His foul infpires us what his lips command,
And spreads his brave example through the land:
Not fo the former reigns ;
Bend down his earth to each afflicted cry,
Let beams of grace dart gently from his eye;
But the bright treasures of his facred breast
Are too divine, too vaft to be exprest :
Colours muft fail where words and numbers faint,
And leave the hero's heart for thought alone to paint.
OW, Mufe, purfue the fatyrift again,
Wipe off the blots of his invenom'd pen ;
Hark, how he bids the fervile painter draw,
In monstrous shapes, the patrons of our law;
At one flight dash he cancels every name
From the white rolls of honefty and fame :
This fcribbling wretch marks all he meets for knave,
Shoots fudden bolts promifcuous at the base and brave,
And with unpardonable malice sheds
Poison and spite on undistinguish'd heads.
Painter, forbear; or if thy bolder hand
Dares to attempt the villains of the land,
Draw first this poet, like fome baleful star,
With filent influence shedding civil war ;
Or factious trumpeter, whofe magic found
Calls off the fubjects to the hoftile ground,
And fcatters hellifh feuds the nation round.
Thefe are the imps of hell, that curfed tribe
That firft create the plague, and then the pain defcribe.
Draw next above, the great ones of our inle,
Still from the good diftinguishing the vile;
Seat them in pomp, in grandeur, and command,
Peeling the fubjects with a greedy hand :
Paint forth the knaves that have the nation fold,
And tinge their greedy looks with fordid gold.
Mark what a felfish faction undermines
The pious monarch's generous defigns,
Spoil their own native land as vipers do,
Vipers that tear their mother's bowels through.
Let great Naffau, beneath a careful crown,
Mournful in majefty, look gently down,
Mingling foft pity with an awful frown :
He grieves to fee how long in vain he strove
To make us bleft, how vain his labours prove
To fave the ftubborn land he condefcends to love.
To the DISCONTENTED and UNQUIET.
Imitated partly from Cafimire, B. IV. Od. 15.
ARIA, there's nothing here that's free
From wearifome anxiety :
And the whole round of mortal joys
With fhort poffeffion tires and cloys:
'Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Juft from the window to the bed,
We rife to fee and to be feen,
Gaze on the world awhile, and then
We yawn, and stretch to fleep again.
But Fancy, that uneasy gueft,
Still holds a longing in our breast:
She finds or frames vexations ftill.
Herfelf the greatest plague we feel,
We take ftrange pleafure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain,
Affume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath th' imaginary weight.
With our dear felves we live at strife,
While the moft conftant fcenes of life
From peevish humours are not free;
Still we affect variety:
Rather than pafs an easy day,
We fret and chide the hours away,
Grow weary of this circling fun,
And vex that he should ever run
The fame old track; and still, and still
Rife red behind yon eastern hill,
And chide the moon that darts her light
Through the fame cafement every night.
We shift our chambers, and our homes,
To dwell where trouble never comes;
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods; a hermit faint!
She loaths her patches, pins, and paint,
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn :
But Humour, that eternal thorn,
Sticks in her heart: She is hurry'd ftill,
'Twixt her wild paffions and her will:
Haunted and hagg'd where-e'er she roves,
By purling ftreams, and filent groves,
Or with her furies, or her loves.
Then our own native land we hate,
Too cold, too windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate, and repair
To France or Italy for air;
In vain we change, in vain we fly;
Go, Sylvia, mount the whirling sky,
Or ride upon the feather'd wind
if this difeafed mind
Clings faft, and ftill fits clofe behind.
Faithful difeafe, that never fails
Attendance at her lady's fide,
Over the defart or the tide,
On rolling wheels, or flying fails.
Happy the foul that virtue shows
To fix the place of her repose,
Needlefs to move; for fhe can dwell
In her old grandfire's hall as well.
Virtue that never loves to roam,
But fweetly hides herself at home.
And eafy on a native throne
Of humble turf fits gently down.
Yet fhould tumultuous ftorms arife,
And mingle earth, and feas, and skies,
Should the waves fwell, and make her roll
Across the line, or near the pole,
Still the 's at peace; for well fhe knows
To launch the stream that duty shows,
And makes her home where'er fhe goes,
Bear her, ye feas, upon your breast,
Or waft her, winds, from East to West
On the foft air; fhe cannot find
A couch fo eafy as her mind,
Nor breathe a climate half fo kind.
To JOHN HARTOPP, Efq; afterwards Sir JOHN HAR TOPP, Bart.
Cafimire, Book I. Ode 4. imitated.
"Vive jucundæ metuens juventæ, &c." July 1700.
LIVE, my dear Hartopp, live to-day,
Nor let the fun look down and say,
Inglorious here he lies ;"
Shake off your eafe, and fend your name
To immortality and fame,
By every hour that flies.
Youth's a foft scene, "but truft her not.:
Hier airy minutes, swift as thought,
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