TO THE

MEMORY of Mr. OLDHAM".

AREWEL, too little, and too lately known,

For fure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knäves and fools we both abhorr'd alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive ;
The last fet out, the sooneft did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the flipp'ry place,
Whilft his

young

friend perform’d, and won the race. O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more? It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the smoothness of thy native tongue, But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Thro' the harsh cadence of a rugged line. A noble error, and but seldom made, When poets are by too much force betray'd. Thy gen'rous fruits, tho'gather'd ere their prime, Still thew'd a quickness; and maturing time But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets of rhyme.

1 Mr. John Oldham, celebrated chiefly for the severity of his faa tires, was son of a nonconformist minister, who educated him at Ox. ford, where he took a batchelor's degree. Some verses of his, that were known in the world before the person of him who wrote them, brought him acquainted with the earl of Rochester, the earl of Dorset, and Sir Charles Sedley, through whose means he was introduced to the most shining men of the age, particularly to Dryden. He died of the small-pox in his 30th year, 1683, at the house of that noble. man, who treated him with all the goodness of a friend, VOL. II.

M

Once

Once more, hail, and farewel ; farewel, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue !
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound ;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

Excellent in the Two SISTER-Arts of

POESY and PAINTING,

TM

I.
HOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,

Made in the last promotion of the bleft ;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from paradise,
In spreading branches more fublimely rise,
Rich with immortal