amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow-poets, though I abandon my own defence : they have some of them answered for themselves ;' and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him. He has lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé, at the battle of Senef:- from immoral plays to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels, that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd, by being remembered to their infamy :

Demetri, teque, Tigelli, Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. 3 Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Dennis.

4 The battle of Senef, in Flanders, in which the Prince of Condé was opposed to the Prince of Orange, was fought on the 11th of August, 1674. Condé, not content with having defeated the rear-guard of the enemy, in attempting to destroy the remainder of the Prince of Orange's army, who had left his flank exposed as he decamped, lost a great number of men. The contest was so bloody, that in a circumference of six miles, twentyseven thousand dead bodies were buried. Each of the Generals claimed the honour of the victory.

TO

We are now arrived to the conclusion of our Author's Prefatory Disquisitions, after having travelled with him through all the various regions of Criticism for near forty years. With what vivacity and vigour his last composition, of that kind, was written, we have just seen; and of the spirit and elegance with which the old Bard could address a beautiful woman in his sixty-ninth year, the following harmonious verses prefixed to PALAMON AND ARCITE, (the last he ever wrote except the SECULAR MASQUE, and the Prologue and Epilogue to the Pilgrim,) afford a very pleasing proof. I shall therefore subjoin them as a kind of Envoy to this Collection of his Prose Works.

TO HER GRACE

THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND. S

MADAM,
THE Bard who first adorn'd our native tongue,
Tun'd to his British lyre this ancient song;
Which Homer might without a blush rehearse,
And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse :
He match'd their beauties where they most excel;
Of love sung better, and of arms as well.

Vouchsafe, illustrious ORMOND, to behold,
What power the charms of beauty had of old;
Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done,
Inspir'd by two fair eyes, that sparkled like your own.

If Chaucer, by the best idea wrought,
And poets can divine each other's thought,
The fairest nymph before his eyes he set,
And then the fairest was Plantagenet ;
Who three contending Princes made her prize,
And rul'd the rival nations with her eyes :
Who left immortal trophies of her fame,
And to the Noblest Order

Like her, of equal kindred to the throne,
You keep her conquests, and extend your own.
As when the stars in their etherial race,
At length have rollid around the liquid space,
At certain periods they resume their place ;
From the same point of heaven their course advance,
And move in measures of their former dance:
Thus, after length of ages, she returns,
Restor'd in you, and the same place adorns ;
Or you perform her office in the sphere,
Born of her blood, and make a new Platonick year.

O true Plantagenet, О race divine !
(For beauty still is fatal to the line,
Had Chaucer liv'd that angel-face to view,
Sure he had drawn his Emily from you:
Or had you liv’d, to judge the doubtful right,
Your noble Palamon had been the Knight;
And conqu’ring Theseus from his side had sent
Your gen'rous Lord, to guide the Theban government.

Time shall accomplish that; and I shall see
A Palamon in him, in you an Emily.

Already have the Fates your path prepar'd, And sure presage your

future sway

declar'd :
When westward, like the sun, you took your way,
And from benighted Britain bore the day,
Blue Triton gave the signal from the shore,
The ready Nereids heard, and swam before
To smooth the seas; a soft Etesian gale
But just inspir’d, and gently swell’d the sail ;
Portunus took his turn, whose ample hand
Heav'd up the lighten'd keel, and sunk the sand,
And steer'd the sacred vessel safe to land.
The land, if not restrain'd, had met your way,
Projected out a neck, and jutted to the sea.

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