Some of their chiefs were princes of the land: In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind’s epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long, But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon, Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy, Railing, and praising, were his usual themes; And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over-violent, or over-civil, That every man with him was god or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest and they had his estate. He laughed himself from court, then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne’er be chief; For spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel. Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left. _MILTON COMPARED WITH HOMER AND VIRGIL_ Under a Picture of Milton in the 4th Edition of _Paradise Lost_. Three Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first, in loftiness of thought surpass’d The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two. The original of these fine lines was probably a Latin distich written by Selvaggi at Rome, which has been thus translated: Greece boasts her Homer, Rome her Virgil’s name, But England’s Milton vies with both in fame. Cowper’s lines on Milton may be compared with Dryden’s: Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appear’d, And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard To carry Nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask’d ages more. Thus Genius rose and set at order’d times, And shot a day-spring into distant climes, Ennobling every region that he chose; He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose; And, tedious years of gothic darkness pass’d, Emerged all splendour in our isle at last, Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, Then show far off their shining plumes again. In Bishop Gibson’s edition of Camden’s _Britannia_, there is a very free translation of some old monkish verses on S. Oswald by Basil Kennet, brother of Bishop White Kennet. The last line, to which there is nothing corresponding in the Latin, seems to have been copied from the last line of Dryden’s epigram: