But if he found you fond and obftinate
(And apter to defend than mend your faults),
With filence leave you to admire yourself,
And without rival hug your darling book.
The prudent care of an impartial friend
Will give you notice of each idle line,
Shew what founds harfh, and what wants ornament,
Or where it is too lavishly bestow'd;

Make you explain all that he finds obfcure,
And with a strict enquiry mark your faults ;
Nor for thefe trifles fear to lofe your love :
Those things which now seem frivolous and flight,
Will be of a moft ferious confequence,
When they have made you once ridiculous.
A poetafter, in his raging fit,

(Follow'd and pointed at by fools and boys)
Is dreaded and profcrib'd by men of sense;
They make a lane for the polluted thing,
And fly as from th' infection of the plague,
Or from a man whom, for a just revenge,
Fanatic phrenzy fent by heaven pursues.
If (in the raving of a frantic Mufe)
And minding more his verses than his way,
Any of thefe fhould drop into a well,

Though he might burst his lungs to call for help,
No creature would affift or pity him,

But feem to think he fell on purpose in.
Hear how an old Sicilian poet dy'd ;
Empedocles, mad to be thought a god,
In a cold fit leap'd into Etna's flames.

Give poets leave to make themselves away,
Why should it be a greater fin to kill,
Than to keep men alive against their will?
Nor was this chance, but a deliberate choice;
For if Empedocles were now 'reviv'd,
He would be at his frolic once again,
And his pretenfions to divinity:
'Tis hard to fay whether for facrilege,
Or inceft, or some more unheard-of crime,
The rhyming fiend is fent into these men;
But they are all most visibly possest,

And, like a baited bear when he breaks loofe,
Without diftinction feize on all they meet;
None ever fcap'd that came within their reach,
Sticking like leeches, till they burft with blood,
Without remorfe infatiably they read,

And never leave till they have read men dead.

**Lord RosCOMMON's verfes on the "Religio "Laici" are printed in the first volume of DRYDEN'S Poems.

R'YTHEE now, fond fool, give o'er;

Psince my heart is gone before,

To what purpose should I stay?
Love commands another way.

Tell me then the reason, why
Love from hearts in love does fly?
Why the bird will build a nest,
Where the ne'er intends to reft?
STRE PHON

Love, like other little boys,

Cries for hearts, as they for toys :
Which when gain'd, in childish play,
Wantonly are thrown away.

DAPHNE.

Still on wing, or on his knees,
Love does nothing by degrees a 3
Bafely flying when most priz'd,
Meanly fawning when defpis'd.
Flattering or infulting ever,
Generous and grateful never :
All his joys are flecting dreams,
All his woes fevere extremes.

STREP HON.

Nymph, unjustly you inveigh;
Love, like us, must Fate obey.
Since 'tis Nature's law to change,
Conftancy alone is strange.

See the heavens in lightnings break,
Next in ftorms of thunder fpeak;
Till a kind rain from above!!
Makes a calm---fo 'tis in love.

Flames