Indulgent fortune does her care employ,
And, fmiling, broods upon the naked boy :
Her garment fpreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers with her wings, from nightly cold:
Gives him her bleffing; puts him in a way;
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him the promotes; the favours him alone,
And makes provifion for him, as her own.
The craving wife, the force of magic tries,
And philters for th' unable hufband buys:
The potion works not on the part defign'd;
But turns his brains, and ftupifies his mind.
The fotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on,
Sees his own bus'nefs by another done :
A long oblivion, a benumming froft,
Conftrains his head; and yesterday is loft:
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that 8 Cæfonia to her Caius gave:
Who, plucking from the forehead of the fole
His mother's love infus'd it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hiffing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The 9 Thund'rer was not half fo much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his defire.
What woman will not afe the pois'ning trade,
When Cæfar's wife the precedent has made;
Let Agrippina's mushroom be forgot,
Giv'n to a flav'ring, old, unufeful fot;
8 Cafonia, wife to Caius Caligula, the great tyrant: it is said she gave him a love potion, which flying up into his head, distracted hint; and was the occafion of his committing fo many acts of cruelty.
9 The story is in Homer; where Juno borrowed the girdle of Venus, called Ceftos, to make Jupiter in love with her, while the Grecians and Trojans were fighting, that he might not help the
Agrippina was the mother of the tyrant Nero, who poisoned her hufband Claudius, that Nero might fucceed, who was her fon and net Britannicus, who was the fan of Claudius, by a former wife.
That only clos'd the driv'ling dotard's eyes,
And fent his godhead downward to the skies.
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword ;
Nor fpares the common, when it strikes the lord.
So many mischiefs were in one combin'd;
So much one fingle pois'ner cost mankind.
If stepdames feek their fons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trefpafs; let them have their will:
But let the child, entrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware:
Beware the food fhe reaches with her hand;
The morfel is intended for thy land.
Thy tutor be thy tafter, ere thou eat;
There's poifon in thy drink, and in thy meat.
You think this feign'd; the Satyr in a rage
Struts in the bufkins of the tragic stage,
Forgets his bus'nefs is to laugh and bite;
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable, that you read;
But 2 Drymon's wife pleads guilty to the deed.
I (fhe confeffes) in the fact was caught,
Two fons difpatching at one deadly draught.
What two! Two fons, thou viper, in one day!
Yes, fev'n, the cries, if fev'n were in my way.
Medea's 3 legend is no more a lye;
Our age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done: but not for gain.
Lefs admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they thro' wrath, or thro' revenge, purfue,
For, weak of reafon, impotent of will,
The sex is hurry'd headlong into ill;
2 Widow of Drymon poisoned her fons, that she might fucceed ta their eftate: This was done either in the poet's time, or just before it.
3 Medea, out of revenge to Jafon who had forfaken her, killed the children which he had by him.
And, like a cliff from its foundation torn,
By raging earthquakes, into feas is born.
But thofe are fiends, who crimes from thought begin :
And cool in mischief, meditate the fin.
They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would fave their lap-dog fooner than their lord,
Where-e'er you walk, the 4 Belides you meet ;
And 5 Clytemneftras grow in ev'ry street:
But here's the diff'rence; Agamemnon's wife
Was a grofs butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And fubtle poifons are employ'd alone:
Unless fome antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balfam all the nobler parts :
In fuch a cafe, reserv'd for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.
4 The Belides, were fifty fifters, married to fifty young men, their coufin-Germans; and killed them all on their wedding-night, excèpting Hypermneftra, who faved her husband Linus.
5 Clytemneftra the wife of Agamemnon, who, in favour to her adulterer gyfthus, was confenting to his murder.
The poet's defign, in this divine fatire, is to reprefent the various wishes and defires of mankind; and to fet out the folly of them. He runs through all the feveral heads of riches, bonours, eloquence, fame for martial atchievements, long life, and beauty; and gives inftances, in each, how frequently they have proved the ruin of thofe that owned them. He concludes therefore, that fince we generally chufe fo ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it to the Gods, to make the choice for us. All we can fafely afk of heaven, lies within a very small compass. It is but health of body and mind. And if we have thefe, it is not much matter what we want befides; for we have already enough to make us happy.
OOK round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue.
How void of reafon are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well defign'd, fo luckily begun,
But, when we have our with, we wish undone ?
Whole houses, of their whole defires poffeft,
Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars, and peace, things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own defire,
With laurels fome have fatally been crown'd;
Some, who the depths of eloquence have found,
In that unnavigable ftream were drown'd.
The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast;
In that prefuming confidence was loft:
But more have been by avarice oppreft,
And heaps of money crowded in the cheft:
Unwieldy fums of wealth, which higher mount
Than files of marshall'd figures can account.
To which the ftores of Crofus, in the scale,
Would look like little dolphins, when they fail
In the vaft fhadow of the British whale.
For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were fent to feize
The rich mens goods, and gut their palaces:
The mob, commiffion'd by the government,
Are feldom to an empty garret fent.
The fearful paffenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine fhadow of a rush;
And fees a red-coat rife from every bush:
The beggar fings, ev'n when he fees the place
Befet with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the firft and chief request
Of each, is to be richer than the rest :
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught controul,-
He dreads no poifon in his homely bowl,
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and fparkle in the wine.
Will you not now the pair of fages praise,
Who the fame end purfu'd, by feveral ways?
One pity'd, one contemn'd the woful times:
One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes
1 Mile of Crotona; who for a tryal of his ftrength, going to rend an oak, perished in the attempt: for his arms were caught in the trunk of it; and he was devoured by wild beafts.
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