Riches and titles! why fhould they prevail,
Where duty, love, and adoration, fail?
Lovely Amyra, fhouldst thou prize
The empty noise that a fine title makes ;
Or the vile trash that with the vulgar takes,
Before a heart that bleeds for thee, and dies?
Unkind! but pity the poor fwain
Your rigour kills, nor triumph o'er the flain.
EE what a conqueft love has made!
Beneath the myrtle's amorous fhade
The charming fair Corinna lies
All melting in defire,
Quenching in tears thofe flowing eyes
That fet the world on fire!
What cannot tears and beauty do ?
The youth by chance ftood by, and knew
For whom those crystal streams did flow;
And though he ne'er before
To her eyes brightest rays did bow,
Weeps too, and does adore.
So when the heavens ferene and clear,
Gilded with gaudy light appear,
Each craggy rock, and every stone,
Their native rigour keep;
But when in rain the clouds fall down,
The hardest marble weeps.
"SIMON'S Critical History of the Old Testament."
WHAT fenfelefs loads have over-charg'd the prefs,
Of French impertinence, in English drefs!
How many dull tranflators every day
Bring new fupplies of novel, farce, or play!
Like damn'd French penfioners, with foreign aid
Their native land with nonfenfe to invade,
Till we 're o'er-run more with the wit of France,
Her naufeous wit, than with her Proteftants.
But, Sir, this noble piece obligeth more
Than all their trash hath plagu'd the town before :
With various learning, knowledge, ftrength of thought,
Order and art, and folid judgement fraught;
No lefs a piece than this could make amends
For all the trumpery France amongst us fends.
Nor let ill-grounded fuperftitious fear
Fright any but the fools from reading here.
The facred oracles may well endure
Th' exacteft search, of their own truth fecure ;
Though at this piece fome noify zealots bawl,
And to their aid a numerous faction call
With ftretch'd-out arms, as if the ark could fall;
Yet wifer heads will think fo firm it stands,
That, were it shook, 'twould need no mortal hands.
On his "TROILUS and CRESSIDA," 1679.
ND will our Mafter Poet then admit
A young beginner in the trade of wit,
To bring a plain and ruftic Muse, to wait
On his in all her glorious pomp and state?
Can an unknown, unheard-of, private name,
Add any luftre to so bright a fame ?
No! fooner planets to the fun may give
That light which they themselves from him derive.
Nor could my fickly fancy entertain
A thought fo foolish, or a pride so vain.
But, as when kings through crowds in triumphs go,
The meaneft wretch that gazes at the fhow,
Though to that pomp his voice can add no more,.
Than when we drops into the ocean pour,
Has leave his tongue in praises to employ
(Th' accepted language of officious joy):
So I in loud applaufes may reveal
To you, great King of Verfe, my loyal zeal,
May tell with what majestic grace and mien
Your Mufe difplays herfelf in every scene;
In what rich robes fhe has fair Creffid dreft,
And with what gentle fires inflam'd her breast.
How when thofe fading eyes her aid implor'd,
She all their sparkling luftre has restor❜d,
Added more charms, fresh beauties on them fhed,
And to new youth recall'd the lovely maid.
How nobly the the royal brothers draws;
How great their quarrel, and how great their caufe!
How juftly rais'd! and by what juft degrees,
In a fweet calm does the rough tempeft cease!
Envy not now "the God-like Roman's rage;"
Hector and Troilus, darlings of our age,
Shall hand in hand with Brutus tread the stage.
Shakespeare, 'tis true, this tale of Troy first told,` But, as with Ennius Virgil did of old,
You found it dirt, but you have made it gold.
A dark and undigefted heap it lay,
Like Chaos ere the dawn of infant day,
But you did firft the chearful light difplay.
Confus'd it was as Epicurus' world
Of Atoms, by blind Chance together hurl'd,
But you have made fuch order through it fhine
As loudly fpeaks the workmanship divine.
Boaft then, O Troy! and triumph in thy flames,
That make thee sung by three such mighty names.
Had Ilium ftood, Homer had ne'er been read,
Nor the sweet Mantuan fwan his wings display'd,
Nor thou, the third, but equal in renown,
Thy matchless skill in this great fsubject shown.
Not Priam's felf, nor all the Trojan ftate,
Was worth the faving at fo dear a rate.
But they now flourish, by you mighty three,
In verse more lasting than their walls could be:
Which never, never shall like them decay,
Being built by hands divine as well as they;
Never till, our great Charles being fung by you,
Old Troy fhall grow lefs famous than the New.
TRANSLATED FROM OVID'S EPISTLES.
Paris, having failed to Sparta for the obtaining of Helen, whom Venus had promised him as the reward of his adjudging the Prize of Beauty to her, was nobly there entertained by Menelaus, Helen's husband; but he, being called away to Crete, to take poffeffion of what was left him by his grand-father Atreus, commends his gueft to the care of his wife. In his abfence Paris courts her, and writes to her the following epiftle.
LL health, fair nymph, thy Paris fends to thee, Though you, and only you, can give it me. Shall I then speak? or is it needless grown
tell a paffion that itself has shown?
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