Join'd to good fortune, 'twas our courtier's lot To serve a prince who ne'er his friends forgot: Humane, discreet, compassionate, and brave; Not milder when he lov'd, than when forgave. Gen'rous of promise, punctual in the deed; Grac'd with more candour than most monarchs need. A milkiness of blood his heart possess'd; With grief be punish'd, and with transport bless'di. As noblest metals are most ductile found, Great souls with mild compassion most abound. The golden dye with soft complacence takes Each speaking lineament th' engraver makes, And wears a faithful image for mankind, True to the features, truer to the mind: Whilst stubboru iron (like a barren soil To lab'ring hinds) eludes the artist's toil; To ev'ry stroke ungrateful and unjust, Corrodes itself, or hardens into rust. Good-nature, in the language from above1?, Is universal charity and love: Patient of wrongs, and enemy to strife; Basis of virtue, and the staff of life! Whilst av'rice, private censure, public rage, Are th' old man's hobby-horse, and crutch of age. Party conducts us to the meanest ends; Party made Herod and a Pilate friends 13. Scorn'd be the bard, and banish'd ev'n from Who first immortaliz'd man-killing fools; Of all the great and harmless things below, (Thus writes a wit15, well known a cent❜ry past; Wealth spoils the great; beauty ensnares our | So, in the daily work she labours at, T' enjoy the coolness of a summer shade, Amariel," cry'd the prince, "I know thee "Amariel," added he, and gently smil'd, "This grove's my kingdom, and each tree my child: (Forgive the vanity, which thus compares Happy the monarch of the town and field, 19 [face. Not poorer, if they lose ;-and they may win. So turn-soles 20 court the Sun with 'wry-neck'd 17 Xenophont. Oeconomic. c. iv, &c. 18 The staple of the soil, in an husbandrysense, is the upper earth, which lies within the reach of the plough and influence of the atmosphere. Thus we call wool, with relation to England, a staple commodity. 19 Dryden's Hind and Panther. 20 The heliotrope, or Sun-flower, called, by the Italians, orologio dei cortegiani. 21 Sir Martin Marr-all, in a comedy of Dryden's writing. Whatever then my bounty can provide; The servant bow'd, and gratitude express'd; Six years were past, when lo, by slow degrees, A fever did his limbs and spirits seize : Advancing gently, no alarm it makes, [brakes:) (Like murd'ring Indians gliding through the But, having mark'd her sure approaches well, She storms, and nothing can her force repell. Instant, a liquid fire inflames the blood, Whilst spasms impede the self-refining flood: Petechial spots th' approach of Death proclaim, Redd'ning like comets with vindictive flame; Whilst wand'ring talk, and mopings wild, presage Moon-struck illusion, and conclude in rage. Inevitable Death alarins the heart: Nature stands by, and bids her aim the dart. The sick man, stupify'd with fear and woe, Had hardly words to speak, or tears to flow; At length in broken sounds was heard to cry, "Grant me to see my master, e'er I die.' The master came. "Ah, prince," Amariel said, "Now keep thy promise, and extend thy aid; Unfurl my tangled thread of human breath, And call me back one year, before my death.” The prince (for he was wise, and good withall,) Stood like a statue mortis'd to the wall: At length recov'ring from amazement, broke An awful silence, and thus gravely spoke : "Amaricl, sure thy pangs disturb thy brain: The boon you ask is blasphemous and vain : Am I a god, to alter Death's decree? That's the prerogative of Heav'n, not me." "Then," cry'd Amariel, with an hasty tone, "Gain me a week, three days, or gain me one." "Impossible!" agen the prince reply'd ; "Sure thy disease to madness is ally'd : Ask me for riches-freely I resign A third, or half, and bid thee make them thine. Whate'er the world can human greatness call, Pow'r, rank, grants, titles, I'll bestow them all. Then die in peace, or with contentment live, Nor ask a gift no mortal pow'r can give." With eyes that flash'd with eagerness and fire The sick man then propos'd a new desire: "As Death's dread tyranny has no control, Can you ensure the safety of my soul? Anxious and doubtful for my future state, I read the danger, but I