For hell, and the foul fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery gaols,
Devis'd by rogues, dreaded by fools,

With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are fenfelefs ftories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimfies, and no more.

TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY,

O N HIS

RESTORATION in the YEAR 1660.

V

IRTUE's triumphant fhrine! who doft engage At once three kingdoms in a pilgrimage; Which in extatic duty strive to come

Out of themselves, as well as from their home;
Whilft England grows one camp, and London is
Itself the nation, not metropolis;

And loyal Kent renews her arts again,'

Fencing her ways with moving groves of men;
Forgive this diftant homage, which does meet
Your bleft approach on fedentary feet;
And though my youth, not patient yet to bear
The weight of arms, denies me to appear
In fteel before you; yet, great Sir, approve

༢་

My manly withes, and more vigorous love;
In whom a cold refpect were treason to
A father's afhés, greater than to you;
Whose one ambition 't is for to be known,
By daring loyalty, your Wilmot's fon.
Wadh. Coll.

ROCHESTER.

ΤΟ

то

HER

SACRED MAJESTY THE QUEEN-MOTHER,

ON THE

DEATH of MARY, Princefs of Orange.

RE

prey,

ESPITE, great queen, your just and hafty fears:
There's no infection lodges in our tears.
Though our unhappy air be arm'd with death,
Yet fighs have an untainted guiltless breath.
Oh! stay a while, and teach your equal skill
To understand, and to support our ill.
You that in mighty wrongs an age have spent,
And feem to have out-liv'd ev'n banishment:
Whom traiterous mischief fought its earliest
When to most facred blood it made its way;
And did thereby its black design impart,
To take his head, that wounded firft his heart:
You that unmov'd great Charles's ruin stood,
When three great nations funk beneath the load;
Then a young daughter loft, yet balfam found
To ftanch that new and freshly-bleeding wound;
And, after this, with fixt and steady eyes
Beheld your noble Gloucester's obfequies :
And then fuftain'd the royal Princess' fall;
You only can lament her funeral.

But you will hence remove, and leave behind
Our fad complaints loft in the empty wind;

Thofe

Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly roar
Destruction, and drive back to the firm fhore
Shipwreck to fafety, and the envy fly
Of fharing in this fcene of tragedy:

While fickness, from whose rage you post away,
Relents, and only now contrives your stay ;
The lately fatal and infectious ill
Courts the fair princefs, and forgets to kill :
In vain on fevers curfes we difpenfe,
And vent our paffion's angry eloquence :
In vain we blast the minifters of Fate,
And the forlorn phyficians imprecate ;
Say they to death new poisons add and fire,
Murder fecurely for reward and hire;
Arts bafilifks, that kill whome'er they fee,
And truly write bills of mortality,

Who, left the bleeding corpse should them betray,
First drain thofe vital fpeaking ftreams away.
And will you, by your flight, take part with these?
Become yourself a third and new disease?

If they have caus'd our lofs, then fo have you,
Who take yourself and the fair princefs too:
For we, depriv'd, an equal damage have

When France doth ravish hence, as when the grave:
But that your choice th' unkindness doth improve,
And dereliction adds to your remove.

:

ROCHESTER, of Wadham College.

AN

A N

EPILOGUE.

SOM

OME few, from wit, have this true maxim got,`
"That 't is ftill better to be pleas'd than not;'
And therefore never their own torment plot.
While the malicious Critics ftill agree

To loath each play they come and pay to fee.
The first know 'tis a meaner part of fenfe
To find a fault, than taste an excellence :
Therefore they praise, and strive to like, while these
Are dully vain of being hard to please.
Poets and women have an equal right

To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight,
Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spight.
'Twas impotence did firft this vice begin;
Fools cenfure wit, as old men rail at fin:
Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste,
And, good for nothing, would be wife at laft.
Since therefore to the women it appears,
That all the enemies of wit are theirs,
Our poet the dull herd no longer fears.
Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride
To ftand or fall with beauty on his fide.

}

A N

A N

ALLUSION

то тн Е

Tenth Satire of the First Book of HORACE.

WELL, Sir, 't is granted; I faid Dryden's rhymes
Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times

What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?

But that his plays, embroider'd up and down
With wit and learning, juftly pleas'd the town,
In the fame paper I as freely own.

Yet, having this allow'd, the heavy mafs
That ftuffs up his loofe volumes, muft not pafs;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crown's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.
'Tis therefore not enough, when your falfe fenfe,
Hits the falfe judgment of an audience

Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd,

Till the throng'd playhouse crack'd with the dull load;
Though ev'n that talent merits, in some sort,
That can divert the rabble and the court,
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain :
But within due proportion circumfcribe
Whate'er you write, that with a flowing tide
The style may rife, yet in its rise forbear
With useless words t' opprefs the weary'd ear.

Here