NIGHTINGALE. See Creation. Light.
The Night-warbling Bird
Tunes sweetest her Love-labour'd Song.
She all Night long her am'rous Defcant fings.
Trills her thick-warbled Notes the Summer long.
So, close in Poplar Shades, her Children gone,
The Mother Nightingale laments alone:
Whofe Neft fome prying Churl had found, and thence,
By Stealth, convey'd th' anfeather'd Innocence.
But fhe fupplies the Night with mournful Strains,
And melancholy Mufick fills the Plains.
Dryd. Virg
Thus, in fome Poplar Shade, the Nightingale,
With piercing Moans does her loft Young bewail:
Which the rough Hind, obferving as they lay
Warm in their downy Neft, had ftol'n away:
But fhe in mournful Sounds does ftill complain,
Sings all the Night, tho' all her Songs are vain,
And ftill renews her miferable Strain.
So when the Nightingale to Reft removes,
The Thrush may chaunt to the forfaken Groves;
But, charm'd to Silence, liftens while the fings,
And all th' aerial Audience clap their Wings.
NOBILITY. See Baftard.
Nobility of Blood
Is but a glitt'ring and fallacious Good:
The Nobleman is he, whofe noble Mind
Is fill'd with in-bred Worth, unborrow'd from his Kind.
The King of Heav'n was in a Manger laid,
And took his Earth but from an humble Maid:
Then what can Birth on mortal Men beftow,
Since Floods no higher than their Fountains flow?
We, who for Name and empty Honour strive,
Our true Nobility from him derive.
Your Ancestors, who puff your Mind with Pride,
And vaft Eftates, to mighty Titles ty'd,
Did not your Honour, but their own, advance;
For Virtue comes not by Inheritance:
If you tralin'ate from your Father's Mind,
What are you else but of a Bastard Kind?
Do as your great Progenitors have done,
And by your Virtues prove yourfelf their Son. Dryd. Wife of
Virtue alone is true Nobility:
Let your own Acts immortalize your Name;
'Tis poor relying on another's Fame :
For take the Pillars but away, and all
The Superftructure must in Ruins fall:
As a Vine droops when by Divorce remov'd
From the Embraces of the Elm she lov'd.
Search we the Springs,
And backward trace the Principles of Things;
There fhall we find, that, when the World began,
One common Mafs compos'd the Mould of Man;
One Paste of Flesh on all Degrees bestow'd,
And kneaded up alike with moift'ning Blood.
The fame Almighty Power infpir'd the Frame
With kindled Life, and form'd the Souls the same ;
The Faculties of Intellect and Will
Difpens'd with equal Hand, difpos'd with equal Skill;
Like Liberty indulg'd with Choice of Good or Ill.
Thus born alike, from Virtue first began
The Diff'rence that diftinguifh'd Man from Man.
He claim'd no Title from Defcent of Blood;
But that which made him noble, made him good.
Warm'd with more Particles of heav'nly Flame,
He wing'd his upward Flight, and foar'd to Fame;
The reft remain❜d below, a Tribe without a Name.
This Law, tho' Custom now diverts the Course,
As Nature's Inftitute, is yet in Force:
Uncancel'd, tho' difus'd; and he whose Mind
Is virtuous, is alone of noble Kind;
Tho' poor in Fortune, of celeftial Race:
And he commits the Crime who calls him base.
Ev'n mighty Monarchs oft are meanly born,
And Kings by Birth to lowest Ranks return:
All fubject to the Pow'r of giddy Chance!
For Fortune can deprefs, and can advance.
But true Nobility is of the Mind,
(Sig. & Guife. Not giv'n by Chance, and not to Chance refign'd. Dryd. No Father can infuse or Wit or Grace:
A Mother comes across, and marrs the Race ;
A Grandfire or a Grandame taints the Blood;
And feldom three Defcents continue good.
Were Virtue by Descent, a noble Name
Could never vilinize his Father's Fame:
But, as the firft, the laft of all the Line,
Would, like the Sun, ev'n in defcending shine.
Nobility of Blood is but Renown
Of thy great Fathers, by their Virtue known,
And a long Trail of Light to thee defcending down.
If in thy Smoak it ends, their Glories fhine,
But Infamy and Vilenage are thine. Dryd. Wife of Bath's Tale.
And ftill more publick Scandal Vice extends,
As he is Great and Noble who offends.
Faireft Piece of well form'd Earth,
Urge not thus your haughty Birth.
The Pow'r which you have o'er us lies
Not in your Race, but in your Eyes.
The Sap, which at the Root is bred,
In Trees, thro' all the Boughs is spread;
But Virtues, which in Parents shine,
Make not like Progrefs thro' the Line.
'Tis Art and Knowledge which draw forth
The hidden Seeds of native Worth:
They blow thofe Sparks, and make 'em rise
Into fuch Flames as touch the Skies.
