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Sometimes for oracles yet more profound,
A titillating sonnet's handed round,
Some Abdication-Damon madrigal,
His own sour pen's too overflowing gall.
I must confess in pure poetic rage,
Bowed down to the old Moloch of that age,
His strange bigotted muse our wonder saw,
Tuned to the late great court tarantula.

What though worn out in pleasures old and stale,
The reverend Outly sculkt within the pale;
It was enough, like the old Mahomet's pigeon,
He lured to bread, and masked into religion.

Had that, now silent, muse been but so kind
As to this funeral-dirge her numbers joined,
On that great theme what wonders had he told!
For though the bard, the quill is not grown old,
Writes young Apollo still, with his whole rays
Encircled and enriched, though not his bays.
Thus when the wreath, so long, so justly due,
The great Mecenas from those brows withdrew,
With pain he saw such merit sunk so far,
Shamed that the dragon's tail swept down the

star.

Not that the conscience-shackle tied so hard,
But had he been the prophet, as the bard,
Prognostick'd the diminutive slender birth
His seven-hill'd mountain-labour has brought forth,
His foreseen precipice; that thought alone
Had stopt his fall, secured him all our own;
Free from his hypochondriac dreams he had slept,
And still his unsold Esau's birthright kept.
'Tis thus we see him lost, thus mourn his fall;
That single teint alone has sullied all.

So have I in the Muses garden seen
The spreading rose, or blooming jessamine;
Once from whose bosom the whole Hybla train
The industrious treasurers of the rich plain,

Those winged foragers for their fragrant prey,
On loaded thighs bore thousand sweets away:
Now shaded by a sullen venomed guest
Cankered and sooted o'er to a spider's nest.
His sweets thus soured, what melancholy change,
What an ill-natur'd lour, a face so strange!
His life one whole long scene of all unrest,
And airy hopes his thin cameleon-feast;
Pleased only with the pride of being preferred,
The echoed voice to his own listning herd,
A magisterial Belweather tape,

The lordly leader of his bleating troop.

These doctrines our young Sullenists preach round,

The texts which their poetic silence found. But why the doctor of their chair, why thou, Their great rabbinic voice, thus silent too? Could Noll's once meteor glories blaze so fair, To make thee that all-prostrate zealot there? Strange, that that fiery nose could boast that charm Thy muse with those seraphic raptures warm! And our fair Albion star to shine so bleak, Her radiant influence so chill, so weak! Gorged with his riotous festival of fame, Could thy weak stomach pule at Mary's name! Or was thy junior palate more canine, And now in years grows squeamish, and more fine! Fie, peevish-niggard, with thy flowing store To play the churl,-excuse thy shame no more.

No. IX.

VERSES

OCCASIONED BY READING

MR. DRYDEN'S FABLES.

INSCRIBED TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

BY MR. JABEZ HUGHES.

Museum ante omnes, medium nam plurima turba
Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis.-VIRG.

TO THE READER.

1720-1, March.

It is now almost fourteen years since these lines were first written; and as I had no thought of making them public, I laid them aside among other papers; where they had still continued private, if it had not, in a manner, become my duty to print them, by the noble regard which is paid to Mr. Dryden's memory, by his grace the Duke of Buckingham, who, to his high quality, has added the liberal distinction of having long been at once both an eminent patron of elegant literature, and the most accomplished judge and pattern of it.

It might indeed seem an adventurous presumption to offer so trivial a poem to his Grace's view; but he who is able to instruct the most skilful writer, will have benevolence enough to forgive the imperfections of the weakest, and to consider the

inscribing these slight verses to his Grace, merely as a respectful acknowledgment of the common obligation he has laid upon all who have a true value for English poetry, by thus honouring the remains of a man who advanced it so highly, and is so justly celebrated for beauty of imagination, and force and delicacy of expression and numbers.

I must also observe, that I have had the happiness to see one part of these verses abundantly disproved by Mr. Pope, and accordingly I retract it with pleasure; for that admirable author, who evidently inherits the bright invention, and the harmonious versification of Mr. Dryden, has increased the reputation his other ingenious writings had obtained him, by the permanent fame of having finished a translation of the Iliad of Homer, with surprising genius and merit.

.

UPON READING

MR. DRYDEN'S FABLES.

OUR great forefathers, in poetic song, Were rude in diction, though their sense was strong; Well-measured verse they knew not how to frame, Their words ungraceful, and the cadence lame. Too far they wildly ranged to start the prey, And did too much of Fairy-land display; And in their rugged dissonance of lines, True manly thought debased with trifles shines. Each gaudy flower that wantons on the mead, Must not appear within the curious bed; But nature's chosen birth should flourish there, And with their beauties crown the sweet parterre.

Such was the scene, when Dryden came to

found

grace.

More perfect lays, with harmony of sound:
What lively colours glow on every draught!
How bright his images, how raised his thought!
The parts proportioned to their proper place,
With strength supported, and adorned with
With what perfection did his artful hand
The various kinds of poesy command!
And the whole choir of Muses at his call,
In his rich song, which was inspired of all,
Spoke from the chords of his enchanting lyre,
And gave his breast the fulness of their fire.
As while the sun displays his lordly light,
The host of stars are humbly veiled from sight,
Till when he falls, they kindle all on high,
And smartly sparkle in the nightly sky:
His fellow bards suspended thus their ray,
Drowned in the strong effulgence of his day;
But glowing to their rise, at his decline,
Each cast his beams, and each began to shine.
As years advance, the abated soul, in most,
Sinks to low ebb, in second childhood lost;
And spoiling age, dishonouring our kind,
Robs all the treasures of the wasted mind;
With hovering clouds obscures the muffled sight,
And dim suffusion of enduring night:
But the rich fervour of his rising rage,
Prevailed o'er all the infirmities of age;
And, unimpaired by injuries of time,
Enjoyed the bloom of a perpetual prime.
His fire not less, he more correctly writ,
With ripened judgment, and digested wit;
When the luxuriant ardour of his youth,
Succeeding years had tamed to better growth,
And seemed to break the body's crust away,
To give the expanded mind more room to play;

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