To Sir William D'Avenant, upan bis two firft books of
Gondibert, finifeed before bis voyage to America.

METHINKS heroic poefy till now
Like fome fantastie Fairy-land did fhew;
Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race,
And all but man, in man's chief work had place.
Thou, like fome worthy knight, with facred arms,
Doft drive the monsters thence, and end the charms:
Inftead of thofe doft men and manners plant,
The things which that rich foil did chiefly want:
Yet ev'n thy mortals do their gods excel,
Taught by their mufe to fight and love fo well.
By fatal hands whilft prefent empires fall,
Thine from the grave past monarchies recal.
So much more thanks from humankind does merit
The poet's fury than the zealot's spirit:

And from the grave thou mak'ft this empire rife,
Not like fome dreadful ghoft t' affright our eyes,
But with more luftre and triumphant state
Than when it crown d at proud Verona fat.
So will our God rebuild man's perish'd frame,
And raise him up much better, yet the fame :
So godlike poets do paft things rehearse,
Not change, but heighten Nature by their verfe.
With fhame, methinks, great Italy must fee
Her conqu'rors rais'd to life again by thee;
Rais'd by fuch pow rful verfe, that ancient Rome
May blush no lefs to fee her wit o'ercome.
Some men their fancies like their faith derive,
And think all ill but that which Rome does give;
The marks of old and Catholick would find,
To the fame chair would Truth and Fiction bind.
Thou in those beaten paths difdain't to tread,
And fcorn'ft to live by robbing of the dead.
Since Time does all things change, thou think't
not fit,

This latter age fhould fee all new but wit.
Thy fancy like a flame its way does make,
And leaves bright tracks for following pens to
take.

Sure 't was this noble boldness of the Mufe
Did thy defire to feck new worlds infufe,
And ne'er did Heav'n fo much a voyage blefs,
If thou canst plant but there with like fuccefs.

To the Royal Society.

1.

PHILOSOPHY! the great and only heir
Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man's rebellious fin,
Though full of years he do appear,
(Philofophy! I fay, and call it he,
For whatfoe'er the painter's fancy be,
It a male virtue feems to me)

Has ftill been kept in nonage till of late,
Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vaft eftate.
Three or four thousand years, one would have.
thought,

To ripenes and perfection might have brought
A fcience fo well bred and nurs'd,
And of fuch hopeful parts, too, at the first;
But, oh the guardians and the tutors then, ✔
(Some negligent, and fome ambitious men)
Would ne'er confent to fet him free,
Or his own nat'ral pow'rs to let him fee,
Left that should put an end to their authority.

11.

That his own buf'nefs he might quite forget,
They' amus'd him with the fports of wanton Wit;
With the deferts of poetry they fed him,
Inftead of folid meats t' increase his force;
Inftead of vig'rous exercife they led him
Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh difcourfe:
Inftead of carrying him to fee

The riches which do hoarded for him lie
In Nature's endless treasury,
They chofe his eye, to entertain

(His curious, but not cov'tous, eye)
With painted scenes and pageants of the brain.
Some few exalted fp'rits this latter age has fhewn,
That labour'd to affert the liberty

(From guardians who were now ufurpers grown)
Of this old minor ftill, captiv'd Philosophy;
But 't was rebellion call'd, to fight

For fuch a long-opprefs'd right.
Bacon, at laft, a mighty man! arose,
Whom a wife King and Nature chofe
Lord Chancellor of both their laws,

And boldly undertook the injur'd pupils cause.

111.

Authority, which did a body boast,

Though 'twas but air condens'd, and flalk'd about
Like fome old giant's more gigantic ghost,
To terrify the learned rout

With the plain magic of true reafon's light,
He chas'd out of our fight,

Nor fuffer'd living men to be mifled
By the vain fhadows of the dead:

To graves, from whence it rofe, the conquer'd
phantom fled;

He broke that monftrous god which stood,
In midst of th' orchard, and the whole did claim,
Which with a ufelcfs fcythe of wood,
And fomething elfe not worth a name,
(Both vaft for fhew, yet neither fit
Or to defend or to beget,

Ridiculous and fenfelefs terrors) made
Children and fuperftitious men afraid.
The orchard's open now, and free;

| Bacon has broke that fearecrow deity:
Come, enter all that will,

Behold the ripen'd fruit, come, gather now your

Yet ftill, methinks, we fain would be

Catching at the forbidden tree;

We would be like the Deity;

When truth and falfehood, good and evil, we

Without the fenfes' aid within ourfelves would fee; For 't is God only who can find

All nature in his mind.

IV.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought,

(Though we our thoughts from them perverfely drew)

To things, the mind's right object, he it brought;
Like foolish birds to painted grapes we flew.
He fought and gather'd for our use the true;
And when on heaps the chofen bunches lay,
He prefs'd them wifely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one veffel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,
The thirty foul's refreshing wine.
Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Muft not from other's work a copy take
No, not from Rubens or Vandyck;
Much leis content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory:

No, he before his fight must place
The natural and living face;
The real object must command

Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.

From these, and all long errors of the way,
In which our wand'ring predeceffors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did ftray
In deferts, but of small extent,

Bacon! like Mofes, led us forth at last ;
The barren wilderness he pafs'd,

Did on the very border stand

Of the blefs'd Promis'd land,

And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,

Saw it himself, and fhew'd us it.

But life did never to one man allow
Time to discover worlds, and conquer too;
Nor can fo fhort a line fufficient be

To fathom the vast deeps of Nature's sea :
The work he did we ought t' admire,
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness :
For who on things remote can fix his fight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight!

VI.

