our mother robb'd and ravish'd? Can we be
Excus'd, if in her cause we never stir,

Pleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ravisher;
Thus sings our bard with almost heat divine;
"Tis pity that his thought was not as strong as fine.
Would it more justly did the case express,

Or that its beauty and its grace were less.

Thus a nymph sometimes we see,
Who so charming seems to be,

That, jealous of a soft surprise,

We scarce durst trust our eager eyes.

Such a fallacious ambush to escape,

It were but vain to plead a willing rape;

A valiant son would be provok'd the more:

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A force we therefore must confess, but acted long before;

A marriage since did intervene,

With all the solemn and the sacred scene;

Loud was the Hymenean song;

The violated dame walk'd smilingly along,
And in the midst of the most sacred dance,
As if enamour'd of his sight,
Often she cast a kind admiring glance

On the bold struggler for delight;

Who afterwards appear'd so moderate, and cool,
As if for public good alone he so desired to rule.

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(In this dull age scarce understood)

Inspires us with unusual warmth, her injur'd rites to sing. Assist, ye angels, whose immortal bliss,

Tho' more refin'd, chiefly consists in this!

How plainly your bright thoughts to one another shine!

Oh, how ye all agree in harmony divine!

The race of mutual love with equal zeal ye run;
A course as far from any end as when at first begun,
Ye saw, and smiled upon this matchless pair,
Who still betwixt them did so many virtues share,
Some which belong to peace, and some to strife,
Those of a calm, and of an active life,
That all the excellence of human kind

Concurr'd to make of both but one united mind;

Which friendship did so fast and closely bind,

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In coolest blood he laid a long design

Against his best and dearest friend;

Did ev'n his foes in zeal exceed,

To spirit others up to work so black a deed;
Himself the centre where they all did join.
Cæsar meantime, fearless and fond of him,
Was as industrious all the while

To give such ample marks of fond esteem,

As made the gravest Romans smile,

To see with how much ease love can the wife beguile.
He whom thus Brutus doom'd to bleed,
Did, setting his own race aside,

Nothing less for him provide,

Than in the world's great empire to succeed; Which we are bound in justice to allow

Is all-sufficient proof to show

That Brutus did not strike for his own sake:
And if, alas, he fail'd, 'twas only by mistake.

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John Sheffield, born in 1649, lived until 1721, during all the latter part of which time we were being so highly refined by French-classicism, that

1 Can we. "In repeating these four verses of Mr. Cowley, I have done an unusual thing; for notwithstanding that he is my adversary in the argument, and a very famous one, too, I could not endure to let so fine a thought remain as ill express'd in this Ode, as it is in his; which any body may find by comparing them together. But I would not be understood as if I pretended to correct Mr. Cowley, tho' expression was not his best talent: for, as I have mended these few verses of his, I doubt not but he could have done as much for a great many of mine." [Author's Note.] - If any were worth mending. [Editor.]

JOHN SHEFFIELD.

this was the figure he made in his widow's elaborate design for a monument to him engraved before a posthumous edition of his collected works.

The jest of George Villiers upon Dryden's lines in the "Conquest of Granada" represented a good side of the reaction produced by the higher French

criticism. Boileau's plea for good sense was urged in playful satire while there was, chiefly upon the stage, a new tendency towards big sounding sentences, empty as drums. The "heroic" drama of the time of Charles II. was partly derived from France, and in France it had been modified by influence of the Spanish stage. Corneille had, about the time of the Restoration, resumed work as a dramatist, and he then began to produce a second group of "heroic" dramas, less simple in dignity, more intricate in plot and bombastic in style than those which he had written in the days before our Commonwealth.

But this was all in the teeth of Boileau's teaching, and our shrewder wits made war upon the tendency. The critics had pretty well. made up their minds to exclude blank verse from English literature, and even in drama follow the French lead by writing the rhymed couplet (Chaucer's old riding rhyme with its joints stiffened) and calling it heroic, when, in the year 1667, John Milton startled them by throwing into the midst of their "Paradise Lost" in blank verse. controversy It was the first English heroic poem written in that measure. Milton, a thorough scholar, did not clip his genius to the fashion of French taste; and though fallen on evil days, "on evil days though fallen, and evil tongues," he closed his life with the fulfilment of its early promise. Not only did he produce in the reign of Charles II. his grand poem designed to "justify the ways of God to men," but in 1671 he published, in one volume, two poems, "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes," both designed to bid discouraged fellow-labourers bow to the will of God with child-like faith,

Lay on His providence, He will not fail." Upon the blind Milton the celestial light had indeed shone inward, and there planted eyes. He died before, he had seen how the very acts that discouraged some of his companions, and made them fear lest God had changed his countenance towards them, were producing, far more swiftly and more surely than any combat of their own could have produced, the end for which they had been struggling. Charles II. and James II. achieved for us the settlement of the Revolution of 1688. Milton in 1671, not knowing how Time would show the gathered clouds over the land to be full of benediction, in those two poems bowed his head, and closed his life's music with these words of perfect trust

"All is best, though we oft doubt

What the unsearchable dispose
Of Highest Wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close."

This is a sonnet of Milton's, first published in the second edition of his "Poems" (1673):

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present

Cyriack, whose grandsire' on the royal bench
Of British Themis with no mean applause
Pronounced, and in his volumes taught our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench;
To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth that after no repenting draws.
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intends, and what the French;
To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid good what leads the nearest way:
For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

10

Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost,
By Dutchmen, or by wind:
Our tears we'll send a speedier way,
The tide shall bring 'em twice a day,
With a Fa, la, la, la, la.

Let's hear of no inconstancy,

The King with wonder, and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold,
Because the tides will higher rise,
Than e'er they used of old:
But let him know, it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs,
With a Fa, la, la, la, la.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know

Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,

And quit their fort at Goree :

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind!

With a Fa, la, la, la, la.

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,

No sorrow we shall find:

We have too much of that at sea,

With a Fa, la, la, la, la.

John Dryden made success in the Dutch war, and the Fire of London, his chief themes in the poem, "Annus Mirabilis," on the year 1666. It was produced in 1667, and was the last that he embellished with conceits in the manner of the Later Euphuists. Other volumes of this Library will include specimens from Dryden's plays, and the important group of poems in which, maintaining, as it was in his nature to do, for both State and Church the principle of absolute authority, he dealt with essentials of the struggle of thought preceding the English Revolution. Here he is represented only by some shorter poems. He was true poet enough to feel the strength of Milton, and wrote—

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature conld no further go;

To make a third, she join'd the former two.

Dryden's famous Ode for St. Cecilia's Day was written in 1697 at request of the stewards of the Musical Meeting which had been held for some years on that day. They paid Dryden £40 for it, and the music for it, composed by Jeremiah Clarke, one of the stewards, proved a failure. It was not set worthily till 1736, when "Alexander's Feast" was performed at Covent Garden Theatre with music by Handel. "I am glad to hear from all hands," Dryden wrote to his publisher, "that my Ode is esteemed the best of all my poetry, by all the town. I thought so myself when I writ it; but, being old" his age was sixty-six), "I mistrusted my own judgment."

When we for hopes of honour lose

Our certain happiness :

All those designs are but to prove

Ourselves more worthy of your love, With a Fa, la, la, la, la.

And now we've told you all our loves And likewise all our fears;

In hopes this declaration moves Some pity from your tears:

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Chorus.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.