The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase Part 6

COWLEY'S EPITAPH ON HIMSELF.

TRANSLATED BY MR ADDISON.

From life's superfluous cares enlarged, His debt of human toil discharged, Here Cowley lies! beneath this shed, To every worldly interest dead; With decent poverty content, His hours of ease not idly spent; To fortune's goods a foe profess'd, And hating wealth by all caress'd.

'Tis true he's dead; for oh! how small

A spot of earth is now his all: _10 Oh! wish that earth may lightly lay, And every care be far away; Bring flowers; the short-lived roses bring, To life deceased, fit offering: And sweets around the poet strow, Whilst yet with life his ashes glow.

PROLOGUE TO THE TENDER HUSBAND.[8]

SPOKEN BY MR WILKS.

In the first rise and infancy of Farce, When fools were many, and when plays were scarce, The raw, unpractised authors could, with ease, A young and unexperienced audience please: No single character had e'er been shown, But the whole herd of fops was all their own; Rich in originals, they set to view, In every piece, a c.o.xcomb that was new.

But now our British theatre can boast Drolls of all kinds, a vast, unthinking host!

_10 Fruitful of folly and of vice, it shows Cuckolds, and cits, and bawds, and pimps, and beaux; Rough country knights are found of every shire; Of every fashion gentle fops appear; And punks of different characters we meet, As frequent on the stage as in the pit.

Our modern wits are forced to pick and cull, And here and there by chance glean up a fool: Long ere they find the necessary spark, They search the town, and beat about the Park; _20 To all his most frequented haunts resort, Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court, As love of pleasure or of place invites; And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's.

Howe'er, to do you right, the present age Breeds very hopeful monsters for the stage; That scorn the paths their dull forefathers trod, And wont be blockheads in the common road.

Do but survey this crowded house to-night:-- Here's still encouragement for those that write.

_30 Our author, to divert his friends to-day, Stocks with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel, travelled in romance; The t'other more refined; she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger; And kindly treat, like well-bred men, the stranger.

EPILOGUE TO THE BRITISH

ENCHANTERS.[9]

When Orpheus tuned his lyre with pleasing woe, Rivers forgot to run, and winds to blow, While listening forests covered as he played, The soft musician in a moving shade.

That this night's strains the same success may find, The force of magic is to music joined; Where sounding strings and artful voices fail, The charming rod and muttered spells prevail.

Let sage Urganda wave the circling wand On barren mountains, or a waste of sand, _10 The desert smiles; the woods begin to grow, The birds to warble, and the springs to flow.

The same dull sights in the same landscape mixed, Scenes of still life, and points for ever fixed, A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow, And pall the sense with one continued show; But as our two magicians try their skill, The vision varies, though the place stands still, While the same spot its gaudy form renews, Shifting the prospect to a thousand views.

_20 Thus (without unity of place transgressed) The enchanter turns the critic to a jest.

But howsoe'er, to please your wandering eyes, Bright objects disappear and brighter rise: There's none can make amends for lost delight, While from that circle we divert your sight.

PROLOGUE TO SMITH'S[10] PHaeDRA AND HIPPOLITUS.

SPOKEN BY MR WILKS.

Long has a race of heroes fill'd the stage, That rant by note, and through the gamut rage; In songs and airs express their martial fire, Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire: While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit, Calm and serene you indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield.

_10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play.

Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy, It had not moved your wonder to have seen An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen: How would it please, should she in English speak, And could Hippolitus reply in Greek!

But he, a stranger to your modish way, By your old rules must stand or fall to-day, _20 And hopes you will your foreign taste command, To bear, for once, with what you understand.

HORACE.-ODE III., BOOK III.

Augustus had a design to rebuild Troy, and make it the metropolis of the Roman empire, having closeted several senators on the project: Horace is supposed to have written the following Ode on this occasion.

The man resolved, and steady to his trust, Inflexible to ill, and obstinately just, May the rude rabble's insolence despise, Their senseless clamours and tumultuous cries; The tyrant's fierceness he beguiles, And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies, And with superior greatness smiles.

Not the rough whirlwind, that deforms Adria's black gulf, and vexes it with storms, The stubborn virtue of his soul can move; _10 Not the red arm of angry Jove, That flings the thunder from the sky, And gives it rage to roar, and strength to fly.

Should the whole frame of nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.

Such were the G.o.dlike arts that led Bright Pollux to the blest abodes; Such did for great Alcides plead, _20 And gained a place among the G.o.ds; Where now Augustus, mixed with heroes, lies, And to his lips the nectar bowl applies: His ruddy lips the purple tincture show, And with immortal strains divinely glow.

By arts like these did young Lyaeus [11] rise: His tigers drew him to the skies, Wild from the desert and unbroke: In vain they foamed, in vain they stared, In vain their eyes with fury glared; _30 He tamed them to the lash, and bent them to the yoke.

Such were the paths that Rome's great founder trod, When in a whirlwind s.n.a.t.c.hed on high, He shook off dull mortality, And lost the monarch in the G.o.d.

Bright Juno then her awful silence broke, And thus the a.s.sembled deities bespoke.

'Troy,' says the G.o.ddess, 'perjured Troy has felt The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt; The towering pile, and soft abodes, _40 Walled by the hand of servile G.o.ds, Now spreads its ruins all around, And lies inglorious on the ground.

