A pearl of milk, that's gently prest
From blooming Hebe's early breast;
With half a one of Cupid's tears,
When he in embryo first appears;
And honey from an infant bee:
Makes liquor for the gods and me!"
"Madam," says he, "an't please your

grace,

I'm going to a droughty place;

And, if I an't too bold, pray charge her,
The draught I have be somewhat larger."
"Fetch me," said she, "a mighty bowl,
Like Oberon's capacious soul,
And then fill up the burnish'd gold
With juice that makes the Britons bold.
This from seven barley-corns 1 drew,
Its years are seven, and to the view
'Tis clear, and sparkles fit for you.
"But stay-

When I by Fate was last time hurl'd,
To act my pranks in t'other world,

I saw some sparks as they were drinking,
With mighty mirth and little thinking,
Their jests were supernaculum,

I snatch'd the rubies from each thumb,
And in this crystal bave them here,
Perhaps you'll like it more than beer."
Wine and late hours dissolv'd the feast,
And men aud fairies went to rest.

The bed where Orpheus was to lie
Was all stuff'd full of harmony:
Purling streams and amorous rills,
Dying sound that never kills,
Zephyrus breathing, love delighting,
Joy to slumber soft inviting,
Trembling sounds that make no noise,
And songs to please without a voice,
Were mixt with down that fell from Jove,
When he became a swan for love.

'Twas night, and Nature's self lay dead, Nodding upon a feather-bed;

The mountains seem'd to bend their tops,
And shutters clos'd the milleners' shops,
Excluding both the punks and tops;
No ruffled streams to mill do come,
The silent fish were still more dumb;
Look in the chimney, not a spark there,
And darkness did itself grow darker.

But Orpheus could not sleep a wink,
He had too many things to think:
But, in the dark, his harp he strung,
And to the listening fairies sung.

Prince Prim, who pitied so much youth
Join'd with such constancy and truth,
Soon gave him thus to understand;

"Sir, I last night receiv'd command
To see you out of fairy land,
Into the realm of Nosnotbocai;

But let not fear of sulphur choak ye;
For he's a fiend of sense and wit,

And has got many rooms to let."

As quick as thought, by glow-worm glimpse, Out walk the fidler and the prince. They soon arrive; find Bocai brewing Of claret for a vintner's stewing.

"I come from Oberon," quoth prince Prim. ""Tis well," quoth Bocai: “what from him?" "Why, something strange; this honest man Had his wife died: now, if he can, He says, he'd have her back again."

Then Bocai, smiling, cried, "You sce, Orpheus, you'd better stay with me. For, let me tell you, sir, this place, Although it has an ugly face, If to its value it were sold, Is worth ten thousand ton of gold; And very famous in all story, Call'd by the name of Purgatory. For, when some ages shall have run, And Truth by Falsehood be undone, Shall rise the whore of Babylon; And this same whore shall be a man, Who, by his lies and cheating, can Be such a trader in all evil,

As to outdo our friend the Devil:
He and his pimps shall say, that when
A man is dying, thither then
The Devil comes to take the soul,
And carry him down to this hole;
But, if a man have store of wealth,
To get some prayers for his soul's health,
The Devil has then no more to do,
But must be fore'd to let him go.
But we are no more fools than they,
Thus to be bubbled of our prey.
By these same pious frauds and lies,
Shall many monasteries rise:

Friars shall get good meat and beer,
To pray folks out that ne'er came here;
Pans, pots, and kettles, shall be given,
To fetch a man from hence to Heaven.
Suppose a man has taken purses,
Or stolen sheep, or cows, or horses,
And chances to be hang'd; you'd cry,
Let him be hang'd, and so good-by.
Hold, says the friar; let me alone,
He's but to Purgatory gone;
And, if you'll let our convent keep
Those purses, cows, horses, and sheep,
The fellow shall find no more pain,
Than if he were alive again."

