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I but revenge my fate, disdained, betrayed,
And suffering death for this ungrateful maid.'
He said, at once dismounting from the steed;
For now the hell-hounds with superior speed
Had reached the dame, and, fastening on her side,
The ground with issuing streams of purple dyed;
Stood Theodore surprised in deadly fright,
With chattering teeth, and bristling hair upright;
Yet armed with inborn worth: 'Whate'er,' said he,
'Thou art, who know'st me better than I thee;
Or prove thy rightful cause, or be defied;'
The spectre, fiercely staring, thus replied:
'Know, Theodore, thy ancestry I claim,
And Guido Cavalcanti was my name.
One common sire our fathers did beget;
My name and story some remember yet:
Thee, then a boy, within my arms I laid,
When for my sins I loved this haughty maid;
Not less adored in life, nor served by me,
Than proud Honoria now is loved by thee.
What did I not her stubborn heart to gain?
But all my vows were answered with disdain:
She scorned my sorrows, and despised my pain.
Long time I dragged my days in fruitless care;
Then, loathing life, and plunged in deep despair,
To finish my unhappy life, I fell

On this sharp sword, and now am damned in hell.
'Short was her joy; for soon the insulting maid
By Heaven's decree in the cold grave was laid.
And as in unrepenting sin she died,

Doomed to the same bad place is punished for her pride;

Because she deemed I well deserved to die,

And made a merit of her cruelty.

There, then, we met; both tried, and both were

cast,

And this irrevocable sentence passed:
That she, whom I so long pursued in vain,
Should suffer from my hands a lingering pain:
Renewed to life, that she might daily die,
I daily doomed to follow, she to fly;
No more a lover, but a mortal foe,

I seek her life (for love is none below):

As often as my dogs with better speed

Arrest her flight, is she to death decreed:

Then with this fatal sword, on which I died,

I pierce her opened back or tender side,

And tear that hardened heart from out her breast,

Which, with her entrails, makes my hungry hounds a

feast.

Nor lies she long, but, as her fates ordain,
Springs up to life, and fresh to second pain,
Is saved to-day, to-morrow to be slain."

This, versed in death, the infernal knight relates,
And then for proof fulfilled their common fates;
Her heart and bowels through her back he drew,
And fed the hounds that helped him to pursue;
Stern looked the fiend, as frustrate of his will,
Not half sufficed, and greedy yet to kill.
And now the soul, expiring through the wound,
Had left the body breathless on the ground,
When thus the grisly spectre spoke again:
'Behold the fruit of ill-rewarded pain:
As many months as I sustained her hate,
So many years is she condemned by Fate
To daily death; and every several place,
Conscious of her disdain and my disgrace,
Must witness her just punishment, and be
A scene of triumph and revenge to me!
As in this grove I took my last farewell,
As on this very spot of earth I fell,
As Friday saw me die, so she my prey
Becomes even here, on this revolving day.'

Thus, while he spoke, the virgin from the ground Upstarted fresh, already closed the wound, And unconcerned for all she felt before, Precipitates her flight along the shore:

The hell-hounds, as ungorged with flesh and blood,
Pursue their prey, and seek their wonted food:
The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace,
And all the vision vanished from the place.

Long stood the noble youth oppressed with awe,
And stupid at the wondrous things he saw,
Surpassing common faith, transgressing Nature's law.
He would have been asleep, and wished to wake,
But dreams, he knew, no long impression make,
Though strong at first; if vision, to what end,
But such as must his future state portend,
His love the damsel, and himself the fiend?
But yet, reflecting that it could not be

From Heaven, which cannot impious acts decree,
Resolved within himself to shun the snare
Which hell for his destruction did prepare;
And, as his better genius should direct,
From an ill cause to draw a good effect.

Inspired from Heaven, he homeward took his way,
Nor palled his new design with long delay:
But of his train a trusty servant sent
To call his friends together at his tent.
They came, and, usual salutations paid,
With words premeditated thus he said:
'What you have often counselled, to remove
My vain pursuit of unregarded love,
By thrift my sinking fortune to repair,
Though late, yet is at last become my care:
My heart shall be my own; my vast expense
Reduced to bounds by timely providence;
This only I require; invite for me
Honoria, with her father's family,

Her friends and mine; the cause I shall display
On Friday next, for that's the appointed day.'

