Is he obliged to France, who draws from thence, By English energy, their captive sense? Though Edward and famed Henry warred in vain, Subduing what they could not long retain, Yet now, beyond our arms, the muse prevails, And poets conquer, when the hero fails. This does superior excellence betray: O could I write in thy immortal way! If Art be Nature’s scholar, and can make Such great improvements, Nature must forsake Her ancient style; and in some grand design, } She must her own originals decline, } And for the noblest copies follow thine. } This all the world must offer to thy praise, And this Thalia sang in rural lays. As sleep to weary drovers on the plain, As a sweet river to a thirsty swain, Such divine Dryden’s charming verses show, Please like the river, like the river flow. When his first years in mighty order ran, And cradled infancy bespoke the man, Around his lips the waxen artists hung, And breathed ambrosial odours as they sung. In yellow clusters from their hives they flew, And on his tongue distilled eternal dew: Thence from his mouth harmonious numbers broke, More sweet than honey from the knotted oak; More smooth than streams, that from a mountain glide, Yet lofty as the top from whence they slide. Long he possest the hereditary plains, Beloved by all the herdsmen, and the swains, Till he resigned his flock, opprest with years, And olden’d in his woe, as well as fears. Yet still, like Etna’s mount, he kept his fire, And look’d, like beauteous roses on a brier: He smiled, like Phœbus in a stormy morn, And sung, like Philomel against a thorn. No. XII. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NINE MUSES; _Or, Poems written by nine several Ladies, upon the death of the late famous_ JOHN DRYDEN, _Esq._ As earth thy body keeps, thy soul the sky, So shall this verse preserve thy memory; For thou shalt make it live, because it sings of thee. _London: printed for Richard Basset, at the Mitre, in Fleet Street, 1700._ * * * * * The work is dedicated to the Right Hon. Charles Montague, (Lord Halifax,) by the publisher Basset, who thus apologizes for the intrusion: “The ladies indeed themselves might have had a better plea for your reception; but since the modesty which is natural to the sex they are of, will not suffer them to do that violence to their tempers, I think myself obliged to make a present of what is written in honour of the most consummate poet among our English dead, to the most distinguished among the living. You have been pleased already to shew your respect to his memory, in contributing so largely to his burial, notwithstanding he had that unhappiness of conduct, when alive, to give you cause to disclaim the protection of him.”