That is no more than every lover That makes no breach of faith and love, Is but between two legs a race, To get before and win the post, By turns give one another ease; To be but new recruits of love, When those who 're always kind or coy [From Miscellanies.] AN APOLOGY FOR PLAGIARIES. As none but kings have power to raise A wit-excise on verse or prose, And they his vassals that supply him; Than any of the best he makes, And more impartially conceive What's fit to choose and what to leave. For men reflect more strictly on The wit of others than their own; And wit that's made of wit and sleight Drawn from the dull ingredient matter. UPON THE WEAKNESS AND MISERY OF MAN. Our pains are real things, and all But cures come difficult and hard. With which our nakedness is decked, DISTICHS AND SAWS. [From Hudibras and Miscellanies.] Rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which like ships they steer their courses. In the hurry of a fray (1) (2) (3) Honour is like a widow, won With brisk attempt and putting on, 'Tis hard to keep out of harm's way. With entering manfully and urging; (4) Great commanders always own What's prosperous by the soldier done. (5) Great conquerors greater glory gain By foes in triumph led than slain. (6) Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron! (7) Valour's a mousetrap, wit a gin, That women oft are taken in. (8) In all the trade of war no feat Which he can never do that's slain. (12) As if artillery and edge-tools Were the only engines to save souls! (13) Money that, like the swords of kings, Is the last reason of all things. (14) He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still. (15) Those that write in rhyme still make (16) He that will win his dame must do (17) What is worth in anything But so much money as 'twill bring? (18) The Public Faith, which every one Is bound to observe, is kept by none. (19) He that imposes an oath makes it, Not he that for convenience takes it. (20) Opinion governs all mankind, Like the blind's leading of the blind. (21) The worst of rebels never arm To do their king and country harm, (22) The soberest saints are more stiff-neckèd (23) Wedlock without love, some say, Is like a lock without a key. (24) Too much or too little wit Do only render the owners fit (25) In little trades more cheats and lying (26) (27) Loyalty is still the same, The subtler all things are, They're but to nothing the more near. (28) Things said false and never meant Do oft prove true by accident. (29) Authority is a disease and cure Which men can neither want nor well endure. ROSCOMMON. [WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, was born in Ireland in 1634. He spent the best part of his life in France and Italy, and died in London Jan. 17, 1684-85.] Lord Roscommon was a man of taste and judgment, who had imbibed in France a liking for Academic forms of literature, and who attempted to be to English poetry what Boileau was to French. He did not come forward as a writer till late in life, when he produced two thin quartos of frigid critical poetry, An Essay on Translated Verse, 1681, and Horace's Art of Poetry, 1684. There was little originality in these polite exercises, but they were smoothly and sensibly written, with a certain gentlemanlike austerity. Pope has noted that, 'in all Charles' days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays.' He was the friend of Dryden, and the admirer of Milton, whose sublimity he lauded in terms that recall the later praise of Addison. EDMUND W. GOSSE. |