But oh too late! this thing I fhould have done,
When first I plac'd the traitor on my throne.
Behold the faith of him who fav'd from fire
His honour'd houfhold Gods, his aged fire
His pious shoulders from Troy's flames did bear
Why did I not his carcafe piece-meal tear,
And caft it in the fea? why not destroy
All his companions, and beloved boy
Afcanius and his tender limbs have drest,
And made the father on the fon to feaft?
Thou Sun, whofe luftre all things here below
Surveys; and Juno, confcious of my woe;
Revengeful Furies, and Queen Hecate,
Receive and grant my prayer? If he the fea
Muft needs escape, and reach th' Aufonian land,
If Jove decree it, Jove's decree must stand;
When landed, may he be with arms opprest
By his rebelling people, be distrest

By exile from his country, be divorc'd
From young Afcanius' fight, and be enforc'd
To implore foreign aids, and lose his friends
By violent and undeferved ends!
When to conditions of unequal peace
He shall submit, then may he not poffefs,
Kingdom nor life, and find his funeral

I' th' fands, when he before his day shall fall!
And ye, oh Tyrians, with immortal hate
Purfue this race, this fervice dedicate
To my deplored afhes, let there be

Twixt us and them no league nor amity.

May

May from my bones a new Achilles rife,
That fhall infeft the Trojan Colonies

With fire and fword, and famine, when at length
Time to our great attempts contributes strength;
Our feas, our shores, our armies theirs oppose,
And may our children be for ever foes!
A ghaftly palenefs death's approach portends,
Then trembling fhe the fatal pile afcends;
Viewing the Trojan reliques, fhe unsheath'd
Æneas' fword, not for that ufe bequeath'd:
Then on the guilty bed the gently lays
Herself, and foftly thus lamenting prays;

Dear reliques, whilst that Gods and Fates give leave,
Free me from care, and my glad foul receive.
That date which Fortune gave, I now must end,
And to the fhades a noble ghoft defcend.
Sichæus' blood, by his falfe brother spilt,
I have reveng'd, and a proud city built;
Happy, alas; too happy I had liv'd,
Had not the Trojan on my coaft arriv’d.
But shall I die without revenge? yet die
Thus, thus with joy to thy Sichæus fly.
My conscious foe my funeral fire fhall view
From fea, and may that omen him pursue !
Her fainting hand let fall the fword befmear'd
With blood, and then the mortal wound appear'd;
Through all the court the fright and clamours rife,
Which the whole city fills with fears and cries,
As loud as if her Carthage, or old Tyre
The foe had entered, and had set on fire.

Amazed Anne with speed afcends the stairs,
And in her arms her dying fifter rears :
Did you for this, yourself, and me beguile?
For fuch an end did I erect this pile?,
Did you fo much defpife me, in this fate
Myfelf with you not to affociate ?

Yourself and me, alas! this fatal wound

The fenate, and the people, doth confound.
I'll wash her wound with tears, and at her death,
My lips from hers fhall draw her parting breath.
Then with her veft the wound the wipes and dries;
Thrice with her arm the Queen attempts to rife,
But her ftrength failing, falls into a swound,
Life's laft efforts yet striving with her wound;
Thrice on her bed fhe turns, with wandering fight
Seeking, the groans when fhe beholds the light.
Then Juno, pitying her disastrous fate,
Sends Iris down, her pangs to mitigate.
(Since, if we fall before th' appointed day,
Nature and Death continue long their fray.)
Iris defcends; this fatal lock (fays fhe)
To Pluto I bequeath, and fet thee free;

Then clips her hair: Cold numbness ftraight bereaves
Her corpfe of fenfe, and th' air her foul receives. .

OF

OF PRUDENCE.

Going this last Summer to visit the Wells, I took an occafion (by the way) to wait upon an ancient and honourable friend of mine, whom I found diverting his (then folitary) retirement with the Latin original of this tranflation, which (being out of print) I had never seen before: when I looked upon it, I faw that it had formerly paffed through two learned hands, not without approbation; which were Ben Jonfon and Sir Kenelm Digby; but I found it (where I fhall never find myself) in the fervice of a better mafter, the Earl of Bristol, of whom I shall say no more; for I love not to improve the honour of the living, by impairing that of the dead; and my own profeffion hath taught me not to erect new fuperftructures upon an old ruin.He was pleased to recommend it to me for my companion at the Wells, where I liked the entertainment it gave me fo well, that I undertook to redeem it from an obsolete English disguise, wherein an old Monk had cloathed it, and to make as becoming a new veft for it as I could.

The author was a perfon of quality in Italy, his name Mancini, which family matched since with the fifter of Cardinal Mazarine; he was contemporary to Petrarch, and Mantuan, and not long before Torquato

G 4

Torquato Taffo; which fhews that the age they lived in was not fo unlearned as that which preceded, or that which followed.

The author wrote upon the four Cardinal Virtues; but

I have tranflated only the two firft, not to turn the kindness I intended to him into an injury; for the two laft are little more than repetitions and recitals of the firft; and (to make a just excuse for him) they could not well be otherwife, fince the two laft virtues are but defcendants from the firft; Prudence being the true mother of Temperance, and true Fortitude the child of Juftice.

WISDOM's first progrefs is, to take a view

What's decent or indecent, falfe or true.

He's truly prudent, who can feparate
Honeft from vile, and ftill adhere to that;
Their difference to meafure, and to reach,
Reason well rectify'd must nature teach.
And these high fcrutinies are fubjects fit
For man's all-fearching and enquiring wit;
That fearch of knowledge did from Adam flow;
Who wants it, yet abhors his wants to fhow.
Wisdom of what herself approves, makes choice,
Nor is led captive by the common voice.
Clear-fighted Reafon Wisdom's judgment leads,
And Senfe, her vaffal, in her footsteps treads.
That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know,
To thee all her fpecific forms I'll fhow;

He