_The Goddess self some noble Hand had wrought, Smiling she seem'd, and full of pleasing Thought, From Ocean, as she first began to rise, And smooth'd the ruffled Waves, and clear'd the Skies. She trod the Brine, all bare below the Breast, And the green Waves, but ill conceal'd the Rest: A Lute she held, and on her Head was seen A Wreath of Roses red, and Myrtles green: Her Turtles fan'd the buxom Air above, And by his Mother stood an Infant Love With Wings display'd.--------_ These Verses out of _Dryden_'s St. _Cecilia_'s Ode are very agreeable: _Softly sweet in_ Lydian _Measures Soon he sooth'd his Soul to Pleasures, War, he sung, is Toil and Trouble, Honour but an empty Bubble. Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the World is worth thy Winning, Think, Oh think, it worth enjoying._ But as the finest Meats are most apt to surfeit, so too many agreeable Thoughts together may flatten upon the Palate: And I shall only add an Instance in Prose, taken out of Mr. _Waller_'s Letter to the Lady _Lucy Sydney_, on the Marriage of her Sister the Lady _Dorothy_, who was his _Sacharissa_. _May my Lady_ Dorothy, _if we may yet call her so, suffer as much, and have the like Passion for this young Lord, whom she has preferred to the Rest of Mankind, as others have had for her; and may this Love before the Year goes about, make her taste of the first Curse impos'd upon Woman-kind, the Pains of becoming a Mother. May the First-born be none of her own Sex; and may she that always affected Silence and Retiredness, have the House fill'd with the Noise and Number of her Children. May she, at last, arrive at that great Curse much declin'd by fair Ladies, Old Age_, &c. Under the Character of Father _Bouhours_'s fine Thoughts may be put these Verses of Mr. _Waller_'s, alluding to his gallant Poems upon _Sacharissa_, and the Story of _Phœbus_ and _Daphne_. _Yet what he sang in his immortal Strain, Tho' unsuccessful, was not sung in Vain: All but the Nymph that should redress his Wrong Attend his Passion, and approve his Song; Like_ Phœbus, _thus acquiring unsought Praise, He caught at Love, and fill'd his Arms with Bays._ Much of the same Kind is this of the Lord _Landsdown_'s on the same Subject: _Thy Beauty,_ Sidney, _like_ Achilles _Sword, Resistless stands upon as sure Record; The foremost Herce, and the brightest Dame Both sung alike shall have their Fate the same._ This Part of Mr. _Prior_'s Prologue spoken before the late Queen, is in the fine Way of Thinking: