But when I thought all danger past. And broke the bones, and scorch'd the marrow, V. Age. OFT' am I by the women told, Poor Anacreon! thou grow'ft old, Look how thy hairs are falling all; Poor Anacreon! how they fall! Whether I grow old or no, By th' effects I do not know; This I know without being told, "Tis time to live if I grow old; "Tis time fhort pleafures now to take, Of little life the best to make, And manage wifely the laft ftake. VI. The Account. WHEN all the ftars are by thee told, Three hundred more at Rhodes and Crete; Go on, this ftop why doft thou make? Thou think'ft, perhaps, that I mistake. Seems this to thee too great a fum ? Why, many thousands are to come; The mighty Xerxes could not boast Such diff'rent nations in his hoft. On; for my love, if thou be'ft weary, Muft find fome better fecretary. I have not yet my Perfian told, Nor yet my Syrian loves inroll'd, A MIGHTY pain to love it is, A curfe on her, and on the man, A curfe on him who found the ore! A curfe, all curfes elfe above, VIII. The Epicure. FILL the bowl with rofy wine, UNDERNE IX. Another. NEATH this myrtle shade, On flow'ry beds fupinely laid, With od'rous oils my head o'erflowing, And around it rofes growing, What should I do but drink away The heat and troubles of the day? In this more than kingly state, Love himself fhall on me wait. Fill to me, Love! nay fill it up, And mingled caft into the cup Wit and mirth, and noble fires, Vigorous health, and gay defires. The wheel of life no lefs will stay In a smooth than rugged way; Since it equally doth flee, Let the motion pleasant be. Why do we precious ointments fhow'r, Let me alive your pleasures have, X. The Grafhopper. HAPPY infect! what can be Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Thee Phœbus loves, and does infpire; To thee of all things upon earth, Life is no longer than thy mirth. Happy Infect! happy thou, Doft neither age nor winter know: But when thou 'ft drunk, and danc'd, and fung Thy fill, the flow'ry leaves among, (Voluptuous, and wife withal, Epicurean animal!) Sated with thy fummer feaft, Thou retir'ft to endless rest. Free from th' ill thou' ft done to me; Elegy upon Anacreon, who was choaked by a grapéfone. Spoken by the God of Love. How fhall I lament thine end, My beft fervant and my friend? It found not too profane and odd, I am in naked Nature lefs, Lefs by much than in thy drefs. Some do but their youth allow me, More inflam'd thy amorous rage; Had I the power of creation, They, like thee, fhould thoroughly hate Their cheerful heads fhould always wear And dance, and strike th' harmonious string. Curfed Plant! I lov'd thee well, It grieves me when I fee what fate Can arm against Death's fmalleft dart All the world's mortal to 'em then, As wine is aconite to men : Nay, in Death's hand the Grape-flone proves As ftrong as thunder is in Jove's. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO HIS FIRST BOOK OF PLANTS. PUBLISHED BEFORE THE REST. CONSIDERING the incredible veneration which the beft poets always had for gardens, fields, and woods, infomuch that in all other fubjects they feemed to be banished from the Mufes' territories, I wondered what evil planet was fo malicious to the breed of Plants, as to permit none of the infpired tribe to celebrate their beauty and admirable virtues; certainly a copious field of matter, and what would yield them a plentiful return of fruit, where each particular, befides its pleasant history, (the extent whereof every body, or, to speak more truly, nobody, can fufficiently understand) contains the whole fabric of the human frame, and a complete body of phyfic: from whence I am induced to believe, that thofe great men did not fo much think them improper fub-, jeas of poetry, as difcouraged by the greatnefs and almoft inexplicable variety of the matter, and that they were unwilling to begin a work which they defpaired of finishing. I, therefore, who am but a pigmy in learning, and fcarce fufficient to exprefs the virtues of the vile fea-weed, attempt that work which thofe giants declin'd! Yet wherefore fhould I not attempt? forafmuch as they difdained to take up with lefs than comprehending the whole, and I am proud of conquering fome part. I fhall think it reputation enough for me to have my name carved on the barks of fome Trees or (what is reckoned a royal prerogative) infcribed upon a few Flowers. You must not, therefore, expect to find fo many Herbs collected for this fardel as fometimes go to the compounding of one fingle medicine; thefe two little Books are therefore offered as fmall pills made up of fundry Herbs, and gilt with a certain brightness of ftyle; in the choice whereof I have not much laboured but took them as they came to hand, there being none amongit them which contained not plenty of juice, if it were drawn out according to art; none fo infipid that would not afford matter for a whole book, if well contracted. The method which I judged moft genuine and proper for this Work, was not to prefs out their liquid crude, in a simple I have added short Notes, not for oftentation of learning, (whereof there is no occafion here offered; for what is more eafy than to turn over one or two herbalifts) but because that, befide phyficians, (whom I pretend not to inftruct, but divert) there are few fo well versed in the hiftory of Plants as to be acquainted with the names of them all: it is a part of philofophy that lies out of the com mon