To the old Heroes hence was giv'n
A Pedigree that reach'd to Heav'n.
Of mortal Seed they were not held,
Who other Mortals fo excell'd:
And Beauty too, in fuch Excess
As yours, Zelinda, claims no lefs.
Smile but on me, and you shall scorn
Henceforth to be of Princes born.
I can describe the fhady Grove,
Where your lov'd Mother flept with Jove;
And yet excufe the faultlefs Dame,
Caught with her Spoufe's Shape and Name.
Thy matchlefs Form will Credit bring
To all the Wonders I fhall fing.
The firy Sun has finish'd half his Race.
The fouthing Sun inflames the Day,
And the dry Herbage thirfts for Dews in vain ;
And Sheep, in Shades, avoid the parching Plain, Dryd. Virg.
Does now fit high in his meridian Tow'r ;
Shoots down direct his fervid Rays, to warm
Earth's inmoft Womb.
Nothing, thou elder Brother, ev'n to Shade! Thou had it a Being ere the World was made, And, well-fix'd, art alone of ending not afraid. Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not; When primitive Nothing Something ftrait begot: Then all proceeded from the great unitedSomething, the nat'ral Attribute of all, Sever'd from thee, its fole Original,
Into thy boundlefs Self muft undistinguish'd fall.
Yet Something did thy mighty Pow'r command,
And from thy fruitful Emptinefs's Hand
Snatch'd Men, Beafts, Birds, Fire, Water, Air, and Land.
Matter, the wicked'ft Off-fpring of thy Race,
By Form affifted, flew from thy Embrace,
And Rebel Light obfcur'd thy rev'rend dufky Face.
With Form and Matter Time and Place did join;
Body, thy Foe, with thefe did Leagues combine,
To spoil thy peaceful Reign, and ruin all thy Line.
Yet Turn-coat Time affifts thy Foes in vain,
And, brib'd by thee, deftroys their fhort-liv'd Reign;
And to thy hungry Womb drives back thy Slaves again.
Thefe Myfteries are barr'd from Laicks Eyes,
And the Divine alone with Warrant pries
Into thy Bofom, where the Truth in private lies;
Yet this of thee the Wife may truly fay,
Thou from the Virtuous nothing tak'ft away;
And to be Part of thee the Wicked wifely pray.
Great Negative! how vainly would the Wife
Enquire, define, diftinguifh, teach, devife,
Did't thou not itand to point their dull Philofophies!
Is, or is not the two great Ends of Fate;
And true or falfe, the Subject of Debate,
That perfect or deftroy the vaft Designs of Fate;
When they have rack'd the Politician's Breaft,
Within thy Bofom moft fecurely reft,
And, when reduc'd to thee, are least unfafe and best.
Nothing, who dwell'ft with Fools in grave Difguife,
For whom they rev'rend Shapes and Forms devife,
Lawn Sleeves, and Furs, and Gowns, when they, like
(thee, look wife..
French Truth, Dutch Prowefs, British Policy,
Hibernian Learning, Scotch Civility,
Spaniards Dispatch, Danes Wit, are mainly feen in thee.
The Great Man's Gratitude to his best Friend,
King's Promife, Whores Vows, to thee they tend,
Flow fwiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.
NOVELTY.
All Novelties muft this Succefs expect,
When good, our Envy; and when bad, Neglect.
Actions of the last Age, are like Almanacks of the laft
And, when remote in Time, like Objects
Remote in Place, are not beheld at half their Greatness. And what is new, finds better Acceptation
Than what is good and great.
NUNNERY.
Oh! fhut me in a Cloyfter: There, well pleas'd,
Religious Hardfhips I will learn to bear,
To faft and freeze at Midnight Hours of Pray'r:
Nor think it hard within a lonely Cell,
With melancholy fpeechlefs Saints to dwell;
But blefs the Day I to that Refuge ran,
Free from the Marriage-Chain, and from that Tyrant, Man
Some folitary Cloyfter will I chufe,
And there with holy Virgins live immur'd:
Coarfe my Attire, and fhort fhall be my Sleep,
Broke by the melancholy Midnight Bell:
There hoard up ev'ry Moment of my Life,
To lengthen out the Payment of my Tears.
Fafting, and Tears, and Penitence, and Pray'r,
Shall do dead Sancho Juftice ev'ry Hour:
"Till ev'n fierce Raymond at the last shall say,
Now let her die, for fhe has griev'd enough. Dryd Span. Fry
OAK. See Fighting at Sea. Trees.
The Monarch Oak, the Patriarch of Trees,
Shoots rifing up, and fpreads by flow Degrees:
Three Centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in State; and in three more decays. Dryd, Ovid.
Jove's own Tree,
That holds the Woods in awful Sov'reignty,
Requires a Depth of Lodging in the Ground,
And, next the lower Skies, a Bed profound;
High as his topmaft Boughs to Heav'n afcend,
So low his Roots to Hell's Dominion tend;
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