If I on you could happiness bestow,
I still the toils of life would undergo,
Would still contentedly my lot sustain,
And never more of my hard fate complain:
But since my life to you will useless prove,
O let me hasten to the joys above:
Farewel, farewel, take, take my last adieu,
May Heaven be more propitious still to you,
May you live happy when I'm in my grave,
And no misfortunes, no afflictions have:
If to sad objects you'll some pity lend
And give a sigh to an unhappy friend,
Think of Marissa, and her wretched state,
How's she's been us'd by her malicious fate;
Recount those storms which she has long sustain'd,
And then rejoice that she the part has gain'd;
The welcome haven of eternal rest,
Where she shall be for ever, ever bless'd;
And in her mother's, and her daughter's arms
Shall meet with new, with unexperienc'd charms,
O how I long those dear delights to taste;
Farewel, farewel, my soul is much in haste.
Come death; and give the kind releasing blow,
I'm tir'd of life, and overcharg'd with woe:
In thy cool silent, unmolested shade
O let me be by their dear relics laid;
And there with them from all my troubles free,
Enjoy the blessing of a long tranquillity.

LUCINDA.

O thou dear sufferer, on my breast recline
Thy drooping head, and mix thy tears with
mine:
Here rest awhile, and make a truce with grief:
Consider; sorrow brings you no relief.
In the great play of life, we must not chuse,
Nor yet the meanest character refuse.
Like soldiers we our general must obey,
Must stand our ground, and not to fear give
way,
But go undaunted on'till we have won the day.
Honour is ever the reward of pain,
A lazy virtue no applause will gain.
All such as to uncommon heights would rise,
And on the wings of fame ascend the skies,
Must learn the gifts of fortune to despise;
They to themselves their bliss must still confine,
Must be unmoved, and never once repine:
But few to this perfection can attain,
Our passions often will th' ascendant gain,
And reason but alternately does reign;
Disguised by pride we sometimes seem to bear
A haughty port, and scorn to shed a tear;
While grief within still acts a tragic part,
And plays the tyrant in the bleeding heart.
Your sorrow is of the severest kind,
And can't be wholly to your soul confin'd,
Losses like yours may be allowed to move
A gen'rous mind, that knows what 'tis to love.
These afflictions;—
Will teach you patience, and the careful skill
To rule your passions, and command your will;
To bear afflictions with a steady mind,
Still to be easy, pleas'd, and still resign'd,
And look as if you did no inward sorrow find.

MARISSA.

I know Lucinda this I ought to do,
But oh! 'tis hard my frailties to subdue;
My headstrong passions will resistance make,
And all my firmed resolutions make.
I for my daughter's death did long prepare,
And hop'd I should the stroke with temper bear,
But when it came grief quickly did prevail,
And I soon found my boasted courage fail:
Yet still I strove, but 'twas alas! in vain,
My sorrow did at length th' ascendant gain:
But I'm resolv'd I will no longer yield;
By reason led, I'll once more take the field,
And there from my insulting passions try,
To gain a full, a glorious victory:
Which 'till I've done, I never will give o'er
But still fight on, and think of peace no more;
With an unwearied courage still contend,
'Till death, or conquest, doth my labour end.

[Footnote 1: Preface to her Essays.]

* * * * *

THOMAS CREECH.

This gentleman was born near Sherborne in Dorsetshire, and bred up at the free school in that town, under Mr. Carganven, a man of eminent character, to whom in gratitude he inscribes one of the Idylliums of Theocritus, translated by him. His parents circumstances not being sufficient to bestow a liberal education upon him, colonel Strangeways, who was himself a man of taste and literature, took notice of the early capacity of Creech, and being willing to indulge his violent propensity to learning, placed him at Wadham College in Oxford, in the 16th year of his age, anno 1675, being then put under the tuition of two of the fellows. In the year 1683 he was admitted matter of arts, and soon elected fellow of All-soul's College; at which time he gave distinguished proofs of his classical learning, and philosophy, before those who were appointed his examiners. The first work which brought our author into reputation, was his translation of Lucretius, which succeeded so well, that Mr. Creech had a party formed for him, who ventured to prefer him to Mr. Dryden, in point of genius. Mr. Dryden himself highly commended his Lucretius, and in his preface to the second volume of Poetical Miscellanies thus characterises it. 'I now call to mind what I owe to the ingenious, and learned translator of Lucretius. I have not here designed to rob him of any part of that commendation, which he has so justly acquired by the whole author, whose fragments only fall to my portion. The ways of our translation are very different; he follows him more closely than I have done, which became an interpreter to the whole poem. I take more liberty, because it best suited with my design, which was to make him as pleasing as I could. He had been too voluminous, had he used my method, in so long a work; and I had certainly taken his, had I made it my business to translate the whole. The preference then is justly his; and I join with Mr. Evelyn in the confession of it, with this additional advantage to him, that his reputation is already established in this poet; mine is to make its fortune in the world. If I have been any where obscure in following our common author; or if Lucretius himself is to be condemned, I refer myself to his excellent annotations, which I have often read, and always with some pleasure.'

Many poets of the first class, of those times, addressed Mr. Creech in commendatory verses, which are prefixed to the translation of Lucretius: but this sudden blaze of reputation was soon obscured, by his failing in an arduous task, which the success of his Lucretius prompted him to attempt. This was a translation of the works of Horace, an author more diversified, and consequently more difficult than Lucretius. Some have insinuated, that Mr. Dryden, jealous of his rising fame, and willing to take advantage of his vanity, in order to sink his reputation, strenuously urged him to this undertaking, in which he was morally certain Creech could not succeed. Horace is so, various, so exquisite, and perfectly delightful, that he who culls flowers in a garden so replenished with nature's productions, must be well acquainted with her form, and able to delineate her beauties. In this attempt Creech failed, and a shade was thrown over his reputation, which continued to obscure it to the end of his life. It is from this circumstance alleged, that Mr. Creech contracted a melancholy, and moroseness of temper, which occasioned the disinclination of many towards him, and threw him into habits of recluseness, and discontent. To this some writers likewise impute the rash attempt on his own life, which he perpetrated at Oxford, in 1701. This act of suicide could not be occasioned by want, for Mr. Jacob tells us, that just before that accident, he had been presented by the college to the living of Welling in Hertfordshire. Mr. Barnard in his Nouvelles de la Republiques de Lettres, assigns another cause besides the diminution of his fame, which might occasion this disastrous fate. Mr. Creech, though a melancholy man, was yet subject to the passion of love. It happened that he fixed his affections on a lady who had either previously engaged hers, or who could not bestow them upon him; this disappointment, which was a wound to his pride, so affected his mind, that, unable any longer to support a load of misery, he hanged himself in his own chamber. Which ever of these causes induced him, the event was melancholy, and not a little heightened by his being a clergyman, in whose heart religion should have taken deeper root, and maintained a more salutary influence, than to suffer him thus to stain his laurels with his own blood.