(19) He that imposes an oath makes it, Not he that for convenience takes it. (20) Opinion governs all mankind,

Like the blind's leading of the blind.

(21) The worst of rebels never arm

To do their king and country harm,
But draw their swords to do them good,
As doctors use, by letting blood.

(22) The soberest saints are more stiff-neckèd
Than the hottest-headed of the wicked.

(23) Wedlock without love, some say, Is like a lock without a key.

(24) Too much or too little wit

Do only render the owners fit
For nothing, but to be undone
Much easier than if they had none.

(25) In little trades more cheats and lying
Is used in selling than in buying;
But in the great unjuster dealing
Is used in buying than in selling,

(26)

(27)

Loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon.

The subtler all things are,

They're but to nothing the more near.

(28) Things said false and never meant Do oft prove true by accident.

(29) Authority is a disease and cure

Which men can neither want nor well endure.

ROSCOMMON.

[WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, was born in Ireland in 1634. He spent the best part of his life in France and Italy, and died in London Jan. 17, 1684-85.]

Lord Roscommon was a man of taste and judgment, who had imbibed in France a liking for Academic forms of literature, and who attempted to be to English poetry what Boileau was to French. He did not come forward as a writer till late in life, when he produced two thin quartos of frigid critical poetry, An Essay on Translated Verse, 1681, and Horace's Art of Poetry, 1684. There was little originality in these polite exercises, but they were smoothly and sensibly written, with a certain gentlemanlike austerity. Pope has noted that, 'in all Charles' days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.' He was the friend of Dryden, and the admirer of Milton, whose sublimity he lauded in terms that recall the later praise of Addison.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

FROM THE 'ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.'

On sure foundations let your fabric rise,
And with attractive majesty surprise;
Not by affected, meretricious arts,

But strict harmonious symmetry of parts,

Which through the whole insensibly must pass,

With vital heat to animate the mass;

A pure, an active, an auspicious flame,

And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came;

But few, few spirits, pre-ordained by fate,

The race of gods, have reached that envied height;

No rebel Titan's sacrilegious crime,

By heaping hills on hills, can thither climb.

The grisly ferry-man of hell denied

Æneas entrance, till he knew his guide;
How justly then will impious mortals fall,

Whose pride would soar to heaven without a call?
Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault,
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought;
The men who labour and digest things most
Will be much apter to despond than boast;
For if your author be profoundly good,
'Twill cost you dear before he 's understood.
How many ages since has Virgil writ?
How few are they who understand him yet?
Approach his altars with religious fear,
No vulgar deity inhabits there;
Heav'n shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod,
Than poets should before their Mantuan god.
Hail, mighty Maro! may that sacred name
Kindle my breast with thy celestial flame;
Sublime ideas and apt words infuse,

The Muse instruct my voice, and thou inspire the Muse!

DORSET.

[CHARLES SACKVILLE, Earl of Dorset, was born January 24, 1637. Immediately after the Restoration he was elected to represent East Grinstead in parliament, and distinguished himself in the House of Commons. He went as a volunteer to the First Dutch War in 1665, and after this devoted himself to a learned leisure. He succeeded to the earldom in 1677, and again took a part in public business till 1698, when his health failed. He died at Bath, January 29, 1705-6.]

It is recorded of Lord Dorset that he refused all offers of political preferment in early life that he might give his mind more thoroughly to study. He was the friend and patron of almost all the poets from Waller to Pope; Dryden adored him in one generation, and Prior in the next: nor was the courtesy that produced this affection mere idle complaisance, for no one was more fierce than he in denouncing mediocrity and literary pretension. Of all the poetical noblemen of the Restoration, Lord Dorset alone reached old age, yet with all these opportunities and all this bias towards the art, the actual verse he has left behind him is miserably small. A splendid piece of society verse, a few songs, some extremely foul and violent satires, these are all that have survived to justify in the eyes of posterity the boundless reputation of Lord Dorset.

The famous song was written in 1665, when the author, at the age of twenty-eight, had volunteered under the Duke of York in the first Dutch war. It was composed at sea the night before the critical engagement in which the Dutch admiral Opdam was blown up, and thirty ships destroyed or taken. It may be considered as inaugurating the epoch of vers-de-société, as it has flourished from Prior down to Austin Dobson.

EDMUND W. Gosse.

SONG WRITTEN AT SEA.

To all you Ladies now at land
We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain,

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.

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 waft them twice a day.

The King with wonder and surprise
Will swear the seas grow bold,
Because the tides will higher rise,

Than e'er they did of old;

But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.

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?