road of learning. To fuch perfons I was to fupply the place of a lexicon. But for the fake of the very Plants themselves, left the treating of them in a poetical way might derogate from their real merit, and that fhould feem not to attribute to them thofe faculties wherewith Nature has en dued them, (who ftudies what is best to be done, not what is most capable of verbal ornaments) but to have feigned those qualities which would afford the greatest matter for pomp and empty pleasure : for, becaufe poets are fometimes allowed to make fictions, and fome have too exceflively abused that liberty, truft is fo wholly denied to us, that we may not without hesitation be believed when we fay, O Laertlade, quicquid dicam, aut erit, aut non. Hor. Serm. 25 I was therefore willing to cite proper witneffes, that is, fuch as wrote in loofe and free prose, which, compared with verfe, bears the authority of an oath. I have yet contented myself with two of those, (which is the number required by law) Pliny and Fernclius I have chiefly made choice of, the first being an author of unquestioned Latin, and the latter amongst the Moderns of the trueft fentiments, and no ill mafter of expreflion. If any except against the former as teo credulous of the Greckish idle tales, that he may not, safely be cre dited, he will find nothing in this fubject mentioned by him which is not reprefented by all that write of Herbs. Nor would I have the reader, because I have made my Plants to difcourfe, forthwith (as if he were in Dodona's grove) to expect oracles, which, I fear, my veries will only refemble in this, that they are as bad metre as what the gods of old delivered from their temples to those who confulted them. nifhed you with what is agreeable to your appe Having given you this account, if any fhall light upon this Book, who have read my former, publishing the first in that adventure, he opened the way ed not long fince by me in English, I fear they may take occafion, from thence, of reprehending fome things, concerning which it will not be impertinent briefly to clear myself before I proceed. In the first place, I foresee that I fhall be accufed by fome of too much delicacy and levity, in that having undertaken great fubjects, and after a day or two's journey, I have ftopt, through laziness and defpondency of reaching home; or poffeffed with fome new frenzy, have ftartled into fome other road, infomuch that not only the half, as they fay, but the third part of the tafk has been. greater than my whole performance: "Away," they cry, "with this defultory writer : yet with what fpirit, "what voice, threatening mighty matters, he begins, Of war and turns of Fate I fing.. "Thou fing of wars, thou Daftard who throwest away thy arms fo foon, or betakeft thyfelf to "the cneniy's camp, a renegade, before the firft charge is founded! or if at any time thou ad"ventureft to engage, it is like the ancient Gauls, "making the onfet with more than the courage "of a man, and prefently retreating with more "When thou thyfelf," say they," haft thus de clared, with the approbation of all good men, "and given an example, in thy Davideis, for "others to imitate, doft thou, like an apoftate "Jew, loathing manna, return to the leeks and "garlic of Egypt? After the appearance of Chrift "himfelf in thy verfe, and inpofing filence on "the oracles of demons, fhall we again hear the than that of coward; whereas he that has once "applied himself to a poem, as if he had married "a wife, fhould stick to it for better for worfe; "whether the matter be grateful and eafy, or harsh and almost intractable, ought neither to quit it "for tiresomeness, nor be diverted by new loves," voice of Apollo from thy profane tripod? After "nor think of a divorce, or at any time to relin quifh, till he has brought it to a conclufion, as "wedlock terminates with life." This is imputed to me as a fault; and fince I cannot deny the charges, whether I am therein to be blamed or not, let us examine. "the restoration of Sion, and the purgation of it In the first place, therefore, that which is most truly afferted of human life is too applicable to my poetry, that it is best never to have been born, or, being born, forthwith to die; and if my Eilays should be carried on to their Omega, (to which the works of Homer, by a peculiar felicity, were continued vigorous) there would be great danger of their falling into dotage before that time. The only thing that can recommend trifles, or make them tolerable, is, that they give off feafonably, that is, fuddenly; for that author goes very much too far who leaves his reader tired behind him. Thefe confiderations, if I write ill, will excufe my brevity, though not fo easily excufe the under taking; nor hall my inconftancy in not finishing what I have begun, be fo much blamed, as my conftancy in ceafing not continually to begin, and being, like Fortune, conftent in levity. But if, Reader (as it is my defire) we have fur-Pfalm civ. ver. 14. A heavy charge indeed, and terrible at the firft fight: but I esteem that which celebrates the wonderful works of Providence not to be far diftant from a facred poem. Nothing can be found more admirable in Nature than the virtues of feveral Plants; therefore, amongst other things of a most noble ftrain, the divine poet upon that account praifes the Deity, "who brings forth grafs upon the mountains, and herbs for the ufe of man," Nor do I think the liberty in |