Tho' there is little Meaning here, yet the Dancing of the Words and the Sprightliness of the Images, make it a prettier Lyrick than our Italian Opera's can produce.
According to my Conception nothing can be prettier than this Thought of Buchanan.
Ilia mihi semper presenti dura Neæra;
Me, quoties absum, semper abesse dolet;
Non desiderio, nostro non mœret Amore,
Sed se non nostro posse Dolore frui.
Cruel, when I am present, she appears;
As often as I'm absent she's in Tears:
Not that Neæra wishes my Return,
To see me love her, but to see me mourn.
These Verses of Mr. Waller are, methinks, as pretty as they are gallant:
Phillis, why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the Day!
Cou'd we, which we never can,
Stretch our Lives beyond their Span;
Beauty like a Shadow flies,
And our Youth before us dies.
Or would Youth and Beauty stay,
Love hath Wings, and will away.
Love hath swifter Wings than Time, &c.
Notice has been taken of the Prettiness of these Verses in Dryden's Fable of the Cock and the Fox.
The Cock speaks to his Wife Dame Partlet:
————See my Dear
How lavish Nature hath adorn'd the Year;
How the pale Primrose and the Violet spring,
And Birds essay their Throats, disus'd to sing:
All these are ours, and I with Pleasure see
Man strutting on two Legs, and aping me.