Who brought green poefy to her perfect age;
And made that art, which was a rage.

Tell me, ye mighty three, what shall I do
To be like one of you.

But ye have climb'd the mountain's top, there fit
On the calm flourishing head of it,

And, whilft, with wearied fteps, we upward go,
See us, and clouds below.

ODE

II.

OD E.

ON WIT.

TE

1.

ELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is wit,
Thou, who master art of it.

For the first matter loves variety lefs;

Lefs women love't, either in love or dress [e].
A thousand different fhapes it bears,
Comely in thousand shapes appears.
Yonder we saw it plain; and here 'tis now,
Like fpirits in a place, we know not how,

2.

London, that vents of false ware so much store,
In no ware deceives us more.

For men led by the colour, and the shape,
Like Zeuxes' birds fly to the painted grape;
Some things do through our judgment pass,
As through a multiplying glass.

[e] We fhould now fay, to avoid the difagreeable contraction,

"Lefs women love it, or in love, or drefs."

But our poet affected thefe contractions, and, if we may believe the writer of his life, fancied they gave a ftrength and energy to his verfe. The truer reafon for his use of them, was, that he found them in fashion.

And

And fometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

3.

Hence 'tis, a wit, that greateft word of fame,
Grows fuch a common name.

And wits by our creation they become,
Juft fo, as titular bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest

Admir'd with laughter at a feast,

Nor florid talk, which can that title gain;
The proofs of wit for ever must remain.

'Tis not to force fome lifelefs verfes meet
With their five gouty feet.

All every where, like man's, muft be the foul,
And reafon the inferior powers controul.

Such were the numbers, which could call
The ftones into the Theban wall..

Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we fee
No towns or houses [ƒ] rais'd by poetry.

5.

Yet, 'tis not to adorn, and gild each part ;
That shews more coft, than art.

Jewels at nofe and lips but ill appear;

Rather, than all things, wit, let none be there.

Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between.

[ Houfes] Here used in the double fenfe of Baules, properly fo called, and of families.

Men

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky,
If those be star., which paint the galaxy [g].

6.

'Tis not, when two like words make up one noise;
Jefts for Dutchmen, and English boys.
In which who finds out wit, the fame may fee
In anagrams and acrostics, poetry.

Much less can that have any place

At which a virgin hides her face;

Such drofs the fire muft purge away; 'tis juft,
The author blush there, where the reader muft.

7.

'Tis not fuch lines as almost crack the stage,
When Bajazet begins to rage.

Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of fhort-lung'd Seneca [b]

Nor

[g] This idea has been borrowed by Mr. Addison, and applied, with much elegance, to our poet himfelf. For, fpeaking of Mr. Cowley's wit, he fays"One glitt'ring thought no fooner ftrikes our eyes "With filent wonder. but new wonders rife: "As in the milky way a fhining white

"O'erflows the heav'ns with one continued light; "That not a single ftar can fhew his rays, "Whilft jointly all promote the common blaze." Account of English poets, to Mr. H. S. [b]-fhort-lung'd Seneca.] Meaning his bort fentences, as if he had not breath enough to ferve him for longer-anhelanti fimilis. - Yet, in another fenfe, he is, perhaps, the moft long-winded author of antiquity. For, as Mr. Bayle has well obferved, "Il n'y a

་་

guere

Nor upon all things to obtrude

And force fome odd fimilitude.

What is it then, which, like the power divine,
We only can by negatives define [¿]?

guere d'ecrivain dont le verbiage foit plus grand que celui de Seneque: Cicero mettroit dans une periode de fix lignes ce que Seneque dit dans fix periodes qui tiennent huit ou neuf lignes." Lettres, t. ii. p. 150.

[i] The two concluding ftanzas of this ode are omitted.

I