TO MR KILLIGREW,1

UPON HIS ALTERING HIS PLAY, 'PANDORA,' FROM A

TRAGEDY INTO A COMEDY, BECAUSE NOT APPROVED ON THE STAGE.

SIR, you should rather teach our age the

way

Of judging well, than thus have changed your play;
You had obliged us by employing wit,

Not to reform Pandora, but the pit;

For as the nightingale, without the throng
Of other birds, alone attends her song,
While the loud daw, his throat displaying, draws
The whole assemblage of his fellow-daws;
So must the writer, whose productions should
Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould;
Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too high
For common view, and lessen as they fly.

TO A PERSON OF HONOUR,

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE POEM,
ENTITLED, THE BRITISH PRINCES.' 2

SIR! you've obliged the British nation more
Than all their bards could ever do before,
And, at your own charge, monuments as hard
As brass or marble to your fame have rear'd;
For, as all warlike nations take delight

To hear how their brave ancestors could fight,

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Mr Killigrew': a gentleman usher to Charles II., and one of the playwrights of the period. The British Princes': an heroic poem, by the Hon. Edward Howard, was universally laughed at. See our edition of Butler.'

You have advanced to wonder their renown,
And no less virtuously improved your own;
That 'twill be doubtful whether you do write,
Or they have acted, at a nobler height.
You of your ancient princes, have retrieved
More than the ages knew in which they lived;
Explain'd their customs and their rights anew,
Better than all their Druids ever knew;
Unriddled those dark oracles as well

As those that made them could themselves foretell.
For as the Britons long have hoped, in vain,
Arthur would come to govern them again,
You have fulfill'd that prophecy alone,
And in your poem placed him on his throne.
Such magic power has your prodigious pen
To raise the dead, and give new life to men,
Make rival princes meet in arms and love,
Whom distant ages did so far remove;
For as eternity has neither past

Nor future, authors say, nor first nor last,
But is all instant, your eternal Muse
All ages can to any one reduce.

Then why should you, whose miracles of art
Can life at pleasure to the dead impart,
Trouble in vain your better-busied head,
T'observe what times they lived in, or were dead?
For since you have such arbitrary power,
It were defect in judgment to go lower,

Or stoop to things so pitifully lewd,
As use to take the vulgar latitude;

For no man's fit to read what you have writ,
That holds not some proportion with your wit;
As light can no way but by light appear,
He must bring sense that understands it here.

TO A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR,

A PERSON OF HONOUR, WHO LATELY WRIT A RELIGIOUS BOOK, ENTITLED, HISTORICAL APPLICATIONS, AND OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS, UPON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.'1

BOLD is the man that dares engage

For piety in such an age!

Who can presume to find a guard

From scorn, when Heaven's so little spared?

Divines are pardon'd; they defend

Altars on which their lives depend;

But the profane impatient are,

When nobler pens make this their care;
For why should these let in a beam
Of divine light to trouble them,

And call in doubt their pleasing thought,
That none believes what we are taught?
High birth and fortune warrant give
That such men write what they believe;
And, feeling first what they indite,
New credit give to ancient light.
Amongst these few, our author brings
His well-known pedigree from kings.2
This book, the image of his mind,

Will make his name not hard to find;
I wish the throng of great and good
Made it less eas❜ly understood!

'Several subjects': supposed to be Lord Berkeley. It contained testimonies of celebrated men to the value of religion.—2 Pedigree from kings': the Earl of Berkeley was descended from the royal house of Denmark.

TO THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS,

WHEN SHE WAS TAKING LEAVE OF THE COURT AT DOVER.1

THAT Sun of beauty did among us rise;

England first saw the light of your fair eyes;

In English, too, your early wit was shown;
Favour that language, which was then your own,

When, though a child, through guards you made your

way;

What fleet or army could an angel stay?

Thrice happy Britain! if she could retain

Whom she first bred within her ambient main.
Our late burnt London, in apparel new,

Shook off her ashes to have treated you;
But we must see our glory snatch'd away,
And with warm tears increase the guilty sea;
No wind can favour us; howe'er it blows,
We must be wreck'd, and our dear treasure lose!
Sighs will not let us half our sorrows tell,-
Fair, lovely, great, and best of nymphs, farewell!

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TO CHLORIS.

CHLORIS! what's eminent, we know
Must for some cause be valued so;
Things without use, though they be good,
Are not by us so understood.

The early rose, made to display

Her blushes to the youthful May,

Court at Dover': the Duchess of Orleans, the youngest daughter of Charles I., came to England on the 14th May 1670, on a political mission.

Doth yield her sweets, since he is fair,
And courts her with a gentle air.
Our stars do show their excellence

Not by their light, but influence;
When brighter comets, since still known
Fatal to all, are liked by none.
So your admired beauty still
Is, by effects, made good or ill.

TO THE KING.

GREAT Sir! disdain not in this piece to stand,
Supreme commander both of sea and land.
Those which inhabit the celestial bower,
Painters express with emblems of their power;
His club Alcides, Phoebus has his bow,
Jove has his thunder, and your navy you.
But your great providence no colours here
Can represent, nor pencil draw that care,
Which keeps you waking to secure our peace,
The nation's glory, and our trade's increase;
You, for these ends, whole days in council sit,
And the diversions of your youth forget.

Small were the worth of valour and of force,
If your high wisdom governed not their course;
You as the soul, as the first mover you,
Vigour and life on every part bestow;
How to build ships, and dreadful ordnance cast,
Instruct the artists, and reward their haste.

So Jove himself, when Typhon heaven does

brave,

Descends to visit Vulcan's smoky cave,

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