Well pleased were all his friends, the task was light;
The father, mother, daughter, they invite;
Hardly the dame was drawn to this repast;
But yet resolved, because it was the last.
The day was come, the guests invited came,
And, with the rest, the inexorable dame:
A feast prepared with riotous expense,
Much cost, more care, and most magnificence.
The place ordained was in that haunted grove
Where the revenging ghost pursued his love:
The tables in a proud pavilion spread,
With flowers below, and tissue overhead:
The rest in rank, Honoria chief in place,
Was artfully contrived to set her face

To front the thicket, and behold the chase.
The feast was served, the time so well forecast,
That just when the dessert and fruits were placed,
The fiend's alarm began; the hollow sound
Sung in the leaves, the forest shook around,
Air blackened, rolled the thunder, groaned the ground.
Nor long before the loud laments arise

Of one distressed, and mastiffs' mingled cries;
And first the dame came rushing through the wood,
And next the famished hounds that sought their food,
And griped her flanks, and oft essayed their jaws in
blood.

Last came the felon on his sable steed,

Armed with his naked sword, and urged his dogs to speed.

She ran, and cried, her flight directly bent

A guest unbidden-to the fatal tent,

The scene of death, and place ordained for punish

ment.

Loud was the noise, aghast was every guest.

The women shrieked, the men forsook the feast;
The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bayed;
The hunter close pursued the visionary maid;
She rent the heaven with loud laments, imploring aid.
The gallants, to protect the lady's right,
Their falchions brandished at the grisly sprite;
High on his stirrups he provoked the fight.
Then on the crowd he cast a furious look,
And withered all their strength before he strook:

'Back, on your lives! let be,' said he, 'my prey,
And let my vengeance take the destined way:
Vain are your arms, and vainer your defence,
Against the eternal doom of Providence:
Mine is the ungrateful maid by Heaven designed:
Mercy she would not give, nor mercy shall she find.'
At this the former tale again he told

With thundering tone, and dreadful to behold:
Sunk were their hearts with horror of the crime,
Nor needed to be warned a second time,
But bore each other back: some knew the face,
And all had heard the much-lamented case
Of him who fell for love, and this the fatal place.
And now the infernal minister advanced,
Seized the due victim, and with fury lanced
Her back, and, piercing through her inmost heart,
Drew backward, as before, the offending part.
The reeking entrails next he tore away,
And to his meagre mastiffs made a prey.
The pale assistants on each other stared,
With gaping mouths for issuing words prepared;
The still-born sounds upon the palate hung,
And died imperfect on the faltering tongue.
The fright was general; but the female band-
A helpless train-in more confusion stand:
With horror shuddering, on a heap they run,
Sick at the sight of hateful justice done;

For conscience rung the alarm, and made the case their own.

So, spread upon a lake with upward eye,
A plump of fowl behold their foe on high;
They close their trembling troop; and all attend
On whom the sousing eagle will descend.

But most the proud Honoria feared the event,
And thought to her alone the vision sent.
Her guilt presents to her distracted mind
Heaven's justice, Theodore's revengeful kind,
And the same fate to the same sin assigned;
Already sees herself the monster's prey,
And feels her heart and entrails torn away.
'Twas a mute scene of sorrow, mixed with fear;
Still on the table lay the unfinished cheer:
The knight and hungry mastiffs stood around;
The mangled dame lay breathless on the ground:
When on a sudden, re-inspired with breath,
Again she rose, again to suffer death;

Nor stayed the hell-hounds, nor the hunter stayed,
But followed, as before, the flying maid:

The avenger took from earth the avenging sword,
And mounting light as air, his sable steed he spurred:
The clouds dispelled, the sky resumed her light,
And Nature stood recovered of her fright.

But fear, the last of ills, remained behind,
And horror heavy sat on every mind.
Nor Theodore encouraged more his feast,
But sternly looked, as hatching in his breast
Some deep designs; which, when Honoria viewed,
The fresh impulse her former fright renewed;
She thought herself the trembling dame who fled,
And him the grisly ghost that spurred the infernal
steed:

The more dismayed, for when the guests withdrew,
Their courteous host, saluting all the crew,

Regardless passed her o'er; nor graced with kind adieu;

That sting infixed within her haughty mind
The downfall of her empire she divined,
And her proud heart with secret sorrow pined.
Home as they went, the sad discourse renewed,
Of the relentless dame to death pursued,
And of the sight obscene so lately viewed.
None dost arraign the righteous doom she bore;
Even they who pitied most, yet blamed her more;
The parallel they needed not to name,
But in the dead they damned the living dame.
At every little noise she looked behind,
For still the knight was present to her mind:

306

And anxious oft she started on the way, And thought the horseman-ghost came thundering for his prey.

