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Though so to pray may seem an easy task,

We curse ourselves when thus inclin'd we ask.
This prayer to use, we ought with equal care
Our souls, as to the sacrament, prepare.
The noblest worship of the Power above,
Is to extol, and imitate, his love:
Not to forgive our enemies alone,
But use our bounty that they may be won.
VI. Guard us from all temptations of the foe:
And those we may in several stations know:
The rich and poor in slippery places stand:
Give us enough! but with a sparing hand!
Not ill-persuading want; nor wanting wealth;
But what proportion'd is to life and health.
For not the dead, but living, sing thy praise;
Exalt thy kingdom, and thy glory raise.

Favete linguis!......
Virginibus puerisque canto.

Horat.

But, had like virtue shin'd in that fair Greek,
The amorous shepherd had not dar'd to seek,
Or hope for pity, but, with silent moan,
And better fate, had perished alone.

OF A LADY WHO WRIT IN PRAISE OF MIRA. WHILE she pretends to make the graces known Of matchless Mira, she reveals her own; And, when she would another's praise indite, Is by her glass instructed how to write.

TO ONE MARRIED TO AN OLD MAN.

SINCE thou wouldst needs (bewitch'd with some ill charms!)

Be bury'd in those monumental arms:
All we can wish, is-May that earth lie light
Upon thy tender limbs! and so good night!

ON THE

FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS".

WHEN we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite :
The soul, with nobler resolutions deck'd,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her, that unbody'd can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet, when the winds give o'er:
So, calm are we, when passions are no more!
For then we know how vaim it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new. ......... Miratur limen Olympi.

Virg.

EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, AND FRAG

MENTS.

EPIGRAM 7.

SEDIBUS emigrans solitis, comitatus inermi
Rex turba, simplex et diadema gerens,
Ecce redit bino Carolus diademate cinctus;
Hæc ubi nuda dedit pompa; quid arma dabunt?
Ed. Waller, Armiger, Coll. Regal.

UNDER A LADY'S PICTURE. SUCH Helen was! and who can blame the boy 8 That in so bright a flame consum'd his Troy?

See, in Duke's Poems, an elegant compliment to Mr. Waller, on this his last production. N.

7 From Rex Redux; being Cambridge verses on the return of Charles I. from Scotland, after his coronation there in 1633.

Paris. VOL VIII.

AN EPIGRAM ON A PAINTED LADY WITH ILL
TEETH.

WERE men so dull they could not see
That Lycé painted; should they flee,
Like simple birds, into a net,
So grossly woven, and ill set;
Her own teeth would undo the knot,
And let all go that she had got.
Those teeth fair Lycė must not show,
If she would bite: her lovers, though
Like birds they stoop at seeming grapes,
Are disabus'd when first she gapes;
The rotten bones discover'd there
Show 'tis a painted sepulchre.

EPIGRAM UPON THE GOLDEN MEDAL.

OUR guard upon the royal side!
On the reverse, our beauty's pride!
Here we discern the frown and smile;
The force and glory of our isle.
In the rich medal, both so like
Immortals stand, it seems antique;
Carv'd by some master, when the bold
Greeks made their Jove descend in gold;
And Danaë wondering at that shower,
Which, falling, storm'd her brazen tower.
Britannia there, the fort in vain
Had batter'd been with golden rain;
Thunder itself had fail'd to pass :
Virtue's a stronger guard than brass,

WRITTEN ON A CARD THAT HER MAJESTY 9
TORE AT OMBRE.

THE cards you tear in value rise,
So do the wounded by your eyes.
Who to celestial things aspire,
Are by that passion rais'd the higher.

TO MR. GRANVILLE (AFTERWARDS LORD LANDS-
DOWN) ON HIS VERSES TO KING JAMES II.
An early plant! which such a blossom bears,
And shows a genius so beyond his years;

9 Queen Catharine.

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A judgment! that could make so fair a choice;
So high a subject, to employ his voice:
Still as it grows, how sweetly will he sing
The growing greatness of our matchless king!

LONG AND SHORT LIFE.

CIRCLES are prais'd, not that abound
In largeness, but th' exactly round:
So life we praise, that does excel
Not in much time, but acting well.

