265

And, soon restor❜d by native vigour, bear
The timely product of the bounteous year.
Nor yet conclude all fiery trials past:
For Heaven will exercise us to the last;
Sometimes will check us in our full career,
With doubtful blessings, and with mingled fear;
That, still depending on his daily grace,
His every mercy for an alms may pass,
With sparing hands will diet us to good;
Preventing surfeits of our pamper'd blood.
So feeds the mother-bird her craving young
With little morsels, and delays them long.

275

True, this last blessing was a royal feast; But, where's the wedding-garment on the guest? Our manners, as religion were a dream, Are such as teach the nations to blaspheme.

280

In lusts we wallow, and with pride we swell,
And injuries with injuries repel;

Prompt to revenge, not daring to forgive,
Our lives unteach the doctrine we believe.
Thus Israel sinn'd, impenitently hard,

285

And vainly thought the present ark* their guard;
But when the haughty Philistines appear,
They fled, abandon'd to their foes and fear;
Their God was absent, though his ark was there.
Ah! lest our crimes should snatch this pledge away,
And make our joys the blessings of a day!
For we have sinn'd him hence, and that he lives,

* 1 Sam. iv. 10. Orig. ed.

God to his promise, not our practice gives.
Our crimes would soon weigh down the guilty scale,
But James, and Mary, and the Church prevail.
Nor Amalek* can rout the chosen bands,
While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands.

By living well, let us secure his days,
Moderate in hopes, and humble in our ways.
No force the free-born spirit can constrain,
But charity, and great examples gain.
Forgiveness is our thanks for such a day,
'Tis godlike God in his own coin to pay.

300

But you, propitious queen, translated here, From your mild heaven, to rule our rugged sphere, Beyond the sunny walks, and circling year: You, who your native climate have bereft Of all the virtues, and the vices left; Whom piety and beauty make their boast, Though beautiful is well in pious lost; So lost, as starlight is dissolv'd away, And melts into the brightness of the day; Or gold about the regal diadem, Lost to improve the lustre of the gem. What can we add to your triumphant day? Let the great gift the beauteous giver pay.

For should our thanks awake the rising sun,

And lengthen, as his latest shadows run,

310

315

That, though the longest day, would soon, too soon

be done.

* Exod. xvii. 8. Orig. ed.

Let angels' voices with their harps conspire,
But keep the auspicious infant from the quire;
Late let him sing above, and let us know
No sweeter music than his cries below.

Nor can I wish to you, great monarch, more
Than such an annual income to your store;
The day which gave this Unit, did not shine
For a less omen, than to fill the Trine.
After a Prince, an Admiral beget;

320

325

330

The Royal Sovereign wants an anchor yet.
Our isle has younger titles still in store,
And when the exhausted land can yield no more,
Your line can force them from a foreign shore.
The name of Great your martial mind will suit ;
But justice is your darling attribute:

Of all the Greeks, 'twas but one hero's * due, 335
And, in him, Plutarch prophesied of you.

A prince's favours but on few can fall,

But justice is a virtue shar'd by all.

Some kings the name of conquerors have assum'd,

Some to be great, some to be gods presum'd; 340 But boundless power, and arbitrary lust,

Made tyrants still abhor the name of just;

They shunn'd the praise this godlike virtue gives,
And fear'd a title that reproach'd their lives.
The power, from which all kings derive their
state,

*Aristides. See his life in Plutarch. Orig. ed.

345

Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate,
Is equal both to punish and reward ;

For few would love their God, unless they fear'd.
Resistless force and immortality
Make but a lame, imperfect, deity;

Tempests have force unbounded to destroy,
And deathless being e'en the damn'd enjoy ;
And yet Heaven's attributes, both last and first,
One without life, and one with life accurs'd:
But justice is Heaven's self, so strictly he,
That could it fail, the Godhead could not be.
This virtue is your own; but life and state
Are one to fortune subject, one to fate:
Equal to all, you justly frown or smile;
Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;
Yourself our balance hold, the world's, our isle.

350

355

232

MAC FLECKNOE.*

ALL human things are subject to decay,

And when fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern❜d long; In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute,

*This is one of the best, as well as severest satires, ever produced in our language. Mr. Thomas Shadwell is the hero of the piece, and introduced, as if pitched upon, by Flecknoe, to succeed him in the throne of dulness; for Flecknoe was never poet-laureate, as has been ignorantly asserted in Cibber's Lives of the Poets.

Richard Flecknoe, Esq., from whom this poem derives its name, was an Irish priest, who had, according to his own declaration, laid aside the mechanic part of the priesthood. He was well known at court; yet, out of four plays which he wrote, could get only one of them acted, and that was damned. "He has," says Langbaine, "published sundry works, as he styles them, to continue his name to posterity, though possibly an enemy has done that for him, which his own endeavours could never have perfected: for, whatever may become of his own pieces, his name will continue whilst Mr. Dryden's satire, called Mac Flecknoe, shall remain in vogue."

From this poem Pope took the hint of his Dunciad. D.

There is a copy of this satire in manuscript, among the manuscripts in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth Palace, which presents some readings, different from the printed copies, that may probably amuse the reader, and perhaps in two or three instances induce him to prefer the written text. The MS. is numbered 711. 8. T.