read too late." The prince stood mute; compassion and amaze Tore his divided heart ten thousand ways: And, having rightly weigh'd the sick man's pray'r, Thus he reply'd in sorrow and despair: "Salvation of the soul by grace is giv'n ;Unalienable is the grace of Heav'n. I tremble at the rash request you make, "Wretch that I am, unworthy of my breath; Deceiv'd when living, and deceiv'd in death! Why did I waste my strength, my cares, my To serve a master-master but in name? [fame, An ethnic idol, for delusion made; Eyes without sight, protection without aid? "Hence, false Astarte 27, who the world suborns, "No star of Remphan 28 shall attract my sight, Shorn of its beams, and gleaming sickly light: Malignaut orb! which tempts bewilder'd swains To gulphs, to quicksands, and waste trackless By thee the false Achitophel was led ; [plains! And Haman 29 dy'd aloft, and made a cloud his bed. "From worldly hopes and false dependance freed, I'll seek no safety from a splinter'd reed; Which causes those to fall, who wish to stand; Or, if it aids the steps, gangrenes the hand 3°. "How vain is all the chymic wealth of pow'r; Sought for an age, and squander'd in an hour! Full late we learn, in sickness, pains, and woe, What in high health 'twas possible to know. "Two ages may have two Elishas seen; Groups of Gehazis 31 choke the space between : 22 Idcirco servi sumus, ut liberi esse possimus. Cicero. Who live unthinking, and obdurate die, swear, With the same ease they draw the vital air. In vineyards, farms, and all-compelling gold. And Hezekiah gain'd the wish'd reprieve 35. soar: Me, humble Prudence whispers37 to give o'er. So when the warbling lark has mounted high One Pope is the slow child-birth of one age. 32 Ibid. v. ult. 33 Bad bards, worse critics!-Thus we multiply Most wits, like misers, always covet more. Add, that the Muses, nurst in various climes, thought: The tropic of our judgment sees three-score, 39 An answer made by Boccace, when it was objected to him, that some of his novels had not the spirit of the rest. 40 Amongst Mr. Pope's great intellectual abi, lities, good sense was his most distinguishing character: for he knew precisely, and as it were by a sort of intuition, what he had power to do, and what he could not do. He often used to say, that for ten years together he firmly resisted the importunity of friends and flatterers, when they solicited him to under They pull off the robe with the garment." take a translation of Virgil after Dryden. Nor Mic. ch. ii, v. 8. 34 Mark ch. viii, v. 10, 35 2 Kings, ch. xx. 26 Tranquil mind. Shakespeare, 27 Me, mea Calliope, cura leviore vagantem, did he ever mistake the extent of his talents, but 380 EMPTY, illusory life, Pregnant with fraud, in mischiefs rife '; Erring happiness beguiles The wretch that strays o'er Circe's isles; Louring in the groves of death Earth fallacious herbage yields, Gaudy bella-donna blowing, One plant alone is wrapt in shade; On yonder Alp I see it rise, But cover'd half with ivy-walls;~ Men saw, alas, and knew not thee, Thou hadst no charms for paynim-eyes; All-beauteous flow'r, whose centre glows And streak'd with young Pomona's green 13. High o'er the pointal, deck'd with gold, (Emblem mysterious to behold,) The baron De Bottoni. 10 This alludes to a well-known fact in the dutchy of Carniola, where the present ode was written. About the year 1675, a nobleman was riding at night upon a road which goes near the edge of the precipice here mentioned. Mistaking his way (and that for a few steps only) his horse stopped short, and refused to go on; upon which the rider, who in all probability was heated with liquor, (otherwise he ought to have known the precipice better, it being not far from his own castle) lost both his temper and prudence, and spurred the horse with great anger; upon which the poor beast took a desperate leap, intending, as was imagined, to have reached another angle of the precipice on the same side which the road tay. The horse fell directly into the torrent, two or three hundred feet beneath, and was hur "Art thou arrived to maturity of life? Look back and thou shalt see the frailty of thy youth, the folly of thy childhood, and the senseless dis-ried away with such rapidity that the body was sipation of thy infancy!