TRANSLATED OUT OF SPANISH. THOUGH We may seem importunate, While your compassion we implore: They, whom you make too fortunate, May with presumption vex you more.

TRANSLATED OUT OF FRENCH.

FADE, flowers, fade; Nature will have it so;
"Tis but what we must in our autumn do!
And, as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that lov'd them found:
So, in the grave, shall we as quiet lie,
Miss'd by some few that lov'd our company.
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,

That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.

PRIDE.

Nor the brave Macedonian youth' alone,
But base Caligula, when on the throne,
Boundless in power, would make himself a god;
As if the world depended on his nod.

2

The Syrian king to beasts was headlong thrown,
Ere to himself he could be mortal known.
The meanest wretch, if Heaven should give him line,
Would never stop, till he were thought divine:
All might within discern the serpent's pride,
If from ourselves nothing ourselves did hide.
Let the proud peacock his gay feathers spread,
And woo the female to his painted bed:
Let winds and seas together rage and swell:
This Nature teaches, and becomes them well.
Pride was not made for men 3: a conscious sense
Of guilt and folly, and their consequence,
Destroys the claim: and to beholders tells,
Here nothing but the shape of manhood dwells.

EPITAPH ON SIR GEORGE SPEKE.

UNDER this stone lies virtue, youth,
Unblemish'd probity, and truth:
Just unto all relations known,
A worthy patriot, pious son:

Whom neighbouring towns so often sent,
To give their sense in parliament;
With lives and fortunes trusting one,
Who so discreetly us'd his own.
Sober he was, wise, temperate;
Contented with an old estate,

SOME VERSES OF AN IMPERFECT COPY, DESIGNED Which no foul avarice did increase,

FOR A FRIEND,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF OVID'S FASTI.

ROME's holy days you tell, as if a guest
With the old Romans you were wont to feast.
Numa's religion, by themselves believ'd,
Excels the true, only in show receiv'd.
They made the nations round about them bow,
With their dictators taken from the plough:
Such power has justice, faith, and honesty!
The world was conquer'd by morality.
Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,
That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave:
But, where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.

Nor wanton luxury make less.

While yet but young, his father dy'd,
And left him to an happy guide:
Not Lemuel's mother with more care
Did counsel or instruct her heir;
Or teach with more success her son
The vices of the time to shun.
An heiress, she, while yet alive,
All that was hers to him did give:
And he just gratitude did show
To one that had oblig'd him so:
Nothing too much for her he thought,
By whom he was so bred and taught,
So (early made that path to tread,
Which did his youth to honour lead)
His short life did a pattern give,

How neighbours, husbands, friends, should live.
The virtues of a private life

ON THE STATUe of king charLES THE FIRST, Exceed the glorious noise and strife

AT CHARING-CROSS.

IN THE YEAR 1674.

THAT the first Charles does here in triumph ride,
See his son reign, where he a martyr dy'd,
And people pay that reverence, as they pass,
(Which then he wanted!) to the sacred brass,
Is not th' effect of gratitude alone,

To which we owe the statue and the stone:
But Heaven this lasting monument has wrought,
That mortals may eternally be taught,
Rebellion, though successful, is but vain;
And kings so kill'd rise conquerors again.
This truth the royal image does proclaim,
Loud as the trumpet of surviving Fame.

Of battles won: in those we find
The solid interest of mankind.

Approv'd by all, and lov'd so well,
Though young, like fruit that's ripe, he fell.

EPITAPH ON COLONEL CHARLES CAVENDISH.
HERE lies Charles Ca'ndish: let the marble stone,
That hides his ashes, make his virtue known.
Beauty and valour did his short life grace;
The grief and glory of his noble race!
Early abroad he did the world survey,
As if he knew he had not long to stay:

1 Alexander. 2 Nebuchadnezzar. 3 Ecclus. x. 18.

Saw what great Alexander in the East
And mighty Julius conquer'd in the West.
Then, with a mind as great as theirs, he came
To find at home occasion for his fame :
Where dark confusion did the nations hide,
And where the juster was the weaker side.
Two loyal brothers took their sovereign's part,
Employ'd their wealth, their courage, and their art:
The elder did whole regiments afford;
The younger brought his conduct and his sword.
Born to command, a leader he begun,
And on the rebels lasting honour won:
The horse, instructed by their general's worth,
Still made the king victorious in the North:
Where Ca'ndish fought, the royalists prevail'd;
Neither his courage nor his judgment fail'd:
The current of his victories found no stop,
Till Cromwell came, his party's chiefest prop.
Equal success had set these champions high,
And both resolv'd to conquer or to die:
Virtue with rage, fury with valour, strove;
But that must fall which is decreed above!
Cromwell, with odds of number and of Fate,
Remov'd this bulwark of the church and state:
Which the sad issue of the war declar'd,
And made his task, to ruin both, less hard.
So when the bank, neglected, is o'erthrown,
The boundless torrent does the country drown.
Thus fell the young, the lovely, and the brave;
Strew bays and flowers upon his honour'd grave!

EPITAPH ON THE LADY SEDLEY,

HERE lies the learned Savil's heir;
So early wise, and lasting fair!
That none, except her years they told,
Thought her a child, or thought her old.
All that her father knew, or got,
His art, his wealth, fell to her lot:
And she so well improv'd that stock,
Both of his knowledge and his flock,
That Wit and Fortune, reconcil'd
In her, upon each other smil'd.
While she to every well-taught mind
Was so propitiously inclin'd,
And gave such title to her store,
That none, but th' ignorant, were poor.
The Muses daily found supplies,
Both from her hands and from her eyes;
Her bounty did at once engage,
And matchless beauty warm their rage.
Such was this dame in calmer days,
Her nation's ornament and praise !
But, when a storm disturb'd our rest,
The port and refuge of th' opprest.
This made her fortune understood,
And look'd on as some public good;
So that (her person and her state
Exempted from the common fate)
In all our civil fury she

Stood, like a sacred temple, free.
May here her monument stand so,
To credit this rude age! and show
To future times, that even we
Some patterns did of virtue see:
And one sublime example had
Of good, among so many bad.

4 William earl of Devonshire.

EPITAPH TO BE WRITTEN UNDER THE LATIN
INSCRIPTION UPON THE TOMB OF THE ONLY
SON OF THE LORD ANDOVER.

"Tis fit the English reader should be told,
In our own language, what this tomb does hold.
"Tis not a noble corpse alone does lie
Under this stone, but a whole family:
His parents' pious care, their name, their joy,
And all their hope, lies buried with this boy:
This lovely youth! for whom we all made moan,
That knew his worth, as he had been our own.

Had there been space and years enough allow'd,
His courage, wit, and breeding to have show'd,
We had not found, in all the numerous roll
Of his fam'd ancestors, a greater soul:
His early virtues to that ancient stock
Gave as much honour, as from thence he took.
Like buds appearing ere the frosts are past,
To become man he made such fatal haste,
And to perfection labour'd so to climb,
Preventing slow experience and time,
That 'tis no wonder Death our hopes beguil'd:
He's seldom old, that will not be a child.

EPITAPH, UNFINISHED.

GREAT Soul! for whom Death will no longer stay,
But sends in haste to snatch our bliss away.
O cruel Death! to those you take more kind,
Than to the wretched mortals left behind!
Here beauty, youth, and noble virtue shin'd;
Free from the clouds of pride that shade the mind.
Inspir'd verse may on this marble live,
But can no honour to thy ashes give.

EPITAPH ON HENRY DUNCH, ESQ.

IN NEWINGTON CHURCH IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1686. HERE lies the prop and glory of his race, Who, that no time his memory may deface, His grateful wife, under this speaking stone His ashes hid, to make his merit known. Sprung from an opulent and worthy line, Whose well-us'd fortune made their virtues shine, A rich example his fair life did give,

How others should with their relations live.

A pious son, a husband, and a friend,
To neighbours too his bounty did extend
So far, that they lamented when he died,

As if all to him had been near allied.
His curious youth would men and manners know,
Which made him to the southern nations go.
Nearer the Sun, though they more civil seem,
Revenge and luxury have their esteem;
Which well observing, he return'd with more
Value for England, than he had before;
Her true religion, and her statutes too,

He practised not less than seek'd to know;
And the whole country griev'd for their ill fate,
To lose so good, so just a magistrate.

To shed a tear may readers be inclin'd,
And pray for one he only left behind,
Till she, who does inherit his estate,
May virtue love like him, and vices hate.
REESE

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