‘Besides these jolly birds, whose corpse impure Repaid their commons with their salt manure, Another farm he had behind his house, Not overstocked, but barely for his use; Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed, And from his pious hand ‘received their bread.’ Our pampered pigeons, with malignant eyes, Beheld these inmates, and their nurseries; Though hard their fare, at evening, and at morn, (A cruise of water, and an ear of corn,) Yet still they grudged that _modicum_, and thought A sheaf in every single grain was brought. Fain would they filch that little food away, While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey; And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall, The bird that warned St. Peter of his fall; That he should raise his mitred crest on high, And clap his wings, and call his family To sacred rites; and vex the ethereal powers With midnight mattins at uncivil hours; Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest, Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. Beast of a bird! supinely when he might Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light! What if his dull forefathers us’d that cry, Could he not let a bad example die? The world was fallen into an easier way: This age knew better than to fast and pray. Good sense in sacred worship would appear, So to begin as they might end the year. Such feats in former times had wrought the falls Of crowing chanticleers in cloister’d walls. Expell’d for this, and for their lands they fled; And sister Partlet with her hooded head Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed.’ There is a magnanimity of abuse in some of these epithets, a fearless choice of topics of invective, which may be considered as the heroical in satire. The _Annus Mirabilis_ is a tedious performance; it is a tissue of far-fetched, heavy, lumbering conceits, and in the worst style of what has been denominated metaphysical poetry. His Odes in general are of the same stamp; they are the hard-strained offspring of a meagre, meretricious fancy. The famous Ode on St. Cecilia deserves its reputation; for, as piece of poetical mechanism to be set to music, or recited in alternate strophe and antistrophe, with classical allusions, and flowing verse, nothing can be better. It is equally fit to be said or sung; it is not equally good to read. It is lyrical, without being epic or dramatic. For instance, the description of Bacchus, ‘The jolly god in triumph comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums; Flush’d with a purple grace, He shews his honest face’—