-Look forward and thou shalt behold the insincerity of the world and cares of life, the diseases of thy body and the troubles of thy mind." Annon. Vet. "In this world death is every-where, grief every-where, and desolation every-where. The world flieth us, and yet we follow it; it falleth, and we adhere to it, and fall with it, and attempt to enjoy it falling." St. Gregor. Hom. never found. The nobleman was discovered next day in an opening of the rock, about half way down, where a few bushes grew; and, as the saddle was found not far from him, it was supposed that the horse, by the violence of the effort he made, burst the saddle-girths. The rider lived many years after this wonderful escape, and, out of gratitude to God, erected a beautiful chapel on the edge of the precipice, dedicated (if I mistake not) to St. Anthony of Padua. I made a drawing of the chapel, precip'ee, torrent, and nobleman's castle; of which a copy was taken afterwards by the celebrated drafts man Visentini, at Venice, in 1750. "Moly. Homer's Odyssey, 1. XI, v. 305. 12 Aster Atticus, or (purple Italian) star-wort, Georg. IV, v. 271. 13 Alluding to that particular species of green called by the French pomme-verte, or applegreen. A radiant cross its form expands ;- Grant me, kind Heav'n, in prosp'rous hour Like Tobit (when the hand, approv'd By Heav'n, th' obstructing films remov'd 15) Passions and frauds surround us all, In highest stations snares misguide; Midst wines a fraud, midst mirth a cheat, The toils are fixt, the sportsmen keen: It 14" My heart is a vain and wandering heart, whenever it is led by its own determinations. is busy to no purpose, and occupied to no end, whenever it is not guided by divine influence: it seeketh rest and findeth none: it agreeth not with itself: it alters resolutions, changeth judgment, frames new thoughts, and suppresses old ones; pulls down every thing, and re-buildeth nothing; in short, it never continueth in the same state." St. Bernard. Meditat. "Seest thou the luminary of the greater world in the highest pitch of meridian glory; where it continueth not, but descends in the same proportion as it ascended? Look next and consider if the light of this lower world is more permanent? Continuance is the child of Eternity, and not of Time." Ex. Vet. Ascet. 15 Tobit, ch. iii, v. 17. 16" All vices wax old by age: covetousness (and ambition) alone grow young." Ex. Vet. Ascet. "Why are earth and ashes proud? There is not a more wicked thing than a covetous man: for such an one setteth his own soul to sale, because, while he liveth, he casteth away his bowels;" i. e. is a stranger to compassion. Ecclus. ch. x, v. 9. Deceiving none, by none ensnar'd, The cross of Christ is man's reward 19: EULOGIUS; OR, THE CHARITABLE MASON. AN HISTORICAL FABLE. TAKEN FROM THE GREEK OF PAULUS SYLLOGUS, LIB. III. Nos, vilis turba, caducis Deservire bonis, semperque optare parati, Spargimur in casus. Stat. Sylvæ, L. II. God gives us what he knows our wants require, And better things than those which we desire. Dryd. Palam. & Arc. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. Agur's Prayer. Prov. ch. xxx, v. 8, 9. INTRODUCTION. PERMIT me, Stanhope', as I form'd thy youth How blindly to our misery we run; [done! Dup'd by false hopes, and by our pray'rs unWe want, we wish, we change, we change agen; Yet know not how to ask, nor what, nor when. They know they have a road, but miss their way; Just so, misled by liquor, drunkards stray, Th' existence of their home admits no doubt; Th' uncertainty-is where to find it out 2. 17 ПAPAKAHTO2: The Comforter; the John, ch. xiv, v. 16-26. Holy Spirit. Dryden first introduced the word Paraclete into the English language, in his translation of the Hymn Veni Creator Spiritus: as also in his Britannia Rediviva: Last solemn Sabbath saw the church attend; 'Philip Stanhope, esq. late member of parliament for St. German's in Cornwall, and at present envoy extraordinary to the court of Dresden and the circle of Lower Saxony, &c. The natural son of lord Chesterfield, to whom his celebrated letters were addressed. 2 Væ tempori illi quando non deum cognovimus! August. Soliloq. c. 31. |