Here Orpheus sigh'd, began to take on,
Cried, "Could I find the whore you spake on,
I'd give him my best flitch of bacon:
I'd give him cake and sugar'd sack,
If he would bring my Dicé back:
Rather than she should longer stay,
I'd find some lusty man to pray.
And then poor Dicé, let him try her,
I dare say, would requite the friar.”
Great Nosnotbocai smil'd to see
Such goodness and simplicity.
Then kindly led them to a cell,
An outward granary of Hell;

A filthy place, that's seldom swept,
Where seeds of villany are kept.

"Orpheus," said he, "I'd have you take Some of these seeds here, for my sake;

Which, if they are discreetly hurl'd

Throughout the parts of t'other world,
They may oblige the fiend you sue to,
And fill the palace of old Pluto.

"Sow pride-seed uppermost; then above
Envy and scandal plant self-love.
Here take revenge, and malice without cause,
And here contempt of honesty and laws;
This hot seed's anger, and this hotter lust,
Best sown with breach of friendship, and of truste
These storm, hail, plague, and tempest seeds;
And this a quintessence of weeds;

This the worst sort of artichoke,
A plant that Pluto has himself bespoke,
Nourish it well, 'tis useful treachery;
This is a choice though little seed, a lie:

Here take some now from these prodigious loads,
Of tender things that look like toads:
In future times, these, finely drest,
Shall each invade a prince's breast;
Tis flattery seed; though thinly sown,
It is a mighty plant when grown,
When rooted deep, and fully blown;
Now see these things like bubbles fly;
These are the seeds of vanity.
Take tyrant acorns, which will best advance,
If sown in eastern climates, or in France;
But these are things of most prodigious hopes,
They're Jesuit bulbs tied up with ropes,
And these the Devil's grafts for future popes,
Which with fanaticism are join'd so clean,
You'd scarce believe a knife had pass'd between.
False-witness seed had almost been forgot,
"Twill be your making, should there be a plot.
And now, dear Orpheus, scatter these but well;
And you'll deserve the gratitude of Hell."

Quoth Orpheus, "You shall be obey'd
In every thing that you have said,
For mischief is the poet's trade:
And whatsoever they shall bring,
You may assure yourself, I'll sing.
But pray what poets shall we have,
At my returning from the grave?"

"Sad dogs!" quoth Bocai,-" let me seeBut, since what I say cannot shame them, I'll e'en resolve to never name them.

"But now," says Bocai, "sir, you may
Long to be going on your way,
Unless you'll drink some arsenic claret:
"Tis burnt, you see: but Sam can spare it.".
Orpheus replied, "Kind sir, 'tis neither
Brandy nor whets that brought me hither;
But love, and I an instance can be,
Love is as hot as pepper'd brandy;
Yet, gentle sir, you may command
A tune from a departing hand;
The style and passion both are good,
'Tis The Three Children in the Wood."

He sang; and pains themselves found ease;
For griefs, when well express'd, can please.
When he describ'd the children's loss,
And how the robins cover'd them with moss;
To hear the pity of those birds,

Ev'n Bocai's tears fell down with Orpheus' words,

RUFINUS; OR, THE FAVOURITE1.

IMITATED FROM CLAUDIAN.

OFT, as I wondering stand, a secret doubt Puzzles my reason, and disturbs my thought, Whether this lower world by Chance does move, Or guided by the guardian hand of Jove,

1 The essay, to which this poem was originally annexed, was written in 1711, as a harsh satire on the duke of Marlborough, dictated perhaps rather by party rage than truth. It is printed in Dr. King's works, vol. ii. p. 280. N.

When I survey the world's harmonious frame,
How Nature lives immutably the same;
How stated bounds and ambient shores restrain
The rolling surges of the briny main;
How constant Time revolves the circling year;
How day and night alternately appear;
Then am I well convinc'd some secret soul,
Some first informing power directs the whole;
Some great intelligence, who turns the spheres,
Who rules the steady motion of the stars,
Who decks with borrow'd light the waning Moon,
And fills with native light th' unchanging Sun,
Who hangs the Earth amidst surrounding skies,
And bids her various fruits in various seasons rise.
But, soon as I reflect on human state,
How blind, how unproportion'd, is our fate;
How ill men, crown'd with blessings, smoothly pass
A golden circle of delightful days;

How good men bear the rugged paths of life,
Condemn'd to endless cares, to endless strife;
Then am I lost again; religion fails;
Then Epicurus' bolder scheme prevails, [dance,
Which through the void makes wandering atʊms
And calls the medley world the work of Chance,
Which God's eternal Providence denies,
And feigns him nodding in the distant skies.

