No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temp'rance, and by exercise ;
His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!

396

400

404

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:

Me, let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,

410

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

And keep a while one parent from the sky!

On cares like these, if length of days attend,

May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend, Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,

416

A. Whether

And just as rich as when he serv'd a QUEEN.

After ver. 405. in the MS.

And of myself, too, something must I say?
Take then this verse, the trifle of a day,
And if it live, it lives but to commend
The man whose heart has ne'er forgot a friend,
Or head, an author; critic, yet polite,
And friend to learning, yet too wise to write.

A. Whether that blessing be deny'd or giv'n,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n.

VER. 417. And just as rich, &c.] After the death of Queen Anne, Arbuthnot removed from St. James's-street to Dover-street, probably not in so good circumstances, or such extensive practice, as before.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The satires of Dr. Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirist nothing is so odious as a Libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni aquus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis

POPE