On Mr. DRYDEN'S RELIGIO LAICI.
By the Earl of RoscoMMON.
E gone, you flaves, you idle vermin go,
Let free, impartial, men from Dryden learn
Mysterious fecrets, of a high concern,
And weighty truths, folid convincing sense,
Explain'd by unaffected eloquence.
What can you (Reverend Levi) here take ill?
Men ftill had faults, and men will have them still;
He that hath none, and lives as angels do,
Muft be an angel; but what's that to you?
While mighty Lewis finds the pope too great,
And dreads the yoke of his impofing feat,
Our fects a more tyrannic power affume,
And would for scorpions change the rods of Rome;
That church detain'd the legacy divine;
Fanatics caft the pearls of heaven to swine:
What then have thinking honest men to do,
But chuse a mean between th' ufurping two ?
VOL. I.
Nor can th' Ægyptian patriarch blame thy mufe,
Which for his firmness does his heat excuse;
Whatever councils have approv'd his creed,
The preface fure was his own act and deed.
Our church will have that preface read, you'll fay :
'Tis true: but so she will th' Apocrypha;
And fuch as can believe them, freely may.
But did that God (so little understood)
Whose darling attribute is being good,
From the dark womb of the rude chaos bring
Such various creatures and make man their king,
Yet leave his favourite man, his chiefeft care,
More wretched than the vilest insects are ?
O! how much happier and more safe are they?
If helpless millions must be doom'd a prey
To yelling furies, and for ever burn
In that fad place from whence is no return,
For unbelief in one they never knew,
Or for not doing what they could not do !
The very fiends know for what crime they fell,
And fo do all their followers that rebel :
If then a blind, well-meaning, Indian stray,
Shall the great gulph be shew'd him for the way?
For better ends our kind Redeemer dy'd,
Or the faln angels room will be but ill fupply'd.
That Chrift, who at the great deciding day,
(For he declares what he resolves to say)
Will damn the goats for their ill-natur'd faults,
And fave the sheep for actions, not for thoughts,
Hath too much mercy to fend men to hell,
For humble charity, and hoping well..
To what stupidity are zealots grown,
Whose inhumanity, profufely shown
In damning crowds of fouls, may damn their own.
I'll err at least on the fecurer fide,
A convert free from malice and from pride.
To my Friend, Mr. JOHN DRYDEN, on his several excellent Tranflations of the ancient Poets.
By G. GRANVILLE, Lord LANSDOWNE.
AS flow'rs, transplanted from a fouthern iky,
But hardly bear, or in the raising die;
Miffing their native fun, at best retain
But a faint odour, and survive with pain:
Thus ancient wit, in modern numbers taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a senselefs draught.
While we transfuse, the nimble fpirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.
Who then to copy Roman wit defire,
Must imitate with Roman force and fire,
In elegance of style and phrase the fame,
And in the sparkling genius, and the flame.
Whence we conclude from thy tranflated fong,
So just, so smooth, so soft, and yet so strong,
Cœleftial poet! foul of harmony!
That every genius was reviv'd in thee.
Thy trumpet founds, the dead are rais'd to light,
Never to die, and take to heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays they shine,
All glorified, immortal, and divine.
As Britain in rich foil abounding wide,
Furnish'd for use, for luxury, and pride,
Yet spreads her wanton fails on every shore
For foreign wealth, infatiate still of more;
To her own wool the filks of Afia joins,
And to her plenteous harvests India's mines;
So Dryden, not contented with the fame
Of his own works, though an immortal name,
To lands remote sends forth his learned muse,
The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose :
Feasting our fense so many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise?
That, by comparing others, all might fee,
Who most excel, are yet excell'd by thee.
To Mr. DRYDEN, by JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq. How long, great poet, shall thy facred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praisfe! Can neither injuries of time, or age, Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage? Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote ;
Grief chill'd his breast, and check'd his rifing thought; Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.
Prevailing warmth has still thy mind poffeft,
And fecond youth is kindled in thy breast.
Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own:
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teachest Perfius to inform our ifle
In finoother numbers, and a clearer style:
And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,
Edges his fatire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy cafts a fairer light on all,
And still outshines the bright original.
Now Ovid boafts th' advantage of thy fong,
And tells his story in the British tongue;
Thy charming verse, and fair tranflations show
How thy own laurel first began to grow;
How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry Gods,
And frighted at himself, ran howling thro' the woods.
O may'st thou still the noble tale prolong,
Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy fong:
Then may we wondering read, how human limbs
Have water'd kingdoms, and diffolv'd in streams,
Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold :
How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,
Have liv'd a second life, and different natures try'd.
Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal
A nobler change than he himself can tell.
Mag. Coll. Oxon.
June 2, 1693.
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