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TO MY FRIEND DR. GARTH

THE AUTHOR OF THE DISPENSARY.

Topraife your healing art, would be in vain ;
The health you give, prevents the poet's pen.
Sufficiently confirm'd is your renown,

And I but fill the chorus of the town.
That let me waive, and only now admire
The dazzling rays of your poetic fire:
*Which its diffusive virtue does dispense,
In flowing verfe, and elevated fense.

The town, which long has fwallow'd foolish verfe, Which poetafters every where rehearse,

Will mend their judgement now, refine their tafte,
And gather up th' applaufe they threw in wafte.
The play-house fhan't encourage false fublime,
Abortive thoughts, with decoration-rhyme.
The fatire of vile fcribblers fhall appear
On none, except upon themselves, fevere:
While yours contemns the gall of vulgar spite;
And when you feem to smile the most, you bite.

THO. CHEEK.

ΤΟ

ΤΟ MY FRIEND,

UPON THE DISPENSARY.

S when the people of the northern zone

As

Find the approach of the revolving fun,
Pleas'd and reviv'd, they fee the new-born light,
And dread no more eternity of night:

Thus we, who lately, as of funmer's heat,
Have felt a dearth of poetry and wit,
Once fear'd, Apollo would return no more
From warmer climes to an ungrateful shore.
But you, the favourite of the tuneful Nine,
Have made the God in his full luftre shine;
Our night have chang'd into a glorious day;
And reach'd perfection in your first essay.
So the young eagle, that his force would
Faces the fun, and towers it to the sky.
Others proceed to art by flow degrees,
Aukward at first, at length they faintly please;
And fill, whate'er their firft efforts produce,
'Tis an abortive, or an infant Muse:

try,

Whilft yours, like Pallas, from the head of Jove,
Steps out full-grown, with nobleft pace to move.
What ancient poets to their fubjects owe,

Is here inverted, and this owes to you :
You found it little, but have made it great,
They could defcribe, but you alone create,

C

Now

Now let your Muse rife with expanded wings,
To fing the fate of empires and of kings;
Great William's victories fhe 'll next rehearse,
And raise a trophy of immortal verse :
Thus to your art proportion the defign,
And mighty things with mighty numbers join,
A fecond Namur, or a future Boyne.

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POEM S

By SIR SAMUEL GARTH.

THE DISPENSARY.

CANTO I.

5

SPEAK, Goddess! fince 'tis thou that beft canft tell,
How ancient leagues to modern discord fell;
And why Phyficians were fo cautious grown
Of others' lives, and lavish of their own;
How by a journey to th' Elyfian plain
Peace triumph'd, and old Time return'd again.
Not far from that most celebrated place,
Where angry Justice fhews her awful face
Where little villains muft fubmit to fate,
That great ones may enjoy the world in ftate;
There ftands at dome, majestic to the fight,
And fumptuous arches bear its oval height;

*

* Old Bailey.

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A golden globe, plac'd high with artful skill,
Seems, to the distant fight, a gilded pill:
This pile was, by the pious patron's aim,
Rais'd for a ufe as noble as its frame;
Nor did the learn'd fociety decline
The propagation of that great defign;
In all her mazes, Nature's face they view'd,
And, as he disappear'd, their search purfued.
Wrapt in the shade of night the Goddess lies,
Yet to the learn'd unveils her dark disguise,
But fhuns the grofs accefs of vulgar eyes.

Now the unfolds the faint and dawning strife
Of infant atoms kindling into life;
How ductile matter new meanders takes,
And flender trains of twisting fibres makes;
And how the viscous feeks a closer tone,
By juft degrees to harden into bone;

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While the more loofe flow from the vital urn,
And in full tides of purple ftreams return;

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How lambent flames from life's bright lamps arife,
And dart in emanations through the eyes;
How from each fluice a gentle torrent pours,
To flake a feverish heat with ambient fhowers;
Whence their mechanic powers the spirits claim;
How great their force, how delicate their frame;

Ver. 19.

VARIATIONS.

-they ftill purfued. They find her dubious now, and then as plain, Here the 's too fparing; there profufely vain.

35

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