Quanto rectius hoc, quam tristi lœdere versu
Pantolabum scurram, Nomentanumq. Nepotem?Hor.
——Cadet et Repheus justissimus unus
Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus æqui. Æn. Lib. ii.
THE PREFACE.
1699. 13. June.
... And though I am not an author confirmed enough to carry my copies about to gentlemen’s chambers, in order to pick up amendments and corrections, as the practice is now of our most received writers; yet I must, in justice to myself, and the gentleman who has favoured me with its perusal, tell the world, it had been much worse had not Mr Dryden acquainted me with its faults. Nothing indeed was so displeasing to him, as what was pleasing to myself, viz. his own commendations: and if it pleases the world, the reader has no one to thank but so distinguishing a judgment who occasioned it.
I might here lay hold of the opportunity of returning the obliging compliments he sent me by the person who brought the papers to him before they were printed; but I may chance to call his judgement in question by it, which I always accounted infallible, but in his kind thoughts of me; and therefore refer the reader to the poem, in order to see whether he’ll be so good natured as to join his opinion with the compliment the gentleman aforesaid has honoured me with.
POEM.
But thou, great bard, whose hoary merits claim
The laureat’s place, without the laureat’s name;
Whose learned brows, encircled by the bays,
Bespeak their owner’s, and their giver’s praise;
Thou, Dryden, should’st our loss alone relate,
And heroes mourn, who heroes canst create.
Amidst thy verse the wife already shines,
And owes her virtues, what she owes thy lines.
Down from above the saint our sorrows views,
And feels a second heaven in thy muse;
Whose verse as lasting as her fame shall be,
While thou shall live by her, and she by thee.
Oh! let the same immortal numbers tell,
How just the husband lived, and how he fell;
What vows, when living, for his life were made;
What floods of tears at his decease were paid;
And since their deathless virtues were the same,
Equal in worth, alike should be their fame.
But thou, withdrawn from us, and public cares,
Flatter’st thy age, and feed’st thy growing years;
Supine, unmoved, regardless of our cries,
Thou mind’st not where thy noble patron lies:
Wrapt in death’s icy arms, within his urn,
Behold him sleeping, and, beholding, mourn:
Speechless that tongue for wholesome counsels famed,
And without sight those eyes for lust unblamed;
Bereaved of motion are those hands which gave
Alms to the needy, did the needy crave.
Ah! such a sight, and such a man divine,
Does only call for such a hand as thine!
Great is the task, and worthy is thy pen;
The best of bards should sing the best of men.
Awake, arise from thy lethargic state,
Mourn Britain’s loss, though Britain be ingrate;
Nor let the sacred Mantuan’s labours be
A ne plus ultra to thy fame and thee.
Thy Abingdon, if once thy glorious theme,
Shall vie with his Marcellus for esteem;
Tears in his eyes, and sorrow in his heart,
Shall speak the reader’s grief, and writer’s art;
And, though this barren age does not produce
A great Augustus, to reward thy muse;
Though in this isle no good Octavia reigns,
And gives thee Virgil’s premium for his strains:
Yet, Dryden, for a while forsake thy ease,
And quit thy pleasures, that thou more may’st please.
Apollo calls, and every muse attends,
With every grace, who every beauty lends.
Sweet is thy voice, as was thy subject’s mind,
And, like his soul, thy numbers unconfined;
Thy language easy, and thy flowing song,
Soft as a vale, but like a mountain strong.
Such verse as thine, and such alone, should dare
To charge the muses with their present care.
Thine, and the cause of wit, with speed maintain,
Lest some rude hand the sacred work profane,
And the dull, mercenary, rhyming crew,
Rob the deceased and thee, of what’s your due.
Such fears as these, (if duty cannot move,
And make thy labours equal to thy love,)
Should hasten forth thy verse, and make it show
What thou, mankind, and every muse does owe.
As Abingdon’s high worth exalted shines,
And gives and takes a lustre from thy lines;
As Eleonora’s pious deeds revive
In him who shared her praises when alive:
So the stern Greek, whom nothing could persuade
To quit the rash engagements which he made,
With sullen looks, and helmet laid aside,
He soothed his anger, and indulged his pride;
Careless of fate, neglectful of the call
Of chiefs entreating, till Patroclus’ fall.
Roused by his death, his martial soul could bend,
And lose his whole resentments in his friend;
As to the dusky field he winged his course,
With eyes impatient, and redoubled force,
And weeped him dead, in thousands of the slain,
Whom living, Greece had beg’d his sword in vain.
O Dryden! quick the sacred pencil take,
And rise in virtue’s cause for virtue’s sake;
Of heaven’s the song, and heaven-born is thy muse,
Fitting to follow bliss, which mine will lose:
Bold are thy thoughts, and soaring is thy flight;
Thy fancy tempting, thy expressions bright;
Moving thy grief, and powerful is thy praise,
Or to command our tears, or joys to raise.
So shall his worth, from age to age conveyed,
Shew what the hero did, and poet paid;
And future times shall practice what they see
Performed so well by him, and praised by thee,
While I confess the weakness of my lays,
And give my wonder where thou giv’st thy praise:
As I from every muse but thine retire,
And him in thee, and thee in him, admire.