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النشر الإلكتروني

The boldest they, who least partake the light,
As game-cocks in the dark are train❜d to fiight.
Nor shame, nor ruin, can our pride abate,
But what became our choice we call our fate.
• Villain, (said Zeno to his pilfering slave)
What frugal nature needs, I freely gave;
With thee my treasure I depos'd in trust,
What could provoke thee now to prove unjust?'
Sir, blame the stars, (felonious Culprit cried)
We'll by the statute of the stars be tried.

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If their strong influence all our actions urge,
Some are foredoom'd to steal-and some to scourge:
The beadle must obey the fates' decree,
As powerful destiny prevail'd with thee.'
This heathen logic seems to bear too hard
On me, and many a harmless modern bard:
The critics hence may think themselves decreed
To jerk the wits, and rail at all they read;
Foes to the tribe from which they trace their clan,
As monkies draw their pedigree from man;
To which (though by the breed our kind's disgrac'd)
We grant superior elegance of taste:

But, in their own defence, the wits observe
That,by impulse from heaven, they write and starve ;
Their patron-planet, with resistless power,
Irradiates every poet's natal hour;
Engendering in his head a solar heat,

For which the college has no sure receipt,
Else from their garrets would they soon withdraw,
And leave the rats to revel in the straw.
Nothing so much intoxicates the brain
As Flattery's smooth insinuating bane:

She on the unguarded ear employs her art,
While vain self-love unlocks the yielding heart;
And reason oft submits when both invade,
Without assaulted, and within betray'd.
When flattery's magic-mists suffuse the sight,
The don is active, and the boor polite;
Her mirror shows perfection through the whole,
And ne'er reflects a wrinkle or a mole;
Each character in gay confusion lies,

And all alike are virtuous, brave, and wise :
Nor fail her fulsome arts to soothe our pride,
Though praise to venom turns, if wrong applied.
Me thus she whispers while I write to you ;
'Draw forth a banner'd host in fair review :
Then every muse invoke thy voice to raise,
"Arms and the man," to sing in lofty lays;
Whose active bloom heroic deeds employ,
Such as the son of Thetis* sung at Troy;
When his high sounding lyre his valour rais'd,
To emulate the demi-gods he prais❜d.
Like him the Briton, warm at honour's call,
At fam'd Blaragnia quell'd the bleeding Gaul;
By France the genius of the fight confess'd,
For which our patron saint adorns his breast.'-
Is this my friend, who sits in full content,
Jovial and joking with his men of Kent,
And never any scene of slaughter saw,
But those who fell by physic or the law?
Why is he for exploits in war renown'd,
Deck'd with a star, with bloody laurels crown'd?
O! often prov'd, and ever found sincere!
Too honest is thy heart, thy sense too clear,

• Iliad ix.

On these encomiums to vouchsafe a smile,
Which only can belong to great Argyle.

But most among the brethren of the bays,
The dear enchantress all her charms displays,
In the sly commerce of alternate praise.
If, for his father's sins condemn'd to write,
Some young half-feather'd poet takes a flight,
And to my touchstone brings a puny ode,
Which Swift, and Pope, and Prior, would explode:
Though every stanza glitters thick with stars,
And goddesses decend in ivory cars:
Is it for me to prove in every part
The piece irregular by laws of art?

His genius looks but awkward, yet his fate
May raise him to be premier-bard of state;
I therefore bribe his suffrage to my fame,
Revere his judgment, and applaud his flame;
Then cry, in seeming transport, while I speak,
'Tis well for Pindar that he dealt in Greek!'
He, conscious of desert, accepts the praise,
And, courteous, with increase the debt repays;
Boilieu's a mushroom if compar❜d to me,
And, Horace, I dispute the palm with thee!
Both, ravish'd, sing Te Phabum for success;
Rise swift, ye laurels : boy! bespeak the press-
Thus on imaginary praise we feed;

Each writes till all refuse to print or read:
From the records of fame condemn'd to pass
To Brisquet's* calendar, a rubric-ass.

Few, wonderous few, are eagle-eyed to find
A plain disease, or blemish in the mind:

• Brisquet, Jester to Francis L. of France, kept a calendar of fools.

Few can, though wisdom should their health ensure,
Dispassionate and cool attend a cure;

In youth disus'd to' obey the needful rein,
Well-pleas'd a savage liberty to gain,
We sate the keen desire of every sense,
And lull our age in thoughtless indolence?
Yet all are Solons in their own conceit,
Though, to supply the vacancy of wit,
Folly and pride, impatient of control,
The sister-twins of sloth possess the soul.
By Kneller were the gay Pumilio drawn,
Like great Alcides, with a back of brawn,
I scarcely think his picture would have power
To make him fight the champions of the tower;
Though lions there are tolerably tame,

And civil as the court from which they came.
But yet, without experience, sense, or arts,
Pumilio boasts sufficiency of parts;

Imagines he alone is amply fit

To guide the state, or give the stamp to wit,
Pride paints the mind with an heroic air,
Nor finds he a defect of vigour there.

When Philomel of old essay'd to sing,
And in his rosy progress hail'd the spring,
The' aërial songsters, listening to the lays,
By silent ecstasy confess'd her praise.
At length, to rival her enchanting note,
The peacock strains the discord of his throat,
In hope his hideous shrieks would grateful prove;
But the nice audience hoot him through the grove.
Conscious of wanted worth, and just disdain,
Lowering his crest, he creeps to Juno's fane:
To his protectress there reveals the case;
And for a sweeter voice devoutly prays.

Then thus replied the radiant goddess, known By her fair rolling eyes and rattling tone;

'My favourite bird! of all the feather'd kind,
Each species had peculiar gifts assign'd:
The towering eagles to the realms of light
By their strong pounces claim a regal right;
The swan, contented with an humbler fate,
Low on the fishy river rows in state;
Gay starry plumes thy length of train bedeck,
And the green emerald twinkles on thy neck;
But the poor nightingale, in mean attire,

Is made chief warbler of the woodland choir.
These various bounties were dispos'd above,
And ratified th' unchanging will of Jove:
Discern thy talent, and his laws adore;
Be what thou wert design'd, nor aim at more.'

AN ODE

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD GOWER.

Written in the Spring, 1716.

O'ER winter's long inclement sway,
At length the lusty Spring prevails;
And, swift to meet the smiling May,
Is wafted by the western gales.
Around him dance the rosy Hours,
And damasking the ground with flowers,
With ambient sweets perfume the morn:
With shadowy verdure flourish'd high,
A sudden youth the groves enjoy;
Where Philomel laments forlorn.

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