Returned, she took her bed with little rest,

But in short slumbers dreamt the funeral feast:
Awaked, she turned her side, and slept again;
The same black vapours mounted in her brain,
And the same dreams returned with double pain.
Now forced to wake, because afraid to sleep,
Her blood all fevered, with a furious leap
She sprung from bed, distracted in her mind,
And feared, at every step, a twitching sprite behind.
Darkling and desperate, with a staggering pace,
Of death afraid, and conscious of disgrace;
Fear, pride, remorse, at once her heart assailed;
Pride put remorse to flight, but fear prevailed.
Friday, the fatal day, when next it came,
Her soul forethought the fiend would change his

game,

And her pursue, or Theodore be slain,

And two ghosts join their packs to hunt her o'er the plain.

This dreadful image so possessed her mind,
That, desperate any succour else to find,
She ceased all farther hope; and now began
To make reflection on the unhappy man,
Rich, brave, and young, who past expression loved;
Proof to disdain, and not to be removed:
Of all the men respected and admired;
Of all the dames, except herself, desired:
Why not of her? preferred above the rest

By him with knightly deeds, and open love professed?
So had another been, where he his vows addressed.
This quelled her pride, yet other doubts remained,
That, once disdaining, she might be disdained.
The fear was just, but greater fear prevailed;
Fear of her life by hellish hounds assailed:
He took a lowering leave; but who can tell
What outward hate might inward love conceal?
Her sex's arts she knew; and why not then
Might deep dissembling have a place in men?
Here hope began to dawn; resolved to try,
She fixed on this her utmost remedy:
Death was behind, but hard it was to die.
'Twas time enough at last on death to call,
The precipice in sight, a shrub was all
That kindly stood betwixt to break the fatal fall.

One maid she had, beloved above the rest;
Secure of her, the secret she confessed;
And now the cheerful light her fears dispelled;
She with no winding turns the truth concealed,
But put the woman off, and stood revealed:
With faults confessed, commissioned her to go,
If pity yet had place, and reconcile her foe;
The welcome message made, was soon received;
'Twas what he wished, and hoped, but scarce believed;
Fate seemed a fair occasion to present;
He knew the sex, and feared she might repent,
Should he delay the moment of consent.
There yet remained to gain her friends (a care
The modesty of maidens well might spare);
But she with such a zeal the cause embraced
(As women, where they will, are all in haste),
The father, mother, and the kin beside,
Were overborne by fury of the tide;
With full consent of all, she changed her state;
Resistless in her love, as in her hate.

By her example warned, the rest beware;
More easy, less imperious, were the fair;
And that one hunting, which the devil designed
For one fair female, lost him half the kind.

Enjoyment of the Present Hour.

From the twenty-ninth ode of the Third Book of Horace.
Enjoy the present smiling hour,
And put it out of Fortune's power:

The tide of business, like the running stream,
Is sometimes high and sometimes low,
A quiet ebb or a tempestuous flow,

And always in extreme.

Now with a noiseless gentle course

It keeps within the middle bed;

Anon it lifts aloft the head,

the previous reign, sunk at last into a mere collocation of certain phrases and images, of which each repetition was more weak than the last. Pope revived the national spirit by his polished satire and splendid versification; but the true poetical feeling lay dormant till Thomson's Seasons and Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry spoke to

And bears down all before it with impetuous force; the heart of the people, and recalled the public And trunks of trees come rolling down;

Sheep and their folds together drown:

Both house and homestead into seas are borne;
And rocks are from their old foundations torn;
And woods, made thin with winds, their scattered

honours mourn.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,

To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day.
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;

But what has been, has been, and I have had my

hour!

Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does man, her slave, oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleased to bless :

Still various, and inconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,

And shakes her wings, and will not stay,

I puff the prostitute away:

The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned:
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

What is 't to me,

Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,
If storms arise, and clouds grow black;
If the mast split, and threaten wreck?
Then let the greedy merchant fear

For his ill-gotten gain;

And pray to gods that will not hear,

While the debating winds and billows bear
His wealth into the main.

For me, secure from Fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,
In my small pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blustering roar;
And running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek,
Within some little winding creek,
And see the storm ashore.

