Thy trumpet founds, the dead are rais'd to light,
Never to die, and take to heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verfe, 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 Asia 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 fends forth his learned muse,
The nobleft feeds of foreign wit to choose :
Feafting our fense fo many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirft of praise ?
That, by comparing others, all might fee,
Who moft excel, are yet excell'd by thee.
To Mr. DRYDEN, by JOSEPH ADDISON, Efq.
HOW long, great poet, fhall thy facred lays
Provoke our wonder, and tranfcend our praise!
Can neither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
Not fo thy Ovid in his exile wrote;
Grief chill'd his breaft, and check'd his rifing thought';
Penfive and fad, his drooping muse betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.
Prevailing warmth has ftill thy mind possest,
fecond youth is kindled in thy breast.
Thou mak'ft 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 teacheft Perfius to inform our ifle
In fimoother numbers, and a clearer style :
And Juyenal, inftructed in thy page,
Edges his fatire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy cafts a fairer light on all,
And still outfhines the bright original.
Now Ovid boasts th' advantage of thy song,
And tells his story in the British tongue;
Thy charming verfe, and fair translations show
How thy own laurel firft 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,
age, nor fickness interrupt thy fong:
Then may we wondering read, how human limbs
Have water'd kingdoms, and diffolv'd in streams,
Of thofe rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold:
How fome in feathers, or a ragged hide,
Have liv'd a fecond 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.
Oh! lyre divine, what daring fpirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample, pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with fupreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms, as glitter in the Mufe's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the fun :
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate
Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.
Upon the DEATH of Lord HASTINGS.
UST noble Haftings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding sheet?
Muft virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?
Is death, fin's wages, grace's now ? fhall art
Make us more learned, only to depart ?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himfelf to difcipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study self-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces fecurely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguift whofe worth speaks itself, whose praise,
Though not his own, all tongues befides do raise :
Than whom great Alexander may feem lefs;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations fpake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.
His native foil was the four parts o'th' earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apostle; and with reverence may
I fpeak it, infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft strive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul
Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole:
Whofe regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' fphere, the heavens did fhew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his foul; and thence
Shone through his body, with sweet influence;
Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celeftial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and tryal make,
If thou this hero's altitude cant take :
But that tranfcends thy skill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus aftronomical.
Liv'd Tycho now, ftruck with this ray which fhone
More bright i'th' morn', than others beam at noon,
He'd take his aftrolabe, and feek out here
What new ftar 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as thefe,
Where was room left for fuch a foul disease?
The nation's fin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
day-fpring in fo fad benighting clouds,
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