How long, great poet, shall thy sacred lays Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise! Can neither injuries of time, or age, Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage? Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote; Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought; Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays The Roman genius in its last decays. Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest, And second youth is kindled in thy breast. Thou mak’st the beauties of the Romans known, And England boasts of riches not her own: Thy lines have heightened Virgil’s majesty, And Horace wonders at himself in thee. Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle In smoother numbers, and a clearer style: And Juvenal, instructed in thy page, Edges his satire, and improves his rage. Thy copy casts a fairer light on all, And still outshines the bright original. Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song, And tells his story in the British tongue; Thy charming verse, and fair translations show How thy own laurel first began to grow; How wild Lycaon, changed by angry Gods, And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods. O may’st thou still the noble tale prolong, Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy song! Then may we wond’ring read, how human limbs Have watered kingdoms, and dissolved in streams, Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould Turned yellow by degrees, and ripened into gold: How some in feathers, or a ragged hide, Have lived a second life, and different natures tried Then will thy Ovid, thus transformed, reveal A nobler change than he himself can tell. Mag. Coll. Oxon. June 2, 1693. INDEX. A. Abingdon, Earl of, dedication to, Vol. xi, 121 Countess of, account of, xi, 119 Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. ix, 195 remarks on, ib. 197 recommendatory verses to, ib. 213, 216 notes on, ib. 249 Part I. character of, i, 243 answers to, ib. 253 Part II. ix, 313 remarks on, ib. 315 notes on, ib. 354 character of, i, 268 extracts from Buckingham’s answer to, ix, 272-4 Absalom’s Conspiracy, or the Tragedy of Treason, ix, 199, 205 Abuse of personal satires, xiii, 81 Accession of James I., state of learning in England on, i, 5 James II., poems on, x, 59