Amazed Anne with speed ascends the stairs,
And in her arms her dying fister rears :
Did you for this, yourself, and me beguile ?
For fuch an end did I erect this pile?
Did you so much despise me, in this fate
Myself with you not to affociate ?
Yourself and me, alas! this fatal wound
The senate, 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 i
Thrice with her arm the Queen attempts to rise,
But her ftrength failing, falls into a swound,
Life's last efforts yet striving with her wound;
Thrice on her bed fhe turns, with wandering fight
Seeking, fhe groans when she 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 straight bereaves
Her corpse of sense, and th' air her foul receives.
Going this laft 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 translation, which (being out of print) I had never feen 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 shall 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 obfolete 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 fince with the fifter of Cardinal Mazarine; he was contemporary to Petrarch, and Mantuan, and not long before Torquato
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 first, 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 otherwise, 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 firft progress 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 measure, and to reach,
Reafon well rectify'd muft nature teach.
And these high scrutinies 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 Wifdom'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 specific forms I'll show ;
He that the way to honefty will learn,
Firft what's to be avoided muft difcern.
Thyself from flattering self-conceit defend,
Nor what thou dost not know, to know pretend.
Some fecrets deep in abftrufe darkness lie;
To fearch them thou wilt need a piercing eye.
Nor rafhly therefore to fuch things affent,
Which undeceiv'd, thou after may'st repent;
Study and time in these must thee inftruct,
And others old experience may conduct.
Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend
To counfel offer'd by a faithful friend.
In equal fcales two doubtful matters lay,
Thou may'st chufe fafely that which most doth weigh; 'Tis not fecure, this place or that to guard,
If any other entrance ftand unbarr'd;
He that escapes the ferpent's teeth may fail,
If he himself fecures not from his tail.
Who faith, who could fuch ill events expect?
With fhame on his own counfels doth reflect.
Moft in the world doth felf-conceit deceive,
Who juft and good, whate'er they act, believe;
To their wills wedded, to their errors flaves,
No man (like them) they think himself behaves.
This ftiff-neck'd pride nor art nor force can bend,
Nor high-flown hopes to Reafon's lure defcend.
Fathers fometimes their children's faults regard
With pleasure, and their crimes with gifts reward.
Ill painters, when they draw, and poets write,
Virgil and Titian (felf admiring) flight;
Then all they do, like gold and pearl appears,
And other actions are but dirt to theirs.
They that fo highly think themselves above
All other men, themselves can only love;
Reason and virtue, all that man can boast
O'er other creatures, in those brutes are loft.
Observe (if thee this fatal error touch,
Thou to thyfelf contributing too much)
Those who are generous, humble, just, and wise,
Who not their gold, nor themselves idolize;
To form thyfelf by their example learn
(For many eyes can more than one discern);
But yet beware of counfels when too full,
Number makes long difputes and graveness dull;
Though their advice be good, their counfel wife,
Yet length ftill lofes opportunities:
Debate destroys difpatch; as fruits we fee
Rot, when they hang too long upon the tree;
In vain that husbandman his feed doth fow,
If he his crop not in due feafon mow.
A general fets his army in array
In vain, unless he fight, and win the day.
'Tis virtuous action that must praise bring forth,
Without which flow advice is little worth.
Yet they who give good counfel, praife deferve,
Though in the active part they cannot ferve
In action, learned counsellors their age,
Profeffion, or disease, forbids t' engage.
Nor to philofophers is praise deny'd,
Whose wife inftructions after-ages guide;
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