No tide of wine would drown your cares; 4. Sleep, is a god too proud to wait in palaces, "His poppey grows among the corn [b].” The halcyon fleep will never build his neft In any ftormy breaft. 'Tis not enough that he does find Clouds and darkness in their mind; Darkness but half his work will do: 'Tis not enough; he must find quiet too. 5. The man, who, in all wishes he does make, That wife and happy man will never fear The evil afpects of the year; Nor tremble, though two comets should appear; Whether he fortunate fhall be; Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin [i], [b] Prettily fancied, and expreffed. 6. If [i] Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin】 i. e. Let Malice and Misfortune do their worst. [k] So Jupiter within bim fbine] i. e. So God fend bim a moderate and contented mind; as reverencing that great truth πᾶν δώρημα τέλειον ἄνωθεν εἶναι, καταβαῖνον ἀπὸ τῶ παρὸς τῶν φώτων. Jam. i. 17. But the expref fion 6. If of your pleasures and defires no end be found, What would content you? who can tell? Ye strive for more, as if ye lik'd it not. Spare nought that may your wanton fancy please; fion is pagan, though the fentiment be not, and was fuggefted to the poet by Virgil's Jupiter -æquus amavit or rather by that line of Perfius"Saturnumque gravem noftro Jove frangimus unà." Sat. v. 50. [1] Much will be missing ftill, and much will be amifs] The jingle of this line is fo far from having an ill effect, that the force and pathos of the expreffion is increased by it. The reason is, the two. correfponding words are not affected for the fake of the jingle, but are the eafieft and propereft that could be found to exprefs the author's ideas: and then the iterated found only serves to fix them upon us. VII. OF VII. OF AVARICE. HERE are two forts of avarice: the one TH is but of a baftard kind, and that is, the rapacious appetite of gain; not for its own fake, but for the pleasure of refunding it immediately through all the channels of pride and luxury: the other is the true kind, and properly fo called; which is a restless and unfatiable defire of riches, not for any farther end or use, but only to hoard, and preserve, and perpetually encrease them. The covetous man, of the first kind, is like a greedy oftrich, which devours any metal, but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and in effect it makes a fhift to digeft and excern it. The fecond is like the foolish chough, which loves to fteal money only to hide it. The firft does much harm to mankind, and a little good too, to fome few: the fecond does good to none; no, not to himself. The first can make no excufe to God, or angels, or rational men, for his actions: the fecond can give no reafon or colour, not to the devil himself, for what he does; he is a flave to Mammon without wages. The first makes a shift to be beloved; ay, and envied too by fome people: the fecond is the univerfal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been fo pelted with good fenten ces, ces, and especially by the poets, who have purfued it with stories, and fables, and allegories, and allufions; and moved, as we say, every stone to fling at it: among all which, I do not remember a more fine and gentleman-l -like correction, than that which was given it by one line of Ovid: "Defunt luxuriæ multa, avaritiæ omnia," To which faying, I have a mind to add one. member, and tender it thus, Poverty wants fome, luxury many, avarice all things. Somebody fays [m] of a virtuous and wife man, "that having nothing, he has all:" this is juft his antipode, who, having all things, yet has nothing. He is a guardian eunuch to his beloved gold; "audivi eos amatores effe maximos, fed nil poteffe." They are the fondest lovers, but impotent to enjoy. And, oh, what man's condition can be worfe [m] Somebody fays, &c.] The author, well acquainted with the tafte of his readers, would not difguft their delicacy by letting them know, that this fomebody was, St. Paul—μηδὲν ἔχοντες, καὶ πάλα κατέχολες [2 Cor. vi. 10.]though the fenfe and expreffion, would have done honour to Plato. I wonder I wonder how it comes to pafs, that there has never been any law made against him: against him, do I say? I mean, for him; as there are public provifions made for all other madmen, it is very reasonable that the king should appoint some persons (and I think the courtiers would not be against this propofition) to manage his estate during his life (for his heirs commonly need not that care) and out of it to make it their bufinefs to fee, that he should not want alimony befitting his condition, which he could never get out of his own cruel fingers. We relieve idle vagrants, and counterfeit beggars, but have no care at all of these really poor men, who are (methinks) to be respectfully treated in regard of their quality. I might be endless against them, but I am almost choaked with the fuperabundance of the matter; too much plenty impoverishes me, as it does them [7]. I will conclude this odious fubje&t with part of Horace's firft fatire, which take in his own familiar ftile [0]: [n] as it does them] This application of his aphorifm covers the falfe wit of the expreffion, and was intended as an indirect apology for it: though the witticism be not his own, but Ovid's 66 inopem me copia fecit." Met. iii. 466. [•]-in bis own familiar ftyle] Mr. Cowley has fucceeded better in copying this familiar ftyle, than moft others. But he fometimes mistakes vulgar, or careless, at least, for familiar. Horace's familiarity is that of a perfectly polite and elegant speaker, as well as of an eafy well-bred man, I admire, 1 |