Let those which only warble long,
And gargle in their throats a fong,
Content themfelves with Ut, Re, Mi:
Let words and fenfe be fet by thee.
TO SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT, Upon his Two First Books of GONDIBERT, written in FRANCE.
'HUS the wife nightingale, that leaves her home, Her native wood, when storms and winter come; Pursuing conftantly the chearful fpring,
To foreign groves does her old music bring.
The drooping Hebrews' banish'd harps, unftrung At Babylon, upon the willows hung:
Yours founds aloud, and tells us you excel
No lefs in courage, than in finging well;
While, unconcern'd, you let your country know,
They have impoverish'd themselves, not you:
Who, with the Mufes' help, can mock thofe fates
Which threaten kingdoms, and diforder ftates.
So Ovid, when from Cæfar's rage he fled,
The Roman Mufe to Pontus with him led:
Where he fo fung, that we, through pity's glass,
See Nero milder than Auguftus was.
Hereafter fuch, in thy behalf, shall be
Th' indulgent cenfure of pofterity.
To banish those who with such art can fing,
Is a rude crime, which its own curse doth bring:
Ages to come fhall ne'er know how they fought,
Nor how to love their prefent youth be taught.
This to thyfelf.-Now to thy matchlefs book:
Wherein those few that can with judgment look,
May find old love in pure fresh language told;
Like new stamp'd coin, made out of Angel-gold:
Such truth in love as th' antique world did know,
In fuch a ftyle as Courts may boast of now:
Which no bold tales of Gods or monfters fwell,
But human paffions, fuch as with us dwell.
Man is thy theme; his virtue, or his rage,
Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.
Mars, nor Bellona, are not named here;
But fuch a Gondibert as both might fear :
Venus had here, and Hebe, been outshin'd,
By thy bright Birtha, and thy Rhodalind.
Such is thy happy skill, and such the odds
Betwixt thy Worthies, and the Grecian Gods!
Whofe Deities in vain had here come down,
Where mortal beauty wears the fovereign crown:
Such as, of flesh compos'd, by flesh and blood,
Though not refifted, may be understood.
TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MR. WASE, The Tranflator of GRATIUS.
HUS, by the mufic, we may know
When noble wits a-hunting go, Through groves that on Parnaffus grow.
The Mufes all the chace adorn;
My friend on Pegafus is borne:
And young Apollo winds the horn,
Having old Gratius in the wind,
No pack of critics e'er could find,
Or he know more of his own mind.
Here huntsmen with delight may
How to chufe dogs, for fcent or speed;
And how to change or mend the breed:
What arms to use, or nets to frame,
Wild beafts to combat, or to tame :
With all the mysteries of that
But, worthy friend! the face of war
In antient times doth differ far,
From what our fiery battles are.
Nor is it like, fince powder known,
That man, fo cruel to his own,
Should fpare the race of beafts alone.
No quarter now: but with the gun
Men wait in trees, from fun to fun;
And all is in a moment done.
And therefore we expect your next
Should be no comment, but a text;
To tell how modern beafts are vext.
Thus would I further yet engage
Your gentle Muse to court the age
With fomewhat of your proper rage:
Since none doth more to Phoebus owe,
Or in more languages can show
Thofe arts, which you fo early know.
To his worthy Friend Mafter EVELYN,
Upon his Tranflation of LUCRETIUS.
UCRETIUS (with a stork-like fate,
Born and tranflated in a ftate)
Comes to proclaim in English verfe,
No monarch rules the univerfe:
But chance and atoms make this ALL
In order democratical;
Where bodies freely run their course,
Without defign, or fate, or force.
And this in fuch a ftrain he fings,
As if his Mufe, with Angels' wings,
Had foar'd beyond our utmost sphere,
And other worlds difcover'd there.
For his immortal, boundless wit,
To nature does no bounds permit;
But boldly has remov'd those bars
Of heaven, and earth, and feas, and stars,
By which they were before fuppos'd,
By narrow wits, to be inclos'd;
Till his free Mufe threw down the pale,
And did at once difpark them all.
So vaft this argument did seem,
That the wife author did efteem
The Roman language (which was spread
O'er the whole world, in triumph led)
A tongue too narrow to unfold
The wonders which he would have told.
This fpeaks thy glory, noble friend!
And British language does commend :
For here, Lucretius whole we find,
His words, his music, and his mind.
Thy art has to our country brought
All that he writ, and all he thought.
Ovid translated, Virgil too,
Shew'd long fince what our tongue could do:
Nor Lucan we, nor Horace fpar'd;
Only Lucretius was too hard.
Lucretius, like a Fort, did ftand
Untouch'd; till your victorious hand
Did from his head this garland bear,
Which now upon your own you wear.
A garland! made of fuch new bays,
And fought in fuch untrodden ways;
As no man's temples e'er did crown,
Save this great author's, and your own.
To his worthy Friend Sir THOMAS HIGGONS, Upon his Translation of the VENETIAN TRIUMPH.
HE* winged lion's not fo fierce in fight,
As Liberi's hand prefents him to our fight:
Nor would his pencil make him half so fierce,
Or roar fo loud, as Bufinello's verfe:
your tranflation does all three excel, The fight, the piece, and lofty Bufinel.
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