An umpire, partial and unjust, And a lewd woman's impious l.u.s.t, Lay heavy on her head, and sunk her to the dust.

Since false Laomedon's tyrannic sway, That durst defraud the immortals of their pay, Her guardian G.o.ds renounced their patronage, Nor would the fierce invading foe repel; _50 To my resentment, and Minerva's rage, The guilty king and the whole people fell.

And now the long protracted wars are o'er, The soft adulterer shines no more; No more does Hector's force the Trojans shield, That drove whole armies back, and singly cleared the field.

My vengeance sated, I at length resign To Mars his offspring of the Trojan line: Advanced to G.o.dhead let him rise, And take his station in the skies; _60 There entertain his ravished sight With scenes of glory, fields of light; Quaff with the G.o.ds immortal wine, And see adoring nations crowd his shrine: The thin remains of Troy's afflicted host, In distant realms may seats unenvied find, And flourish on a foreign coast; But far be Rome from Troy disjoined, Removed by seas from the disastrous sh.o.r.e; May endless billows rise between, and storms unnumbered roar.

_70 Still let the cursed, detested place, Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race, Be cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in gra.s.s.

There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray; Or, while the lonely shepherd sings, Amidst the mighty ruins play, And frisk upon the tombs of kings.

May tigers there, and all the savage kind, Sad, solitary haunts and silent deserts find; In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces, _80 May the unmolested lioness Her brinded whelps securely lay, Or couched, in dreadful slumbers waste the day.

While Troy in heaps of ruins lies, Rome and the Roman Capitol shall rise; The ill.u.s.trious exiles unconfined Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind.

In vain the sea's intruding tide Europe from Afric shall divide, And part the severed world in two: _90 Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread, And the long train of victories pursue To Nile's yet undiscovered head.

Riches the hardy soldier shall despise, And look on gold with undesiring eyes, Nor the disbowelled earth explore In search of the forbidden ore; Those glittering ills concealed within the mine, Shall lie untouched, and innocently shine.

To the last bounds that nature sets, _100 The piercing colds and sultry heats, The G.o.dlike race shall spread their arms; Now fill the polar circle with alarms, Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine; Now sweat for conquest underneath the line.

This only law the victor shall restrain, On these conditions shall he reign; If none his guilty hand employ To build again a second Troy, If none the rash design pursue, _110 Nor tempt the vengeance of the G.o.ds anew.

A curse there cleaves to the devoted place, That shall the new foundations raze: Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire To storm the rising town with fire, And at their armies' head myself will show What Juno, urged to all her rage, can do.

Thrice should Apollo's self the city raise, And line it round with walls of bra.s.s, Thrice should my favourite Greeks his works confound, _120 And hew the shining fabric to the ground; Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return, And their dead sons and slaughtered husbands mourn.'

But hold, my Muse, forbear thy towering flight, Nor bring the secrets of the G.o.ds to light: In vain would thy presumptuous verse The immortal rhetoric rehea.r.s.e; The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound, Forget their majesty, and lose their sound.

THE VESTAL.

FROM OVID DE FASTIS, LIB. III. EL. 1.

Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis, &c.

As the fair vestal to the fountain came, (Let none be startled at a vestal's name) Tired with the walk, she laid her down to rest, And to the winds exposed her glowing breast, To take the freshness of the morning-air, And gather'd in a knot her flowing hair; While thus she rested, on her arm reclined, The h.o.a.ry willows waving with the wind, And feather'd choirs that warbled in the shade, And purling streams that through the meadow stray'd, _10 In drowsy murmurs lull'd the gentle maid.

The G.o.d of war beheld the virgin lie, The G.o.d beheld her with a lover's eye; And by so tempting an occasion press'd, The beauteous maid, whom he beheld, possess'd: Conceiving as she slept, her fruitful womb Swell'd with the founder of immortal Rome.

OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

BOOK II.

THE STORY OF PHaeTON.

The sun's bright palace, on high columns raised, With burnished gold and flaming jewels blazed; The folding gates diffused a silver light, And with a milder gleam refreshed the sight; Of polished ivory was the covering wrought: The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought, For in the portal was displayed on high (The work of Vulcan) a fict.i.tious sky; A waving sea the inferior earth embraced, And G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses the waters graced.

_10 aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode; Triton, and Proteus, (the deceiving G.o.d,) With Doris here were carved, and all her train, Some loosely swimming in the figured main, While some on rocks their dropping hair divide, And some on fishes through the waters glide: Though various features did the sisters grace, A sister's likeness was in every face.

On earth a different landscape courts the eyes, Men, towns, and beasts, in distant prospects rise, _20 And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.

O'er all, the heaven's refulgent image shines; On either gate were six engraven signs.

Here Phaeton, still gaining on the ascent, To his suspected father's palace went, Till, pressing forward through the bright ahode, He saw at distance the ill.u.s.trious G.o.d: He saw at distance, or the dazzling light Had flashed too strongly on his aching sight.

The G.o.d sits high, exalted on a throne _30 Of blazing gems, with purple garments on: The Hours, in order ranged on either hand, And days, and months, and years, and ages, stand.