JOHN PHILIPS.

Southey has said that the age from Dryden to Pope is the worst age of English poetry. In this interval-which was but short, for Dryden bore fruit to the last, and Pope was early in blossomthere were about twenty poets, most of whom might be blotted from our literature, without being missed or regretted. The names of Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Hughes, Blackmore, Fenton, Yalden, Hammond, Savage, &c. have been preserved by Dr Johnson, but they excite no poetical associations. Their works present a dead-level of tame and uninteresting mediocrity. The artificial taste introduced in the reign of Charles II. to the exclusion of the romantic spirit which animated

taste from art to nature.

Of the artificial poets of this age, JOHN PHILIPS (1676–1708) evinced considerable talent in his Splendid Shilling, a parody on the style of Milton. He was the son of Dr Philips, archdeacon of Salop. Philips wrote a poem on the victory of Blenheim (1705), and another on Cider, the latter in imitation of the Georgics. This was published in 1708, Tonson the publisher purchasing the copyright for forty guineas. Philips was an avowed imitator of Milton, but regretted that, like his own Abdiel, the great poet had not been 'faithful found:'

But he-however let the Muse abstain,

Nor blast his fame, from whom she learned to sing
In much inferior strains, grovelling beneath

Th' Olympian hill, on plains and vales intent-
Mean follower.

The notion that Philips was able, by whatever he
might write, to blast the fame of Milton, is one of
those preposterous conceits which even able men
will sometimes entertain.

The Splendid Shilling.

Happy the man who, void of care and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains

A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie or Town-hall1 repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfixed his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,
And hunger, sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
Wretched repast! my meagre corps sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent:
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton-versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale-when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High overshadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at the Avonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Ycleped Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.

Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow
With looks demure, and silent pace, a dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my aerial citadel ascends:
With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate;

1 Two noted alehouses in Oxford, 1700.

With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly

Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Through sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and-wonderful to tell!-
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow
Intrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forbode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes-ye gods, avert

Such plagues from righteous men!-Behind him stalks

Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called

A catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible, and magic charms,
First have endued: if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious-as whilom knights were wont-
To some enchanted castle is conveyed,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.

Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallowed touch. So-poets sing-
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable; nor will aught avail

Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides,
She tow'ring flies to her expected spoils :
Then, with envenomed jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But, when nocturnal shades
This world envelop, and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines and crackling blaze of wood,
Me, lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend, delights; distressed, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile I labour with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parched throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:

But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy's still awake;
Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream,
Tipples imaginary pots of ale,

In vain; awake, I find the settled thirst

Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,

Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, John-apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrowed coat secure,
Nor medlar, fruit delicious in decay.
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain:
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued-what will not time subdue!-
A horrid chasm disclosed with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus, a well-fraught ship,
Long sailed secure, or through th' Ægean deep,
Or the Ionian, till, cruising near

The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush
On Scylla or Charybdis-dangerous rocks!-
She strikes rebounding; whence the shattered

oak,

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JOHN POMFRET (1667-1703) was the son of a clergyman, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire, and himself a minister of the Church of England. He obtained the rectory of Malden, also in Bedfordshire, and had the prospect of preferment; but the bishop of London considered, unjustly, his poem, the Choice, as conveying an immoral sentiment, and rejected the poetical candidate. Detained in London by this unsuccessful negotiation, Pomfret caught the small-pox, and died. His works consist of occasional poems and some Pindaric Essays, the latter evidently copied from Cowley. The only piece of Pomfret's now remembered-we can hardly say read-is the Choice. Dr Johnson remarks that no composition in our language has been oftener perused; and Southey asks why Pomfret's Choice is the most popular poem in the English language. To the latter observation, Campbell makes a quaint reply: 'It might have been demanded with equal propriety, why London Bridge is built of Parian marble.' It is difficult in the present day, when the English muse has awakened to so much higher a strain of thought and expression, and a large body of poetry, full of passion, natural description, and emotion, lies between us and the times of Pomfret, to conceive that the Choice could ever have been a very popu lar poem. It is tame and commonplace. The idea, however, of a country retirement, a private seat, with a wood, garden, and stream, a clear and competent estate, and the enjoyment of lettered ease and happiness, is so grateful and agreeable to the mind of man, especially in large cities, that we can hardly forbear liking a poem that recalls so beloved an image to our recollection. Swift and Pope, in their exquisite imitation of Horace (Sat. Book ii. 6), have drawn a similar picture; and Thomson and Cowper, by their descriptions of rural life, have completely obliterated from the public mind the feeble draft of Pomfret.