From you, great champions' we expect to get
Thefe fpacious countries but difcover'd yet;
Countries where yet, instead of Nature, we
Her image and her idols worship'd fee:
Thefe large and wealthy regions to fubdue,
Tho' Learning has whole armies at command,
Quarter'd about in every land,

A better troop the ne'er together drew.
Methinks, like Gideon's little band,
God with defign has pick'd out you,

To do thefe noble wonders by a few.

When the whole hoft he faw, They are, said he;

Too many to o'ercome for me :

And now he chooses out his men,

Much in the way that he did then :

Not thofe many, whom he found
Idly extended on the ground

To drink, with their dejected head,

The ftream, juft fo as by their mouths it fled: but thofe few who took the waters up,

And made of their laborious hands the cup.

VII.

So virtuous and fo noble a defign,

So human for its use, for knowledge fo divine. The things which these proud men defpife, and call

Impertinent, and vain, and small,

Thofe fmalleft things of nature let me know,
Rather than all their greatest actions do.
Whoever would depofed Truth advance
Into the throne ufurp'd from it,
Muft feel at first the blows of ignorance,
And the sharp points of envious Wit.

So when, by various turns of the celestial dance,
In many thousand years

A ftar, so long unknown, appears,

Though heav'n itself more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the world below,
Does to the wife a star, to fools a meteor, fhew.

None e'er but Hercules and you could be
At five years' age worthy a history:
And ne'er did Fortune better yet
Th' hiftorian to the story fit.
As you from all old errors free
And purge the body of Philofophy,
So from all modern follies he
Has vindicated eloquence and wit :

His candid ftyle like a clean ftream does flide,
And his bright fancy all the way

Does, like the funfhine, in it play;

It does like Thames, the beft of rivers, glide, Where the god does not rudely overturn, But gently pour, the cryftal urn,

And with judicious hands does the whole current guide.

It has all the beautics Nature can impart,
And all the comely drefs, without the paint, of

Art.

Qiij

An elegy on the death of John Littleton, Efq. fon and heir to Sir Thomas Littleton, who was drowned leaping into the water to fave bis younger brother.

AND must these waters fmile again, and play
About the fhore, as they did yesterday?
Will the fun court them ftill? and fhall they fhew
No confcious wrinkle furrow'd on their brow,
That to the thirty traveller may fay,
I am accurs'd, go turn fome other way?

It is ucjuft; black Flood! thy guilt is more,
Sprung from his lofs, than all thy watʼry store
Can give thee tears to mourn for birds fhall be,
And beafts, henceforth, afraid to drink with
thee.

What have I faid! my pious rage hath been Too hot, and acts whilft it accufeth fin. Thou'rt innocent, I know, ftill clear and bright, Fit whence fo pure a foul fhould take its flight. How is our angry zeal confin'd! for he Muft quarrel with his love and piety, That would revenge his death. Oh! I fhall fin, And with anon he had lefs virtuous been: For when his brother (tears for him I'd spill, But they're all challeng'd by the greater ill) Struggled for life with the rude waves, he, too, Leapt in and when hope no faint beam could fhew,

here,

His charity fhone most : " Thou shalt,” said he,
"Live with me, Brother! or I'll die with thee;"
And fo he did. Had he been thine, O Rome!
Thou wouldst have call'd his death a Martyrdom,
And fainted him: my Confcience! give me leave,
I'll do fo too. If fate will us bereave
Of him we honour'd living, there must be
A kind of rev'rence to his memory
After his death and where more juft than
Where life and end were both fo fingular?
He that had only talk'd with him might find
A little academy in his mind;
Where Wisdom mafter was, and fellows all
Which we can good, which we can virtuous, call.
Reason and holy Fear the Proctors were,
To apprehend those words, thofe thoughts that err.
His learning had outrun the rest of heirs,
Stol'n beard from Time, and leapt to twenty years.
And as the fun, though in full glory bright,
Shines upon all men with impartial light,
And a good-morrow to the beggar brings
With as full rays as to the mightiest kings:

So he, although his worth just state might claim,
And give to Pride an honourable name,
With courtesy to all, cloath'd virtue fo,

That 't was not higher than his thoughts were low.

In 's body, too, no critic eye could find
The smalleft blemish to belie his mind:
He was all pureness, and his outward part
But reprefents the picture of his heart.
When waters fwallow'd mankind, and did cheat
The hungry worm of its expected meat;
When gems, pluck'd from the shore by ruder
hands,

Return'd again unto their native fands;

'Mongst all thofe fpoils there was not any prey Could equal what this brook hath ftol'n away. Weep then, fad Flood. and though thou'rt innocent,

Weep, becaufe Fate made thee her inftrument : And when long grief have drunk up all thy ftore, Come to our eyes, and we will lend thee mere.

On the death of the Right Hon.

Dudley Lord Carleton, Viscount Dorchefler, late fecre tary of flate.

Tu' infernal fifters did a council call
Of all the fiends, to the black Stygian-hall :
The dire Tartarean monsters, hating light,
Begot by difmal Erebus and Night,

Where'er difpers'd abroad, hearing the fame
Of their accurs'd meeting, thither came.
Revenge, whose greedy mind no blood can fill,
And Envy, never fatisfy'd with ill.
Thither blind Boldnefs and impatient Rage
Reforted, with Death's neighbour, envious Age:
These to opprefs the earth the Furies fent,
To fpare the guilty, vex the innocent.
The council thus diffolv'd, an angry fever,
Whofe quenchlefs thirft by blood was fated never,
Envying the riches, honour, greatness, love,
And virtue, (loadstone that all these did move)
Of noble Carleton! him fhe took away,
And like a greedy vulture feiz'd her prey.
Weep with me each, who either reads or hears,
And know his lofs deferves his country's tears.