At length Rufinus' fate my doubt removes,
And God's existence and his justice proves.
Nor do I longer undeceiv'd complain,
The wicked flourish, and triumphant reign;
Since they to Fortune's heights are rais'd alone,
To rush with greater ruin headlong down.

But here instruct thy bard, Pierian dame,
Whence, and of whom, the dire contagion came.
Alecto's breast with rage and envy glows,
To see the world possess'd of sweet repose.
Down to the dreary realms below she bends,
There summons a cabal of sister fiends;
Thither unnumber'd plagues direct their flight,
The cursed progeny of Hell and Night.
First, Discord rears her head, the nurse of War;
Next, Famine fiercely stalks with haughty air;
Then Age scarce drags her limbs, scarce draws her
breath,

But, tottering on, approaches neighbouring Death;
Here grows Disease, with inbred tortures worn;
There Envy snarls, and others' good does mourn;
There Sorrow sighs, her robe to tatters torn;
Fear skulks behind, and trembling hides her face,
But Rashness headlong thrusts her front of brass;
Then Luxury, Wealth's bane, profusely shines,
Whilst Want, attending in a cloud, repines.
A train of sleepless self-tormenting cares,
Daughters of meagre Avarice, appears;
Who, as around her wither'd neck they cling,
Confess the parent hag from whence they spring.
Here ills of each maliguant kind resort,
A thousand monsters guard the dreadful court.
Amidst th' infernal crowd, Alecto stands,
And a deep silence awfully commands;
Then, in tumultuous terms like these, express'd
A passion long had swell'd within her breast:

"Shall we supine permit these peaceful days,
So smooth, so gay, so undisturb'd, to pass?
Shall Pity melt, shall Clemency control,
A Fury's fierce and unrelenting soul?
What do our iron whips, our brands, avail;
What all the horrid implements of Hell;
Since mighty Jove debars us of his skies,
Since Theodosius too his Earth denies;

"If you the stratagem propos'd approve, Let us to court this bane of crowns remove. There shali he soon, with his intriguing art, Guide uncontrol'd the willing prince's heart. Not Numa's wisdom shall that heart defend, When the false favourite acts the faithful friend." Soon as she ended, the surrounding crowd With peals of joy the black design applaud. Now with an adamant her hair she bound, With a blue serpent girt her vest around;

are:

Attempt some glorious mischief worth your care;
Involve the universe in endless war.

Oh! that I could in Stygian vapour rise,
Darken the Sun, pollute the balmy skies;
Let loose the rivers, deluge every plain,
Break down the barriers of the roaring main,
And shatter Nature into chaos once again!"

So rag'd the fiend, and toss'd her vipers round,
Which hissing pour'd their poison on the ground.
A murmur through the jarring audience rung,
Different resolves from different reasons sprung.
So when the fury of the storm is past,
When the rough winds in softer murmurs waste;
So sounds, so fluctuates, the troubled sea,
As the expiring tempest plows its way.

Megæra, rising then, address'd the throng, To whom Sedition, Tumult, Rage, belong: Whose food is entrails of the guiltless dead, Whose drink is children's blood by parents shed. She scorch'd Alcides with a frantic flame, She broke the bow, the savage world did tame; She nerv'd the arm, she flung the deadly dart, When Athamas transfix'd Learchus' heart: She prompted Agamemnon's monstrous wife To take her injur'd lord's devoted life: She breath'd revenge and rage into the son, So did the mother's blood the sire's atone: She blinded Oedipus with kindred charms, Forc'd him incestuous to a mother's arms: She stung Thyestes, and his fury fed; She taught him to pollute a daughter's bed. Such was her dreadful speech:

"Your schemes not practical nor lawful are, With Heaven and Jove to wage unequal war: But, if the peace of man you would invade, If o'er the ravag'd Earth destruction spread; Then shall Rufinus, fram'd for every ill, With your own vengeance execute your will; A prodigy from savage parents sprung, Impetuous as a tigress new with young; Fierce as the hydra, fickle as the flood, And keen as meagre harpies for their food. "Soon as the infant drew the vital air, I first receiv'd him to my nursing care; And often he, when tender yet and young, Cried for the teat, and on my bosom hung: Whilst my horn'd serpents round his visage play'd, His features form'd, and there their venom shed; Whilst I, infusing, breath'd into his heart Deceit and craft, and every hurtful art; Taught him t'involve his soul in secret clouds, With false dissembling smiles to veil his frauds. "Not dying patriots' tortures can assuage His inborn cruelty, his native rage: Not Tagus' yellow torrent can suffice His boundless and unsated avarice: Nor all the metal of Pactolus' streams, Nor Hermus glittering as the solar beams.

Whose pitchy waves are flakes of rolling flame; There lights a torch, and straight, with wings display'd,

Shoots swiftly through the dun Tartarian glade.
A place on Gallia's utmost verge there lies,
Extended to the sea and southern skies;
Where once Ulysses, as old fables tell,
Invok'd and rais'd th' inhabitants of Hell;
Where oft', with staring eyes, the trembling hind
Sees airy phantoms skim before the wind:
Hence springs the Fury into upper skies,
Infecting all the region as she flies:

She roars, and shakes the atmosphere around,
And earth and sea rebellow to the sound.
Then straight transform'd her snakes to silver hairs,
And like an old decrepid sage appears;
Slowly she cr eps along with trembling gait,
Scarce can her languid limbs sustain her weight.
At length, arriving at Rufinus' cell,

Which, from his moustrous birth, she knew so well,

She mildly thus Hell's darling hope address'd,
Sooth'd his ambition, and inflam'd his breast:
"Can sloth dissolve Rufinus; canst thou pass
Thy sprightly youth in soft inglorious ease?
Know, that thy better fate, thy kinder star,
Does more exalted paths for thee prepare.
If thou an old man's counsel canst obey,

The subject world shall own thy sovereign sway:
For my enlight'd soul, my conscious breast,
Of magic's secret science is possess'd.
Oft' have I fore'd, with mystic midnight spells,
Pale spectres from their subterranean cells:
Old Hecaté attends my powerful song,
Powerful to hasten fate, or to prolong;
Powerful the rooted stubborn oak to move,
To stop the thunder bursting from above,
To make the rapid flood's descending stream
Flow backward to the fountain whence it came.
Nor doubt my truth-behold, with just surprise,
An effort of my art-a palace rise."

She said; and, lo! a palace towering seems,
With Parian pillars and metallic beams.
Rufinus, ravish'd with the vast delight,
Gorges his avarice, and gluts his sight.
Such was his transport, such his sudden pride
When Midas first his golden wish enjoy'd:
But, as his stiffening food to metal turn'd,
He found his rashness, and his ruin mourn'd.
"Be thou or man or god," Rufinus said,
"I follow wheresoe'er thy dictates lead."

Then from his hut he flies, assumes the state
Propounded by the fiend, prepar'd by Fate.
Ambition soon began to lift her head,
Soaring, she mounts with restless pinions spread;
But Justice, conscious, shuns the poison'd air,
Where only prostituted tools repair;
Where Stilico and Virtue not avail;
Where royal favours stand expos'd to sale;

