Part 5 (1/2)

Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the World is worth thy Winning, Think, Oh think, it worth enjoying._

But as the finest Meats are most apt to surfeit, so too many agreeable Thoughts together may flatten upon the Palate: And I shall only add an Instance in Prose, taken out of Mr. _Waller_'s Letter to the Lady _Lucy Sydney_, on the Marriage of her Sister the Lady _Dorothy_, who was his _Sacharissa_.

_May my Lady_ Dorothy, _if we may yet call her so, suffer as much, and have the like Pa.s.sion for this young Lord, whom she has preferred to the Rest of Mankind, as others have had for her; and may this Love before the Year goes about, make her taste of the first Curse impos'd upon Woman-kind, the Pains of becoming a Mother. May the First-born be none of her own s.e.x; and may she that always affected Silence and Retiredness, have the House fill'd with the Noise and Number of her Children. May she, at last, arrive at that great Curse much declin'd by fair Ladies, Old Age_, &c.

Under the Character of Father _Bouhours_'s fine Thoughts may be put these Verses of Mr. _Waller_'s, alluding to his gallant Poems upon _Sacharissa_, and the Story of _Phbus_ and _Daphne_.

_Yet what he sang in his immortal Strain, Tho' unsuccessful, was not sung in Vain: All but the Nymph that should redress his Wrong Attend his Pa.s.sion, and approve his Song; Like_ Phbus, _thus acquiring unsought Praise, He caught at Love, and fill'd his Arms with Bays._

Much of the same Kind is this of the Lord _Landsdown_'s on the same Subject:

_Thy Beauty,_ Sidney, _like_ Achilles _Sword, Resistless stands upon as sure Record; The foremost Herce, and the brightest Dame Both sung alike shall have their Fate the same._

This Part of Mr. _Prior_'s Prologue spoken before the late Queen, is in the fine Way of Thinking:

_Let the young_ Austrian _then her Terrours bear, Great as he is, her Delegate in War.

Let him in Thunder speak to both his_ Spains, _That in these dreadful Isles a Woman reigns: Whilst the bright Queen does on her Subjects show'r, The gentle Blessings of her softer Pow'r, Gives sacred Morals to a vicious Age, To Temples Zeal, and Manners to the Stage; Bids the chaste Muse without a Blush appear, And Wit be that, which Heaven and she may hear._

Of what Kind shall we take this Image in _Spencer_ to be:

_His haughty Helmet, horrid all with Gold, Both glorious Brightness and great Terrour bred; For all the Crest a Dragon did enfold With greedy Paws, and over all did spread His golden Wings; his dreadful hideous Head, Close couched on the Bever, seem'd to throw, From flaming Mouth, bright Sparkles fiery red_, &c.

This of _Cowley_ is finely thought:

_Now all the wide extended Sky, And all th' harmonious Worlds on high, And_ Virgil_'s sacred Work shall dye._

And this of _Waller_ to Queen _Henrietta Maria_:

_A brave Romance who would exactly frame, First brings his Knight from some immortal Dame, And then a Weapon and a flaming s.h.i.+eld, Bright as his Mother's Eyes, he makes him wield.

None might the Mother of_ Achilles _be, But the fair Pearl and Glory of the Sea.

The Man to whom Great_ Maro _gives such Fame, From the high Bed of heavenly_ Venus _came.

And our next_ Charles, _whom all the Stars design Like Wonders to accomplish, springs from thine._

And this to _Zelinda_:

_Fairest Piece of well form'd Earth, Urge not thus your haughty Birth; The Pow'r, which you have o'er us, lies, Not in your Race, but in your Eyes._

And these Verses of Mr. _Addison_ to the Lord _Hallifax_:

_Oh Liberty, thou G.o.ddess heav'nly bright!

Profuse of Bliss, and Pregnant with Delight; Eternal Pleasures in thy Presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton Train.

Eas'd of her Load, Subjection grows more light, And Poverty looks chearful in thy Sight: Thou mak'st the gloomy Face of Nature gay, Giv'st Beauty to the Sun, and Pleasure to the Day._

These four Verses, Part of the late Duke of _Buckingham_'s Poem upon _Hobbes_, contain, as I conceive, a fine Thought:

_But such the Frailty is of humane Kind, Men toil for Fame, which no Man lives to find; Long rip'ning under Ground this_ China _lies; Fame bears no Fruit, till the vain Planter dies._

But the next Verses contain a false Thought, if I have a Right Conception of it:

_And Nature tir'd with his unusual Length Of Life, which put her to her utmost Strength; So vast a Soul, unable to supply, To save herself, was forc'd to let him die._