No comfort to our griefs: from which to be Castara, by W. Habington. ON TWO CHILDREN DYING OF ONE DISEASE, AND BURIED IN ONE GRAVE. BROUGHT forth in sorrow, and bred up in care, Two tender children here entombed are: One place, one sire, one womb their being gave, though their days were few They scarcely sin, but never sorrow knew.] A consolation of the same nature we find in the following exquisite Epigram of Lucian: Παϊδά με πενλαέτηρον, ἀκηδέα Θυμὸν ἔχονία, Νηλειὴς Αιδης ἥρπασε Καλλίμαχον. ̓Αλλά με μὴ Κλαίοις, καὶ γὰρ Βίοτοιο μετέσχον Παύρα, καὶ παύρων τῶν Βιότοιο κακῶν. Anth. Puerum me quinquennem curarum expers pectus habentem Immitis Orcus rapuit Callimachum : At ne me lugeas, etenim vitæ particeps fui Modicæ, et paucorum vitæ malorum, So that they well might boast, they carried hence You pretty losses, that revive the fate When once I have discharg'd that mournful score, Dr. King's Poems, p. 60. TO THE MEMORY OF BEN. JONSON, LAUREAT. FATHER ATHER of poets, though thine own great day, Kindled from thine, flies upward towards thy name: There's piety, though from it no access: And though my ruder thoughts make me of those And what can more be hop'd, since that divine Free filling spirit takes its flight with thine? Men may have fury, but no raptures now, Like witches charm, yet not know whence, nor how, Which when by thy laws judg'd, 'twill be confess'd Where shall we find a Muse like thine, that can Think thou taught'st custom, and not custom thee; And though we know the character, nay and swear A sybil's finger hath been busy there. Things common thou speak'st proper†, which though known For public, stamp'd by thee, grow thence thine own; Thy thought's so ordered, so express'd, that we Conclude that thou didst not discourse, but see: * Instead of writing, only rave in verse.] This is what Pope calls "rhyming with all the rage of impotence." Essay on Criticism, 1. 612. + Things common thou speak'st proper.] A very difficult branch of the art to manage with dexterity, which Horace has remarked: Difficile est propriè communia dicere. De Art. Poet. 128. Thine equal skill thus wresting nothing, made That life, that Venus of all things *, which we Is not found scatter'd in thee here or there, 'Tis easy to gild gold, there's small skill spent Be it thy glory then that we may say, Thou run'st where the foot was hind'red by the way. That life, that Venus of all things.] Probably immediately taken from Horace : Ordinis hæc virtus erit et Venus. De Art. Poet. 42. Thy models yet are not so fram'd as we still: To strike the vice, but spare the person use ** As he who, when he saw the serpent wreath'd, &c.] The name of the archer here alluded to is Alcon. The following is Servius's note in a folio edition of Virgil, printed at Paris, 1500. See Eclogue xi. 5. "Alcon is Cretensis-est Sagittarius: et cum draco ejus p erum complexus est, adeo suâ arte temperavit ictum sagittæ, ut in dracone transfixo consisteret, n‹ que ad puerum parveniret." According to the common Delphin edition, the child's name was Phaleris. But this story cannot, without the utmost absurdity, be applied to the shepherd in Virgil, called Alcon, which, without doubt, was a common-place proper name for a pastoral character. See an Epigram on this story in Brunck's Analecta, Vol. I. p. 167. From the fool's balsam, than the wise man's wound.] See Pope's Essay on Criticism, from line 575 to 580. |