You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen worthy Lady Mary!
But when no Prelate's Lawn with hair-hirt lin'd,
Is half fo incoherent as my Mind,

166

When (each opinion with the next at ftrife,
One ebb and flow of Follies all my life)

S

I' plant, root up; I build, and then confound;

Turn round to fquare, and square again to round;

171

You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this Madness but a common cafe,
Nor once to Chanc'ry, nor to Hale apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a Seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree,

Kind to my dress, my figure, not to Me.
Is this my * Guide, Philofopher, and Friend?
This he, who loves me, and who ought to mend;
Who ought to make me (what he can, or none,)
That Man divine whom Wisdom calls her own; 180
Great without Title, without Fortune blefs'd;
Richev'n when plunder'd, honour'd while op-

W

175

prefs'd;

b

Lov'd without youth, and follow'd without pow'r;
At home, tho' exil'd; free, tho' in the Tower;
In short, that reas'ning, high, immortal Thing; 185
Just less than Jove, and much above a King,
Nay, half in heav'n- except (what's mighty odd)

с

THE

SIXTH EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK

O F

HORA C E.

N

EPISTOLA VI.

IL admirari, prope res eft una, Numici,

Solaque quae poffit facere et fervare beatum.

Hunc folem, et ftellas, & decedentia certis Tempora momentis, funt qui formidine nulla

с

Imbuti fpectent. quid cenfes, munera terrae? Quid, maris extremos Arabas ditantis et Indos?

e

VER. 3. dear MURRAY,] This Piece is the most finished of all his imitations, and executed in the high manner the Italian Painters call con amore. By which they mean, the exertion of that principle, which puts the faculties on the stretch, and produces the fupreme degree of excellence. For the Poet bad all the warmth of affection for the great Lawyer to whom it is addreffed: and, indeed, no man ever more deserved to have a Poet for bis friend. In the obtaining of which, as neither Vanity, Party, nor Fear, had any fhare; fo he fupported his title to it by all the offices of true Friendship.

VER. 4. Creech] From whofe tranflation of Horace the two firft lines are taken.

Vin. 6. flars that rife and fall,] The original is,

decedentia certis

Tempora momentis

OT to admire, is all the Art I know, To make men happy, and to keep them fo." (Plain Truth, dear MURRAY, needs no flow'rs of

N

fpeech,

So take it in the very words of Creech.)

b This Vault of Air, this congregated Ball,
Self-center'd Sun, and Stars that rife and fall,
There are, my Friend! whofe philofophic eyes
Look thro', and trust the Ruler with his skies,
To him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful All without a fear.
Admire we then what Earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian fhores, or Indian feas infold;
All the mad trade of Fools and Slaves for Gold?

C

d

C

which words fimply and literally fignify, the change of seafons. But this change being confidered as an object of admiration, his imitator has judiciously expressed it in the more sublime figurative terms of

:

Stars that rife and fall.

by whose courses the feafons are marked and distinguished.

VER. 8. trust the Ruler with bis Skies. To bim commit the kour,] Our Author, in these imitations, has been all along careful to correct the loofe morals, and abfurd divinity of his Ori