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If Heaven the grateful liberty would give
That I might choose my method how to live;
And all those hours propitious fate should lend,
In blissful ease and satisfaction spend;
Near some fair town I'd have a private seat,
Built uniform, not little, nor too great;
Better, if on a rising-ground it stood;

On this side fields, on that a neighbouring wood.
It should within no other things contain
But what are useful, necessary, plain;
Methinks 'tis nauseous, and I'd ne'er endure
The needless pomp of gaudy furniture.
A little garden grateful to the eye,
And a cool rivulet run murmuring by;
On whose delicious banks a stately row
Of shady limes or sycamores should grow.
At the end of which a silent study placed,
Should be with all the noblest authors graced :
Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines
Immortal wit and solid learning shines;
Sharp Juvenal, and amorous Ovid too,
Who all the turns of love's soft passion knew:
He that with judgment reads his charming lines,
In which strong art with stronger nature joins,
Must grant his fancy does the best excel-

His thoughts so tender, and expressed so well:
With all those moderns, men of steady sense,
Esteemed for learning and for eloquence.
In some of these, as fancy should advise,
I'd always take my morning exercise;
For sure no minutes bring us more content
Than those in pleasing useful studies spent.
I'd have a clear and competent estate,
That I might live genteelly, but not great;
As much as I could moderately spend ;
A little more, sometimes to oblige a friend.
Nor should the sons of poverty repine
Too much at fortune; they should taste of mine;
And all that objects of true pity were,

Should be relieved with what my wants could spare;
For that our Maker has too largely given
Should be returned in gratitude to Heaven.
A frugal plenty should my table spread;
With healthy, not luxurious, dishes spread;
Enough to satisfy, and something more,

To feed the stranger, and the neighbouring poor.
Strong meat indulges vice, and pampering food
Creates diseases, and inflames the blood.
But what's sufficient to make nature strong,
And the bright lamp of life continue long,
I'd freely take; and, as I did possess,
The bounteous Author of my plenty bless.

EARL OF DORSET.

CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL of Dorset (1637-8 -1705-6), wrote little, but was capable of doing more, and being a liberal patron of poets, was a nobleman highly popular in his day. In the first Dutch war, 1665, when Earl of Buckhurst, he went a volunteer under the Duke of York, and was said to have written or finished a song-his best composition, one of the prettiest that ever was made,' according to Prior-the night before the naval engagement in which Opdam, the Dutch admiral, was blown up, with all his crew. The circumstance of such a lively, easy-flowing song, consisting of eleven stanzas, having been written on board ship, on the eve of an engagement, was justly held to be a fine instance of courage and gallantry. But when Pepys's Diary was published, it was found that the song existed six

months before the great sea-fight. Prior's story was an embellishment. Dorset was a lord of the bedchamber to Charles II. and was chamberlain of the household to William and Mary. Prior relates, that when Dorset, as lord-chamberlain, was obliged to take the king's pension from Dryden, he allowed him an equivalent out of his own estate. He introduced Butler's Hudibras to the notice of the court, was consulted by Waller, and almost idolised by Dryden. Hospitable, generous, and refined, we need not wonder at the incense which was heaped upon Dorset by his contemporaries. His works are trifling; a few satires and songs make up the catalogue. They are elegant, and sometimes forcible; but when a man like Prior writes of them, 'there is a Ilustre in his verses like that of the sun in Claude Lorraine's landscapes,' it is impossible not to be struck with that gross adulation of rank and fashion which disgraced the literature of the age.

Song.

Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes,
United, cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies;
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight.

Love is a calmer, gentler joy;

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace; Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,

That runs his link full in your face.

Song.

'Written at sea, by the late Earl of Dorset, in the First Dutch War.' (Lintot's Miscellany, 1712.)

To all you ladies now at land,
We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you.

With a fa la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.
With a fa, &c.

Then, if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
By Dutchmen or by wind:
Our tears we'll send a speedier way-
The tide shall bring them twice a day.
With a fa, &c.

The king with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold;
Because the tides will higher rise

Than e'er they used of old:
But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.
With a fa, &c.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know
Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
And quit their fort at Goree;
For what resistance can they find
From men who 've left their hearts behind?
With a fa, &c.

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