reader with one, delivered by the first founder of mythology, Æsop himself. Maximus Planudes takes notice of it, as a very excellent part of his production; and Phædrus, Camerarius, and others, seem to agree, that his Eagle, and five others not yet translated, are equal to any of his that are handed down to us. Though Mr. Ogleby and sir Roger L'Estrange had the unhappiness to be unacquainted with them, yet I had the good fortune to discover them by the removal of my old library, which has made me amends for the trouble of getting to where I now teach. They were written, or dictated at least, by Æsop, in the fifty-fourth Olympiad: and though I designed them chiefly for the use of my school, (this being translated by a youth designed for a Greek professor) yet no man is so wise as not to need instruction, aye, and by the way of fable too; since the holy scriptures themselves, the best instructors, teach us by way of parable, symbol, image, and figure; and David was more moved with Nathan's "Thou art the man," than all the most rigid lectures in the world would have done. Whoever will be at the trouble of comparing this version with the original, let them begin at the tenth line, and they will find it metaphrastically done, verbum verbo, as the best way of justice to the author. Those that are mere adorers of í óyo will not be angry that it is in this sort of metre, for which I gave leave, the lad having a turn to this sort of measure, which is pleasant and agreeable, though not lofty. For my own part, I concur with my master Aristotle, that pubμos ápμovia are very far from being unnecessary or unpleasant. May this be of use to thee; and it will please thine in all good wishes.

HORAT. GRAM.

THE EAGLE AND THE ROBIN.

A LADY liv'd in former days,
That well deserv'd the utmost praise;
For greatness, birth, and justice fam'd,
And every virtue could be nam'd;
Which made her course of life so even,
That she's a saint (if dead) in Heaven.
This lady had a little seat
Just like a palace, 'twas so neat,
From aught (but goodness) her retreat.
One morning, in her giving way,
As was her custom every day,

To cheer the poor, the sick, and cold,
Or with apparel, food, or gold,
There came a gazing stranger by,
On whom she quickly cast an eye.

The man, admiring, made a stand;
He had a bird upon his hand :

"What's that," says she, "that hangs its head, Sinking and faint? 'Tis almost dead." "Madam, a red-breast that I found, By this wet season almost drown'd.” "Oh! bring him in, and keep him warm; Robins do never any harm."

ing the reader to recollect the change which she made in her ministry in 1709, the year in which this poem was written; and referring to Rufinus. N.

They soon obey'd, and chopt him meat,
Gave him whatever he would cat;
The lady care herself did take,
And made a nest for Robin's sake:
But he perkt up into her chair,
In which he plenteously did fare,
Assuming quite another air.

The neighbours thought, when this they spy'd,
The world well mended on his side.

With well-tun'd throat he whistled long,
And every body lik'd his song.
"At last," said they, "this little thing
Will kill itself, so long to sing;
We'll closet him among the rest
Of those my lady loves the best."
They little thought, that saw him come,
That Robins were so quarrelsome:
The door they open'd, in he pops,
And to the highest perch he hops;
The party-colour'd birds he chose,
The gold-finches, and such as those;
With them he'd peck, and bill, and feed,
And very well (at times) agreed:
Canary-birds were his delight,
With them he'd téte-à-tête all night;
But the brown linnets went to pot,
He kill'd them all upon the spot.

The servants were employ'd each day,
Instead of work, to part some fray,
And wish'd the aukward fellow curst
That brought him to my lady first.
At last they all resolv'd upon't,
Some way to tell my lady on't.

Meanwhile he'ad had a noble swing,
And rul'd just like the Gallic king;
Having kill'd or wounded all,
Unless the Eagle in the hall;
With whom he durst but only jar,
He being the very soul of war,
But hated him for his desert,
And bore him malice at his heart.

This Eagle was my lady's pride,
The guardian safety of her side:
He often brought home foreign prey,
Which humbly at her feet he lay.
For colour, pinions, and stature,
The fairest workmanship of Nature;
"Twould do one good to see him move,
So full of grandeur, grace, and love:
He was indeed a bird for Jove.
He soar'd aloft in Brucum's field,
And thousand kites and vultures kill'd;
Which made him dear to all that flew,
Unless to Robin and his crew,

One day poor Bob, puff'd up with pride, Thinking the combat to abide,

A goose-quill on for weapon ty'd,
Knowing by use, that, now and then,
A sword less hurt does than a pen.

As for example-What at home
You've well contriv'd to do at Rome,
A pen blows up-before you come.
You are suppos'd to undermine
The foe-in some immense design.
A pen can bite you with a line;
There's forty ways to give a sign.
Well-all on fire away he stalk'd,
Till come to-where the Eagle walk'd.
Bob did not shill-I shall-I go,
Nor said one word of friend or foe;