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His circle fills and ends where he begun,
Just as the setting meets the rising sun.
Thus princes ease their cares; but hap-
pier he

Who seeks not pleasure thro' necessity,
Than such as once on slipp'ry thrones were
plac'd;

And chasing, sigh to think themselves are chas'd.

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So liv'd our sires, ere doctors learn'd to
kill,

And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill.
The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
Pity the gen'rous kind their cares bestow
To search forbidden truths; (a sin to know:)
To which if human science could attain,
The doom of death, pronounc'd by God,
were vain.

In vain the leech would interpose delay;
Fate fastens first, and vindicates the prey.
What help from art's endeavors can we
have?

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Gibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save;
But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and
peoples ev'ry grave;

And no more mercy to mankind will use,
Than when he robb'd and murder'd Maro's
Muse.

Wouldst thou be soon dispatch'd, and per-
ish whole?

Trust Maurus with thy life, and M-lb-rne with thy soul.

By chase our long-liv'd fathers earn'd

their food;

Toil strung the nerves and purified the

blood:

But we, their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and

ten.

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Better to hunt in fields for health un-
bought

Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
The tree of knowledge, once in Eden
plac'd,

Was easy found, but was forbid the taste:
O had our grandsire walk'd without his
wife,

He first had sought the better plant of life!
Now, both are lost; yet, wand'ring in the
dark,

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Physicians, for the tree, have found the
bark.

They, lab'ring for relief of humankind,
With sharpen'd sight some remedies may
find;

Th' apothecary train is wholly blind.
From files a random recipe they take,
And many deaths of one prescription make.
Garth, gen'rous as his Muse, prescribes and
gives;

The shopman sells, and by destruction lives:
Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's
brood,

From med'cine issuing, suck their mother's blood!

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Let these obey, and let the learn'd pre-
scribe,

That men may die without a double bribe:
Let them but under their superiors kill,
When doctors first have sign'd the bloody
bill;

He scapes the best, who, nature to repair,
Draws physic from the fields, in draughts
of vital air.

You hoard not health for your own pri

vate use,

But on the public spend the rich produce;
When, often urg'd, unwilling to be great,
Your country calls you from your lov'd
retreat,

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And sends to senates, charg'd with com

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Who fights for gain, for greater makes his peace.

Our foes, compell'd by need, have peace embrac'd;

The peace both parties want is like to last: Which if secure, securely we may trade; Or, not secure, should never have been made.

Safe in ourselves, while on ourselves we stand,

The sea is ours, and that defends the land. Be, then, the naval stores the nation's care, New ships to build, and batter'd to repair.

Observe the war, in ev'ry annual course; What has been done was done with British force:

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Namur subdued is England's palm alone; The rest besieg'd, but we constrain'd the

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For ev'n when death dissolves our human frame,

The soul returns to heav'n, from whence it came;

Earth keeps the body, verse preserves the fame.

MELEAGER AND ATALANTA

OUT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES

CONNECTION TO THE FORMER STORY Ovid, having told how Theseus had freed Athens from the tribute of children which was impos'd on them by Minos, King of Creta, by killing the Minotaur, here makes a digression to the story of Meleager and Atalanta, which is one of the most inartificial connections in all the Metamorphoses: for he only says that Theseus obtain'd such honor from that combat that all Greece had recourse to him in their necessities; and, amongst others, Calydon, tho' the hero of that country, Prince Meleager, was then living.

FROM him the Calydonians sought relief, Tho' valiant Meleagrus was their chief. The cause, a boar, who ravag'd far and

near,

Of Cynthia's wrath th' avenging minister.
For Eneus, with autumnal plenty blest,
By gifts to Heav'n his gratitude express'd:
Cull'd sheafs, to Ceres; to Lyæus, wine;
To Pan and Pales, offer'd sheep and kine;
And fat of olives, to Minerva's shrine.
Beginning from the rural gods, his hand 10
Was lib'ral to the pow'rs of high command:
Each deity in ev'ry kind was blest,

Till at Diana's fane th' invidious honor ceas'd.

Wrath touches ev'n the gods; the Queen of Night,

Fir'd with disdain, and jealous of her right: "Unhonor'd tho' I am, at least," said she, "Not unreveng'd that impious act shall be." Swift as the word, she sped the boar away, With charge on those devoted fields to prey. No larger bulls th' Egyptian pastures feed, And none so large Sicilian meadows breed: His eyeballs glare with fire, suffus'd with blood;

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His neck shoots up a thickset thorny wood; His bristled back a trench impal'd appears,

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Laertes active, and Ancæus bold; Mopsus the sage, who future things foretold,

And t'other seer yet by his wife Amphiunsold.

araus.

A thousand others of immortal fame;
Among the rest fair Atalanta came,
Grace of the woods: a diamond buckle
bound

Her vest behind, that else had flow'd upon the ground,

And shew'd her buskin❜d legs; her head was bare,

But for her native ornament of hair, Which in a simple knot was tied above: Sweet negligence! unheeded bait of love! Her sounding quiver on her shoulder tied, One hand a dart, and one a bow supplied. Such was her face, as in a nymph dis-` play'd

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A fair fierce boy, or in a boy betray'd
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
The Calydonian chief at once the dame
Beheld, at once his heart receiv'd the flame,
With heav'ns averse. "O happy youth," he
cried,

"For whom thy fates reserve so fair a bride!"

He sigh'd, and had no leisure more to say; His honor call'd his eyes another way, And fore'd him to pursue the now neg

lected prey.

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There stood a forest on a mountain's brow, Which overlook'd the shaded plains below. No sounding ax presum'd those trees to

bite;

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Beats down the trees before him, shakes the ground;

The forest echoes to the crackling sound; Shout the fierce youth, and clamors ring around.

All stood with their protended spears prepar'd;

With broad steel heads the brandish'd weapons glar'd.

The beast impetuous with his tusks aside Deals glancing wounds; the fearful dogs divide:

All spend their mouth aloof, but none abide.

Echion threw the first, but miss'd his mark, And stuck his boar-spear on a maple's bark. Then Jason; and his javelin seem'd to take, But fail'd with overforce, and whizz'd above his back.

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And his red eyeballs roll with living fire. Whirl'd from a sling, or from an engine

thrown,

Amid the foes, so flies a mighty stone,
As flew the beast; the left wing put to

flight,

The chiefs o'erborne, he rushes on the right. Empalamos and Pelagon he laid

In dust, and next to death, but for their fellows' aid.

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Onesimus far'd worse, prepar'd to fly;
The fatal fang drove deep within his thigh,
And cut the nerves; the nerves no more

sustain

The bulk; the bulk unpropp'd falls headlong on the plain.

Nestor had fail'd the fall of Troy to see; But, leaning on his lance, he vaulted on a tree;

Then gath'ring up his feet, look'd down with fear,

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