May my Lady Dorothy, if we may yet call her so, suffer as much, and have the like Passion for this young Lord, whom she has preferred to the Rest of Mankind, as others have had for her; and may this Love before the Year goes about, make her taste of the first Curse impos'd upon Woman-kind, the Pains of becoming a Mother. May the First-born be none of her own Sex; and may she that always affected Silence and Retiredness, have the House fill'd with the Noise and Number of her Children. May she, at last, arrive at that great Curse much declin'd by fair Ladies, Old Age, &c.
Under the Character of Father Bouhours's fine Thoughts may be put these Verses of Mr. Waller's, alluding to his gallant Poems upon Sacharissa, and the Story of Phœbus and Daphne.
Yet what he sang in his immortal Strain,
Tho' unsuccessful, was not sung in Vain:
All but the Nymph that should redress his Wrong
Attend his Passion, and approve his Song;
Like Phœbus, thus acquiring unsought Praise,
He caught at Love, and fill'd his Arms with Bays.
Much of the same Kind is this of the Lord Landsdown's on the same Subject:
Thy Beauty, Sidney, like Achilles Sword,
Resistless stands upon as sure Record;
The foremost Herce, and the brightest Dame
Both sung alike shall have their Fate the same.
This Part of Mr. Prior's Prologue spoken before the late Queen, is in the fine Way of Thinking:
Let the young Austrian then her Terrours bear,
Great as he is, her Delegate in War.
Let him in Thunder speak to both his Spains,
That in these dreadful Isles a Woman reigns:
Whilst the bright Queen does on her Subjects show'r,
The gentle Blessings of her softer Pow'r,
Gives sacred Morals to a vicious Age,
To Temples Zeal, and Manners to the Stage;
Bids the chaste Muse without a Blush appear,
And Wit be that, which Heaven and she may hear.
Of what Kind shall we take this Image in Spencer to be:
His haughty Helmet, horrid all with Gold,
Both glorious Brightness and great Terrour bred;
For all the Crest a Dragon did enfold
With greedy Paws, and over all did spread
His golden Wings; his dreadful hideous Head,
Close couched on the Bever, seem'd to throw,
From flaming Mouth, bright Sparkles fiery red, &c.
This of Cowley is finely thought: